Colonies, missions, violence and trade: The historical archaeology of Northeast Africa

Edited ByCharles E. Orser, Andrés Zarankin, Pedro Paulo A. Funari, Susan Lawrence, James Symonds.Northeast Africa is unique in the variety of external influences—from Europe to China—that have shaped its historical experience as well as for the unparalleled diversity of the local societies. However, its historical archaeology has remained poorly developed and unknown to researchers outside the area. In this chapter, I will briefly describe archaeological work on Sudan, South Sudan, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Djibouti and Somalia from the fifteenth century to the present. The main aim is to show the relevance of Africa to wider debates on the archaeology of the last five centuries, including key topics such as trade, migrations, war, slavery, colonization and missions