Researching our shared heritage: What do we want to see today?

Abstract

Archaeology has contributed immensely to knowledge about Africa's cultural past. It has informed us about the foundations and character of behaviour among different communities of people, the processes by which humans and their culture have developed and transformed within variable temporal and spatial contexts, and about the nature and legacies of cross-cultural interactions and interconnections between Africans and other peoples of the world (Connah 2001; Phillipson 2005; Mitchell and Lane 2013). The discipline has become increasingly nuanced and sophisticated on the continent (Mitchell and Lane 2013; Connah 2013; Stahl 2004) with research results stimulating revisions and refinements of archaeological theory, methods and techniques globally. Some researchers who work on the African continent, including Ann Stahl (2004), Judy Sterner and Nicholas David (2008), andWazi Apoh and Kodzo Gavua (2016) have made appreciable attempts to reconcile their scientific research interests with the social, political, and economic issues of the nations in which they operate.