African Archaeology in Support of School Learning: an Introduction

Abstract

Archaeology holds great potential to enrich and enhance culturally responsive school learning within and beyond Africa. Archaeology reveals hidden and forgotten history and brings long-term perspective to contemporary issues like those foregrounded by the United Nation’s Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Through inquiry that combines scientific methods with cultural understandings, archaeology sheds light on how people in past societies related to one another and with communities around them. It provides evidence of how people sustained well-being, interacted with resources on which they relied, and engaged with wider landscapes. It lends insight into daily practices as well as long-term perspectives on how people affected their environments and how environments shaped people’s actions. Given its wide scope and interdisciplinary foundations, archaeology holds recognized potential to engage young learners in cross-curricular areas including social studies, literary works, language, sciences, mathematics, and the arts. Archaeology should therefore contribute substantively to Quality Education (SDG 4), particularly when archaeologists braid western knowledge with other perspectives grounded in the communities and places where archaeologists work. As a source for culturally responsive teaching, archaeology provides powerful knowledge that helps learners to understand diverse cultures and perspectives and to appreciate how the past can inform the present and set appropriate courses for the future. Realizing this potential requires that archaeologists and educators communicate and collaborate in new ways if we are to provide students with engaging and meaningful learning opportunities.