ABSTRACT
In the last four decades the archaeology of Africa has seen a development which would have been unimaginable to even the most optimistic mind fifty years ago. From a concentration on some quite limited areas, fieldwork has gradually been expanded to cover the whole of the continent. From a strong topical and/or temporal bias resulting in a predominantly selective approach to the remains of the past, e.g. early man and rock art, interest and, consequently, field activities have been expanded to include all aspects and facets of the many-sided phenomena of the human past in Africa. An ever-increasing number of newsletters, journals and conferences as well as an unprecedented output of scholarly and popular articles and books devoted uniquely to African archaeology are ample proof of this — as is the publication of this One World Archaeology book.
