African Civilizations: An Archaeological Perspective (review)

This is the second edition of a watershed title first published in 1987. The phrase African civilizations was not in regular usage only fifteen years ago, and even in universities would have been considered oxymoronic by many readers. To the nonspecialists, African archaeology conjures images of human evolution and not much beyond. At the time of its initial appearance, African Civilizations did what arguably no other book had done: presented a selection of complex, or large-scale, societies in what Connah calls "tropical Africa." Connah meant the book largely for an educated but not necessarily college- or university-based audience, one that might be curious about the civilizations Africa had produced. Despite this intent, the book became a favorite text for African archaeology classes, with its cogent reviews of the archaeological evidence associated with seven geographical areas where early, major urban centers and state-level societies had appeared. Having used this book in the classroom many times, and lamented not having an updated edition, I can say this is a particularly welcome appearance on the textbook scene.

African Civilizations has nine chapters, including an introduction and a conclusion. The body of the book presents the following areas in chronological order: Nubia, the Ethiopian highlands, the West African savanna and forest zones, the Swahili coast, the Zimbabwe plateau, and the central African Upemba Depression, combined with the nearby Great Lakes region. Each chapter is organized similarly, with sections on geography and environment, sources of information (a review of the archaeological and/or historical sources available for the area), subsistence economy, technology, social system, population pressures, ideology, and external trade. Taking pains not to be environmentally determinist, Connah nonetheless places significant emphasis on the geomorphological and climatic conditions that provided the context for each of the featured societies, and the dynamic relationship between people and place. The chapters seek to answer more general questions that might be summarized as "Why a civilization there?" and "Why then?" Additionally, Connah tackles issues specific to the historiography of each place. Was Nubia a corridor to the rest of Africa, or a cul-de-sac? Was the Swahili coast the edge of two different worlds, or the center of a third? How did the West African forest zone, with its typically low population densities in the deep past, produce and support large-scale societies?

This edition is enriched by many new line drawings and photos. The chapter on Aksum may be the most changed, with its incorporation of David Phillipson's recent and extensive research there. As mentioned above, in the initial conception of the book, Connah was motivated to present the still-novel position that these were indigenously developed African civilizations, not the lost colonies and outposts of people from outside the continent, as so much popular and even academic wisdom suggested. Although among Africanist scholars this is now a well-argued and accepted standpoint, neoevolutionary attitudes about the African past continue to be suasive in the public imagination—which makes this book as relevant now as it was in its first edition. By naming the book African Civilizations, Connah was confronting a widely debated set of scholarly issues involving what makes an urban center, a state, a civilization. No laundry-list of traits—e.g., written documents, full-time specialists, or a priestly elite—drawn from rigid and historically specific formulations developed in other parts of the world, determined his selection. Nor does Connah avoid discussion of non-African elements in the archaeological record of many African societies; he gives them no more or less significance than they deserve, but never wavers from the position that we are dealing with African civilizations, with a wealth of social forms that non-Africanist archaeologists would do well to consider in their own comparative formulations. It is thus a very open-minded perspective; although not polemic, it is an important voice for students and others to hear, a synthetic and...