Reviewed by:
Felix Chami, Gilbert Pwiti, and Chantal Radimilahy , eds. Climate Change, Trade and Modes of Production in Sub-Saharan Africa. Dar es Salaam: Dar es Salaam University Press, 2003. Distributed by African Books Collective Ltd., The Jam Factory, 27 Park End Street, Oxford OX1 1HU. xiii + 197 pp. Maps. Photographs. Index. $35.95. Paper.

This volume is the third in the series "Studies in the African Past." It is a collection of chapters dealing separately with the three topics of the volume's title rather than the synthesis that might be inferred. Felix Chami's introductory chapter is a useful survey of the available evidence for climate change on the East African coast over the past five thousand years, with new information from recent archaeological excavations. Several chapters are also reports of recent fieldwork. Munyaradzi Manyanga discusses settlement patterning in the Shashe-Limpopo area of southern Zimbabwe; Amandus Kwekason and Felix Chami report on a survey and test excavation of two rock shelters in the Muleba district, southwest of Lake Nyanza; John Kinahan's chapter describes the material from his excavation of a Late Holocene cave deposit in the southern Namib desert; and Edward Matenga presents a preliminary survey of edible wild foods in the vicinity of Great Zimbabwe. There are two chapters in French on Madagascar. In the first, Darot Leon attempts to identify the movement of people through pottery classification, but he does not provide a good description and illustration of the different pottery types. The second, by Bako Rasoarifera, attempts to establish a glass bead chronology from the ninth to the nineteenth centuries. Unfortunately only a few of the bead types are illustrated, making comparison with collections from elsewhere difficult, if not impossible.

A chapter on gender in Tiv culture (Nigeria) by Caleb Fulorunso seems somewhat out of place, geographically and thematically, but it is a thought-provoking essay on gender visibility in the archaeological record. Lorraine Swan's chapter on the ecological impact of early mining and metallurgy in Zimbabwe is a welcome review and synthesis of published material, backed up by historical photographs. Innocent Pikirayi's chapter is also [End Page 161] a review of published material relating to the changing patterns of trade in northern Zimbabwe from 1500 to 1750.

It is gratifying to see the African publication of a volume on African archaeology, but the series editors have served their contributors and readers poorly. The production editing is glaringly nonexistent, and there are numerous errors and omissions. For instance, the last page of Manyanga's chapter is missing; two figures (4.3 and 4.5) duplicate the same stratigraphic section, ostensibly from two different rock shelters; the figures in Kinahan's papers are missing; and there is a nonsensical erratum notice (132) referring to two nonexistent plates. The quality of the maps is also poor, with a vertical distortion and pixellation that often makes reading place names impossible, and the photographs are murky. Many of the chapters also needed a helping copyediting hand, which could have improved their quality significantly. There is no indication that these contributions were peer-reviewed, but several of them, if they had been submitted to formal review for journal publication, would have been rejected or certainly rewritten. Indeed, it is a pity that the good chapters in this volume were not published in journals, where they could receive the exposure they deserve. The Madagascar chapters in particular, would be welcome in a revised, expanded, and far better illustrated form.

The poor editing and production make this a very expensive book for what it offers, and it will not give African publishing a good name. We really need to do better than this.

Duncan Miller and Andy Smith
University of Cape Town
Rondebosch, South Africa

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