Archaeology and food production in Africa

Abstract

The case studies in the archaeological evidence of food production in Africa are not exhaustive. Hence, this paper makes a modest attempt to underscore the role of archaeology in tracing the origins of African food production. While it will be ambiguous to claim, that this paper has done justice to the subject, it s also not out of place to state that an attempt has been made. The literature on the archaeology of food production in Africa is seriously limited in scope and dept. Archaeologists has mostly depended on ethnologists, linguist and botanists and anthropologists for answers to their investigations. The implication has been broad generalizations which have, most often, no archaeological proofs. The current mass of information on the subject matter, therefore, is not sufficient to give a final answer to the archaeological origins of food production in Africa. However, despite the shortcomings, current archaeological works has provided insight into pre historic agriculture and food production systems of the continent. However, it remains that the existing challenges of archaeology in tracing the origins of Africa’s food production is a matter of further research which we earnestly wait for archaeologists to resolve.