This comprehensive and insightful book examines African human material engagement with archaeological materials, more specifically, materiality vis-à-vis contexts, substances, persons and animals in sub-Saharan Africa. In his opening remarks, Insoll argues, and rightly so, that these themes have preoccupied social anthropologists and cultural historians working in Africa, but, to date, remain little explored by archaeologists working in sub-Saharan Africa. This book is an attempt to address the disciplinary imbalance. Insoll is a scholar of African and Islamic archaeology, with numerous publications to his name as a consequence of his research in Africa for the past 25 years, including projects in Ghana, Mali, Tanzania, Eritrea and Dahlak Islands, off the Eritrean Red Sea Coast (in addition to his work outside the continent). That this book draws on his immense accumulation of knowledge is clear. The book provides a summary overview of archaeological research in sub-Saharan Africa, and thus is extremely informative. It is a very useful resource, providing a synthesis of a wealth of empirical case studies encompassing an impressive array of ideas, theories, sources and contexts. The author's adoption of a sub-continental perspective on the one hand can be viewed as a controlled comparison, but on the other provides important insights by using case studies that can productively be analysed comparatively. The book's wide spatial and temporal scope also makes it appealing. It possesses an accessible narrative style that tacks back and forth between various different regions and time periods in a manner that is both logical and simple to follow. The accompanying illustrations, a combination of black-and-white photographs and sketches from the author and others’ work, are complementary and apposite. These factors taken together contribute to the book's significance.

Insoll's central premise is the application of ethnographic paradigms, notably historical ethnography, to the study of archaeological materials. That said, he is clear to stress that in so doing, he does not conflate the African past and present, or suggest an essentialist, static, timeless African past. He writes: ‘where ethnography is utilized it is considered a source useful “in broadening interpretive horizons rather than seeking direct resemblances” (Insoll 2006: 236)’ (p. 2). Still, perhaps training is relevant here? While Insoll has his intellectual roots in the United Kingdom, an anthropological approach to the study of objects, texts and their contexts has been long understood by archaeologists trained in the United States. Nevertheless, Insoll's theoretical approach, one that he describes as ‘eclectic’, is effective because it seamlessly integrates a number of perspectives often confined solely within the pages of conventional disciplinary specific monographs. Insoll skilfully demonstrates the convergence of disciplinary interests, not to mention the constructive value of what is alternatively labelled an inter-, trans- or multi-disciplinary approach.

In addition to the brief introduction and concluding chapter, eight chapters are presented, organized in the following thematic order: bodies and persons; the dead and the ancestors; animals; stone; earth and clay; shrines; landscapes; and finally, healing, medicine and divination. The topics within these categories are varied. For instance, Insoll's treatment of bodies and persons approaches scarification and cicatrization with reference to aesthetics, medicinal purposes, social and cultural values, ethnicity and so forth, but at the same time underscores the importance of fashion, change and individuality as regards bodily inscriptions. And, in terms of the implications of archaeological scarification and cicatrization, Insoll explains the complexities of identifying the associated tools, for the reason that many items, for example razors, could have possessed multiple functions. However, context assists identification. Here, Insoll cites ritual regalia stores in southeastern Nigeria dated to between the eighth and eleventh centuries, where interpretation of ‘scarification knives’ is supported by facial scarifications depicted on 12 representations of human heads at Igbo-Ukwu, including three bronze human head pendants from Igbo Isaiah. All the chapters engage with the cross-cutting subjects and themes of materiality, agency, relational archaeology, entanglement and bundling, demonstrating the linkages between the concepts of memory, anomaly and the exotic, metaphor and metonym: which is a reflection of the author's view that these remain entwined and cannot be isolated or separated out from each other. Thus, the chapter on shrines discusses their relationship to the earth, dead and ancestors, healing and medicinal functions, as well as landscapes. Certainly, this chapter provides a detailed, thorough analysis, which is perhaps to be expected, given that shrines, ritual and religion are Insoll's areas of expertise. The chapter on earth and clay is another excellent example, and also of great interest. Insoll's discussion includes geophagy, or the ingestion of clay and earth. Here, the ingestion of earth is not evident archaeologically, and the extent to which it was practised in the African past is unknown, though historical ethnography indicates the reasons for geophagy were varied. Nevertheless, earth and soil extraction and processing activities are more amenable to archaeological identification. In the chapter on landscapes, Insoll's discussion of waste curation and its possible connections to fertility and memory, rather than solely utilitarian purposes, is particularly provocative. Each chapter is interconnected and complements the others, but equally, each is instructive and can effectively stand alone. Insoll himself acknowledges the book's omission of matters of metals and metallurgy, plants and trees, textiles and many aspects of architecture, as well as urban and domestic space, for reasons of spatial constraint and the fact these topics have been thoroughly addressed elsewhere. Nevertheless, this does not detract from the book's valuable contribution to the study of African archaeology.

Some readers may be disappointed by the book's circumscribed coverage of Christianity and what the author terms African traditional religion. So-called African Traditional Religion (TAR) requires framing. It is important to note that such nomenclature represents an appellation that encompasses numerous diverse practices deeply embedded in British colonial administration, Christian missionizing projects, Christian theological approaches and African scholarly discourse. To be sure, certain similarities exist between some religious traditions in the African continent, but it would be mistaken to suppose, despite the various differences in geography, temporality, ethnic group and social structure, that the concept of ‘African traditional religion’ does not raise as many problems as it might solve. A few concepts are treated in brief, for example, syncretism, magic and medicine. Readers will want to refer to Insoll's other work on this subject, as well as the work of other scholars, in order to grasp a better understanding of the diversities, complexities and nuances of African materiality and African agency in the past. Nonetheless, the inclusion of studies on Islam is in part an indication, not only of Insoll's expertise, but also of the region, where much archaeological work has taken place, particularly in West Africa. This work builds nicely upon his earlier work.

In closing, the focus of Material Explorations in African Archaeology is just that, an exploratory investigation in the material expressions found in sub-Saharan Africa. Certainly, Insoll must be commended for this work. However, ultimately, the point should be made that such a book must be read in conjunction with ethnographic and archaeological monographs produced as the result of extensive long-term fieldwork, since these are the texts that provide the ‘thick description’ many scholars are so fond of referencing. That said, by reading this text, a reader will be directed to such literature, while keeping Insoll's theoretical and methodological approaches in mind. This book is an admirable contribution to the field of African archaeology, and will no doubt find itself on the shelves of many Africanist archaeologists, as well as those from a number of other disciplines interested in the study of the material world in Africa.