Ehret’s brief but fascinating book offers a celebration of African development in the earlier period of human history, starting with the origin of modern humans in 68,000 b.c.e. In this regard, and in his approach to the subject in general, Ehret repeats the claims made in the 1960s and 1970s of Africa’s early role in world history, perhaps epitomized by the work of Basil Davidson and, on a more extreme end, various “Afro-centric” scholars like Diop.1 The major difference between then and now is that, although the earlier period involved speculation and exaggeration in many cases, Ehret’s book relies heavily on now well-documented case studies that have been patiently produced by archaeologists and linguists (for the most part).
This celebratory tone is set from the start with “African Firsts in the History of Technology,” which included an independent (but not first) use of ceramics...