research was practically suspended in Ethiopia, with only some paleoanthropological fieldwork being conducted in the Omo Valley (Fleagle et al. 1994). Since 1992, archaeological and paleoanthropological fieldwork has been resumed by R. Fattovich and K.A. Bard (1993) and D.W. Phillipson (1994) at Aksum; R. Joussaume and J. Chavaillon in central and southern Ethiopia; S.A. Brandt in southwestern Ethiopia; and j.d. clark, D. Johanson, and T. White in the Rift Valley.

In the late 1960s and 1980s, systematic surveys and excavations were conducted in the middle Atbara Valley and the Gash Delta on the Sudanese side of the northern Ethiopian-Sudanese lowlands by J. Shiner (1971) and A.E. Marks, A.M. Ali, and R. Fattovich (Fattovich 1991, 1993a; Fattovich, Marks, and Ali 1984). These investigations, focusing mainly on the late prehistory and early history of the region, made evident the crucial role of the lowlands in the diffusion of food production toward the plateau and in the process of state formation in northern Ethiopia and Eritrea. This research suggested that the land of Punt, frequented by the Egyptians in the third and second millennia b.c., was located in the northwestern Ethiopian-Sudanese lowlands and on the northern Ethiopian plateau (Fattovich 1993b).

In the 1970s and 1980s, proper archaeological investigations were also carried out in the territory of Djibouti by the French scholars Ph. Roger, C. Thibauld, and M. Weidmann (1975) and J. Chavaillon (1987) on the Stone Age; R. Grau, P. Bouvier, and R. Joussaume (1988) on rock art and late prehistory; and J. Leclant and H. Labrousse (Labrousse 1978) on early historical coastal sites. In Somalia, archaeological investigations were resumed in the 1960s and 1970s by British, Russian, Somali, Swedish, American, and Italian scholars. Particularly relevant were the investigations of S.A. Brandt (Brandt 1988; Brandt and Brooke 1984) and M. Mussi (1987; Coltorti and Mussi 1987), who provided fresh evidence concerning the prehistory of northern and southern Somalia; N. H Chittick (1969, 1976), who conducted an exhaustive survey of Roman and Islamic coastal sites; and S. Jonsson (1983), who surveyed late prehistoric and Islamic sites in northern and central Somalia.

Archaeological research in the Horn of Africa has been affected by environmental, political, cultural, and ideological factors. The main environmental factors are the vastness of the plateau, the difficult access to it, and an almost total lack of good roads until very recently. These factors compelled travelers and scholars to limit their investigations to the more accessible areas and along the main roads. More distant regions, such as the Omo Valley, were not systematically explored before the 1960s.

Political factors also played a crucial role in the history of the investigations. During the explorative phase, particularly in the nineteenth century, investigations were directly connected to European, mainly British and French, attempts to expand political and economic influence in the region because of its strategic position along the Red Sea. In this phase, archaeological work was part of a broader program aimed at getting more information about the region, from geography and environment to culture and history. Such investigations were restricted to the northern plateau as a consequence of the need to establish contacts with the Ethiopian Christian state. The same trend characterized the descriptive phase, when the French were particularly active and Italian work began as a direct consequence of colonial policy. After World War II, the whole of Ethiopia, including Eritrea, was opened for archaeological research, and an international effort to reconstruct the past of the country started; research in Somalia was interrupted up to the 1960s. The war in Eritrea in the 1960s and the political instability following a coup in 1974 progressively closed Ethiopia to archaeological investigations, and there was an almost complete suspension of any activity up until the early 1990s. Archaeological investigations were again interrupted in Somalia in the late 1980s because of civil war.

From a cultural point of view, archaeology in Ethiopia was long regarded as a marginal sector of Ethiopian studies, which until recently focused mainly on the study of the Semitic Christian culture. The interest of scholars was thus focused on the ancient historical remains in the