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Archaeology, Language, and the African Past

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ISBN-10:: 0759104654
ISBN-13:: 9780759104655
Pub. Date:: 06/22/2006
Publisher:: AltaMira Press

ISBN-10:: 0759104654
ISBN-13:: 9780759104655
Pub. Date:: 06/22/2006
Publisher:: AltaMira Press

Archaeology, Language, and the African Past

Hardcover

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Overview

Archaeology, Language, and the African Past is an overview of theories and methods, a fusion of African linguistics and archaeology. Roger Blench provides a comprehensive look at the history of all African language families, incorporating the latest linguistic classifications, current evidence from archaeology, genetic research, and recorded history. This original and definitive volume examines the economic culture of the continent_from major crops and plant life to animals and livestock_from a multi-dimensional perspective. It provides students of linguistics, archaeology, and anthropology with a critical discussion on the history of African languages and the cultures they articulate.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780759104655
Publisher:	AltaMira Press
Publication date:	06/22/2006
Series:	African Archaeology Series , #10
Pages:	388
Product dimensions:	6.78(w) x 9.30(h) x 1.12(d)

About the Author

Roger Blench is a social anthropologist working in agricultural development and the managing director of Mallam Dendo Ltd., a consultancy company based in Cambridge, UK.

Chapter 1 Foreword Chapter 2 Preface Part 3 Part I: Developing General Models of the African Past Chapter 4 Introduction: Language, History, and Archaeology in Africa Chapter 5 Chapter 1: Contested Methodologies Part 6 Part II: African Language Phyla Chapter 7 Chapter 2: Nilo-Saharan Chapter 8 Chapter 3: Niger-Congo Chapter 9 Chapter 4: Afroasiatic Chapter 10 Chapter 5: Khoesan Chapter 11 Chapter 6: Other Language Groups Chapter 12 Chapter 7: Synthesis Part 13 Part III: Reconstructing Economic Prehistory Chapter 14 Chapter 8: Plants Chapter 15 Chapter 9: Animals Chapter 16 Chapter 10: Summing Up Chapter 17 References

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Editorial Reviews

For over a century linguists, archaeologists, historians, anthropologists, and more recently, geneticists have each been writing their own versions of African history. Similarly, specialists in the four African language phyla have been telling the history and classification of their own phylum. Now for the first time comes a book which synthesizes all these threads. The author is at once scholarly and able to communicate in a way that makes the book accessible to students and academics.--Derek Nurse, Memorial University of Newfoundland

This book is an enthusiastic plea in favour of more intensive and dynamic trans-disciplinary collaboration for the reconstruction of the African past. With a comprehensive survey of methodological issues, the author offers a good insight in what we can credibly recover from the historical study of languages. He develops a series of inspiring assumptions on the origin and expansion of Africa's language families by linking the most recent linguistic data--often collected by himself--with evidence from archaeology, genetics, ethnography, and oral traditions. He also delves into the economic history of the continent through the comparative study of plant and animal vocabularies, a field of research which unfortunately too few other scholars in African linguistics have explored.--Koen Bostoen, Royal Museum for Central Africa Tervuren, Belgium

Roger Blench's new book is an impressive demonstration of the ways in which evidence from different disciplines--including archaeology, historical linguistics, comparative ethnography, ethnobiology, and genetics--can be combined to generate compelling reconstructions of African prehistory. The result is both entertaining and scholarly, a magisterial synthesis of current methods and knowledge that is enriched by a wealth of data and insights from the author's own researches in the field. This is a book that no student of the African past can afford to be without.--Martin Walsh, University of Cambridge

From the Publisher

Roger Blench, discoverer of numerous relict and isolated African languages, takes a refreshing, global, and interdisciplinary approach to his study of African historical linguistics and archaeology, and of the cultural dynamics that lie behind the present peopling of the continent. His erudite, critical, and yet accessible exposition and bold—at times controversial—synthesis document the present state of the 'mutual interplay' between the two disciplines in a book that linguists will argue about and archaeologists pore over for many years to come.

Nic David

For over a century linguists, archaeologists, historians, anthropologists, and more recently, geneticists have each been writing their own versions of African history. Similarly, specialists in the four African language phyla have been telling the history and classification of their own phylum. Now for the first time comes a book which synthesizes all these threads. The author is at once scholarly and able to communicate in a way that makes the book accessible to students and academics.

Derek Nurse

Roger Blench's new book is an impressive demonstration of the ways in which evidence from different disciplines—including archaeology, historical linguistics, comparative ethnography, ethnobiology, and genetics—can be combined to generate compelling reconstructions of African prehistory. The result is both entertaining and scholarly, a magisterial synthesis of current methods and knowledge that is enriched by a wealth of data and insights from the author's own researches in the field. This is a book that no student of the African past can afford to be without.

Martin Walsh

This book is an enthusiastic plea in favour of more intensive and dynamic trans-disciplinary collaboration for the reconstruction of the African past. With a comprehensive survey of methodological issues, the author offers a good insight in what we can credibly recover from the historical study of languages. He develops a series of inspiring assumptions on the origin and expansion of Africa's language families by linking the most recent linguistic data—often collected by himself—with evidence from archaeology, genetics, ethnography, and oral traditions. He also delves into the economic history of the continent through the comparative study of plant and animal vocabularies, a field of research which unfortunately too few other scholars in African linguistics have explored.

Koen Bostoen

Archaeology, Language, and the African Past

Archaeology, Language, and the African Past

Hardcover

Overview

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About the Author

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Overview

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About the Author

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