Namib: The Archeology of an African Desert

by John Kinahan

2021 • ISBN 978-99945-76-51-7 • University of Namibia Press

This is a story of human survival over the last one million years in the Namib Desert ― one of the most hostile environments on Earth.

The resilience and ingenuity of desert communities provide a vivid picture of our species’ response to climate change, and ancient strategies to counter ever-present risk. Dusty fragments of stone, pottery and bone tell a history of perpetual transition, of shifting and temporary states of balance. NAMIB digs beneath the usual evidence of archaeology to uncover a world of arcane rituals, of travelling rain-makers, of intricate social networks which maintained vital systems of negotiated access to scarce resources.

This is more than a work of scientific research; it is a love-song to the desert and its people.