Collating the African Stone Age record, which exists in a fragmented state along the lines of national boundaries and colonial experiences.

Showcasing emerging conceptual and methodological advances in African Pleistocene archaeology.

Providing reference datasets for teaching and researching African prehistory.

Making Africa s Stone Age record accessible to researchers and students based in Africa who may not have access to journal publications where most new field discoveries are published.

The Handbook features 128 chapters, of which 116 are site entries grouped by the host countries and presented in an alphabetical order. A number of those site-related entries examine multiple archaeological localities lumped under specific projects or study areas. The rest of the contributions deal with methodological topics, such as luminescence and radiocarbon dating, field data recovery, lithic analysis, micromorphology, and hominin fossil and zooarchaeological records of Pleistocene Africa. The introductory chapter provides an historical overview of the development of Stone Age (Paleolithic) archaeology in Africa beginning in the mid-19th century, and paleoenvironmental and chronological frameworks commonly used to structure the continent s Pleistocene record. By making a good amount of AfricanStone Age literature accessible to researchers and the public, we wish to promote interest in human evolutionary research in the continent and elsewhere.

Awarded the 2025 The Best Book Award by The Society of Africanist Archaeologists.