The discipline of archaeology is a product of historical contexts, modernity and colonialism. Each one leaves its mark in the discipline and each one establishes forms of knowledge, this volume explore this double history of emergence, from the late nineteenth century to the postcolonial present. They cover several topics, from the political implications of African archeology to the repudiated histories of black co-workers, and from heritage constructions to a postcolonial politics of memory and identity. Although they are centered in colonial and postcolonial Africa, they speak to global worlds of practice in archaeology and to the entanglements of race, power and knowledge.