Description
This book is about the deep-seated knowledge of palaeosciences among Indigenous people of various African countries. It documents striking cases of awareness of fossils by local populations since the dawn of humankind and up until precolonial times, and how fossils were interpreted back then. Some fossils inspired folklore, tales and legends, whilst others were used for medicine, storytelling, tool making, and aesthetic purposes. In some fascinating cases, fossils were better interpreted by local African people than by contemporary scientists in Europe. Each chapter reports a case of indigenous knowledge from a different part of Africa, organised in chronological order.
