sending...Archaeological sites can be important for very different reasons. Sites with the oldest evidence for some aspect of human behaviour are obviously important. Some sites are celebrated because of their visual splendour and evocative impact, others for the role they have played in public consciousness and popular culture. This list cites 10 of the most important African archaeological sites outside Egypt, which is an African treasure house in its own right. The sites are listed in chronological order, from oldest to youngest.
Nariokotome
On the shores of Kenya’s Lake Turkana, a site that yielded a remarkable Homo ergaster skeleton, almost complete except for hand and foot bones. Dubbed ‘Turkana Boy’, the individual died aged about ten, 1.5-1.6 million years ago.
Kalambo Falls
A cluster of sites around one of Africa’s highest waterfalls, on Lake Tanganyika (Kenyan/Tanzanian border). Best known for its Early Stone Age artefacts, dated to 3-400 000 years ago, and for pieces of ancient worked wood, preserved by waterlogging.
Klasies River Mouth
A complex of caves on the South African coast, important because of finds illuminate the behaviours of early modern humans in the Middle Stone Age, from c. 120 000 years ago and onward. Cutmarks on human bones suggest early ritual and religious awareness (possibly cannibalism). Also known for two Later Stone Age painted burial stones, about 4000 and 2 200 years old.
Apollo XI
A cave in Namibia’s Brandberg Mountains where excavations uncovered unique early evidence of Later Stone Age rock painting, on six rock slabs. The images, in black and white, include animals and people. They may be as old as 28 000 years, and are certainly older than 18 000 years.
Dufuna
A northern Nigerian site known for the remarkable find in 1987 of an 8-9 000 year-old dugout canoe. This is the oldest African evidence for the use of water craft.
Akjoujt
A region of Mauretania with evidence of early metallurgy (2400 BCE or earlier), in the form of copper-working, before the introduction of iron technology. Items include weaponry, jewellery and ingots.
Jenne Jeno
In Mali, next to the Niger River, a large mound site with important evidence for early West African urban living. Excavations suggest it developed from a village (c. 250 BCE into a walled city with perhaps 10 000 residents by the end of the second millennium CE. Cattle, iron working and agriculture sustained the population.
Mapungubwe
A Later Iron Age hilltop settlement (early 13th – later 16th centuries) in north-eastern South Africa, with evidence of early state formation and social stratification (wealth and class). The elite hilltop dwellers’ burials have yielded artefacts clad in gold leaf, of which a golden rhino is especially famous. A precursor of Great Zimbabwe.
Kilwa
A Swahili trading settlement on Kilwa Kisiwani, island off the Kenyan coast, that flourished in the first half of the second millennium CE on the proceeds of trade between Africa, Europe and the East. Kilwa’s buildings include a sultan’s palace, Husuni Kubwa, and a Great Mosque.
Mgungundlovu
In South Africa’s KwaZulu-Natal Province, the capital of the Zulu kingdom from 1829-1838. Dingane became chief in this year after the assassination of his half-brother Shaka in 1828. Excavations revealed a fenced settlement that housed perhaps 5 000 people. It was destroyed after Dingane’s defeat at the Battle of Blood River by Dutch settlers (the Voortrekkers) in 1838.
