Perspectives on Africa, its peoples and various parts, often oversimplify the continent. The fact that I can even, in my opening sentence and title, refer to a singular “Africa” rather than a more specific part, and yet be confident that readers will have an already formed image and understanding of this “Africa,” shows how we tend to group this vast continents’ diverse histories and peoples into a singular entity.

So why do we have this oversimplified view of the continent? Many pan-Africanists talk about the role of colonialism in not only destroying a lot of Africa’s past, physically and culturally, but also in contributing to the contemporary socio-political scene, where Africa almost always comes off second best.

Archaeologists and historians have, in more recent times, been uncovering more and more history about pre-colonial Africa, and shedding light on how and why these pasts are not always remembered.

Firstly, the historical archaeological approach to Africa can be exemplified through examples such as Great Zimbabwe or The Ife Kingdom in West Africa. These well-known, impressive monuments and remnants of past societies were at first attributed, by early European explorers, to belong to more civilized societies from further north, rather than of being of African origin. The Ife Kingdom in modern day Nigeria was thought to be the lost city of Atlantis by German explorer Leo Frobenius, who refused to accept that the complex and ornate bronze sculptures he found were made by Africans. This diffusionist explanation has gradually been replaced by a more processual one, and places like these have been shown to originate from local cultures and histories as opposed to more northern, “higher centres.”

Image 1: Examples of the bronze sculptures of the Ife Kingdom. Leading art experts believe they are among the most aesthetically striking and technically sophisticated in the world.

Apart from this early trend in attributing African monuments to non-African sources, there was a subsequent and wider spanning history of the systematic destruction of African societies.

In the period between the late 19^th and early 20^th centuries, known as the “scramble for Africa,” European powers invaded, occupied, colonized and annexed parts of the continent. The political justification for this manifested early on under the “Terra Nullius’ law, which stated that any land which lacks sovereignty by any state is open to acquisition by occupation. When it became clear that Africa was not “Terra Nullius,” the justification shifted to the duty of colonial rule over societies of savages and uncivilized peoples. This too was a short-lived agenda as colonialists discovered the aforementioned monuments and cities that indicated anything but savagery or lack of civilization. The resulting approach was to destroy these physical manifestations of civilization in order to create not only a landscape lacking the signs of sophisticated society but also the segmentation of these societies by the destruction of their physical centres.

Image 2: What survives today of the ancient city of Timbuktu in Mali. In the 14th century Timbuktu was five times bigger than the city of London at that time, and was the richest city in the world. Today it is 236 times smaller than London and has nothing of a modern city.

Modern archaeology and historical review has done much to broaden our knowledge of Africa’s past. These more accurate, and enlightened, historical perspectives are critical in helping address the current social regard for Africa, not as a singular entity, but as a continent filled with widespread and diverse peoples, cultures and histories.

Additional Reading:

100 African cities destroyed by Europeans:

100 African Cities Destroyed By Europeans: WHY there are seldom historical buildings and monuments in sub-Saharian Africa!

How Europe under-developed Africa by Walter Rodney:

http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/40630.How_Europe_Underdeveloped_Africa

http://vaslib.vassar.edu/search~S1?/arodney/arodney/1%2C22%2C49%2CB/frameset&FF=arodney+walter&7%2C%2C8

Sources

Renfrew, C and Bahn, P. Archaeology Essentials. Thames & Hudson, London, 2010: pp 271.

Mawuna Remarque Koutonin. “100 African Cities Destroyed By Europeans: WHY there are seldom historical buildings and monuments in sub-Saharan Africa!” siliconafrica.com. 16 November 2014.

Stephanie Busari. The African Sculptures mistaken for remains of Atlantis.” cnn.com. 16 November 2014.

Image 1: http://logbaby.com/encyclopedia/the-ancient-city-of-_12715.html#.VGmWD8kRauI

Image 1: http://tenthousandlux.blogspot.com/2010/03/kingdom-of-ife.html

Image 2: http://www.sodahead.com/united-states/extremists-destroy-historic-shrines-in-timbuktu-mali/question-2775043/?link=ibaf&q=&esrc=s

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For four years, the Burke Museum of Natural History worked with the Peruvian government to identify objects such as human remains, ceramic vessels and bowls, a collection of dolls, necklaces, and textiles. On November 5, the Peruvian Consul General attended a gathering for the final exhibition of the items; and the following week, the items were packed up and transported to Peru. Those items were identified for repatriation under a UNESCO Convention on the Means of Prohibiting and Preventing the Illicit Import, Export, and Transfer of Ownership of Cultural Property. The convention permits government to designate meaningful objects of cultural heritage and protect them from leaving the country from which they originated. This repatriation shows that the museum is fulfilling the ethical responsibilities that come with having excavated artifacts. The UNESCO convention supports the idea that the identity of people is linked to the past, which people learn about from artifacts. Thus, the countries that use the UNESCO convention to repatriate artifacts can reclaim information from their past.

Figure 1- A ceramic vessel collected from Mochica, Peru, is one of the objects returned to the Peruvian government.

Dr. Peter Lape, associate director of research and curator of archaeology at the Burke Museum, said, “We are glad to help send these collections to Peru.” The artifacts were flown by the United States Air Force to the Peruvian Air Force base in Lima, Peru. Two officers from the Peruvian Ministry of Foreign Relations took the objects and transferred them to the Ministry of Culture for further preservation. The positive attitude from Dr. Lape and the level of involvement for transportation indicate the importance of repatriation and the power that the UNESCO convention holds.

This pot, given to the Burke by a Seattle woman in 2007, was returned to Peru.

The museum was prompted to examine their Peruvian collections by a different ruling concerning the handling of Native American cultural items for federal agencies or institutions that receive federal funding. The ruling led the museum to re-inventory all of their human remains and they found three sets of Peruvian remains. Laura Phillip, the museum’s archaeology collections manager, said, “So, it’s sort of in the spirit of that law [Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act of 1990], we talked to the Peruvian government and said ‘Would you be interested in these individuals?’ And they said yes.” So, the legislation regarding archaeology and artifacts has the potential to stimulate further discussion of repatriation. Existing legislation combined with ethical standards of archaeologists and museums foster a system for dealing with artifacts that is respectful to the people who consider the artifacts as parts of their past.

Sources:

http://www.archaeology.org/news/2699-141111-peru-artifacts-returned

http://dailyuw.com/archive/2014/11/09/news/burke-museum-return-artifacts-peruvian-government#.VGldNFYvTwJ

Sabloff, Jeremy A. “Chapter Five: Why Cities?” Archaeology Matters: Action Archaeology in the Modern World. Walnut Creek, CA: Left Coast, 2008. 71-72. Print.

Figure 1: http://www.archaeology.org/news/2699-141111-peru-artifacts-returned

Figure 2: http://dailyuw.com/archive/2014/11/09/news/burke-museum-return-artifacts-peruvian-government#.VGldNFYvTwJ

Further Reading:

http://www.burkemuseum.org/info/press_browse/peruvian_collections_going_home

http://www.peruthisweek.com/news-peruvian-artifacts-to-be-returned-from-seattle-w-museum-104450

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As global population grows at a startling rate, global emissions of greenhouse gasses and demand for more reliable sources of food grow in parallel. These issues are slowly becoming ones that urgently need to be addressed. Gradually, more and more individuals are trying innovate new ways curb anthropogenic greenhouse emissions and cope with the growing global demand of food. Engineers are developing cleaner sources of energy and international politicians are trying to implement legislation that limits emissions. More recently however, archaeologists concerned with preservation and sustainability are rediscovering land management techniques used by ancient civilizations that could be replicated in a modern fashion with enormous payoff.

During her work in deep within the Amazonian rainforest, Crystal McMichael, an archaeologist/paleoecologist at the Florida Institute of Technology, mapped a large collection of soil deposits classified as terra preta or “black earth”. These deposits of darker soil are drastically different than the soil surrounding it. Typically, Amazonian soil is of rather poor quality because the biodiversity of the rainforest promptly extracts any extra nutrients. It would be almost impossible to maintain a civilization on this type of soil. However, the terra preta found in many sites had a considerably larger nutrient count and was much more suitable for agriculture. McMichael’s team located several terra preta deposit sites in Amazonia and found that a majority of sites of enriched soil were located in eastern Amazonia on top of bluffs overlooking the Atlantic Ocean. Typically, these bluffs were eroded of the porous Amazonian soil and were practically bare and infertile. However, after the terra preta was introduced, there’s evidence that these bluffs could have sustained huge swaths of agriculture. From a purely archaeological standpoint, this data is useful because it can be a basis in which future archaeologists plan to dig. Because the terra preta soil is a direct cause of human interaction, wherever there are deposits of terra preta, there are likely past developments of human society. Using statistical analysis, this data can be used to predict where other terra preta deposits are, and therefore where other people used to live.

(Region of McMichael’s study)

While valuable from an archaeological perspective, the discovery of terra preta also could be a major breakthrough in more sustainable agriculture. According to Johnannes Lehmann and his team at Cornell University,

“The knowledge that we can gain from studying the Amazonian dark earths…not only teaches us how to restore degraded soils, triple crop yields and support a wide array of crops in regions with agriculturally poor soils, but can also lead to technologies to sequester carbon in soil and prevent critical changes in world climate”.  (Johannes Lehmann)

Via experimental methods, Johannes deduced that the terra preta was made by slowly burning biomass in a low oxygen environment (also known as biochar). This method of slow charring transforms the biomass into an incredibly useful substrate. The terra preta has an abundance of calcium and phosphate (nutrients that most of the Amazonian soil lacks) and the process of biocharring the organic matter actually sequesters carbon from the atmosphere.

(Biochar use in agriculture)

Archaeology has come a long way from the era of collectors and curiosities. Today, archaeological findings are being used to possibly help ameliorate some of the world community’s most pressing issues.

Cites:

Picture 1: http://news.sciencemag.org/archaeology/2014/01/searching-amazons-hidden-civilizations

Picture 2:http://www.biochar-international.org/biochar/soils

“Searching for the Amazon’s Hidden Civilizations.” Science/AAAS. N.p., n.d. Web. 14 Nov. 2014.

Johannes, Lehmann. Biochar for Mitigating Climate Change: Carbon Sequestration in the Black (n.d.): n. pag. Web.

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