northern regions, where the cradle of Christian culture was located, and on the medieval rock-hewn churches. Moreover, until recently, the research was heavily affected by a dominant “paradigm”—mainly southern Arabian—origin of Ethiopian civilization, and archaeological evidence was basically used to support that theory. Prehistoric investigations arose from the background of African archaeology, which traditionally emphasized the study of Stone Age and rock art, so they were devoted mainly to the study of the early prehistory and marginally to rock art in an effort to set the Ethiopian evidence in the general framework of the African cultural sequence. Only very recently have there been some attempts to investigate late prehistory in order to clarify the processes that led to the development of Ethiopian cultures.

Ideological factors are important in the history of the investigations in Ethiopia and Eritrea. During the time when Ethiopia was a monarchy, historical archaeology was largely supported because it glorified the ancient origins and long history of the Solomonid dynasty. Stone Age archaeology was less well accepted in this period, as its findings could weaken the biblical view of history defended by the Orthodox Church. During the Menghistu regime (1974–1991), early prehistory and human paleontology were stressed and identified with Ethiopian archaeology as they gave the nation prestige as the cradle of mankind. Today, new interest in late prehistoric and historical archaeology is rising in Ethiopia and Eritrea as the result of a debate about a cultural policy aimed at creating a national identity in those countries, for archaeology is considered to be the main way to reconstruct the cultural history of individual ethnic nationalities and their mutual interactions. A cultural policy is also forcing archaeologists in Ethiopia to engage in debates about the meaning of the archaeological evidence, such as the inference of ethnic continuity in specific areas. Such inferences require very careful interpretations.

The combined result of all four factors is a very unbalanced picture in terms of explored areas and investigated periods. At present, only a few regions have been carefully explored in central Eritrea; northern, eastern, central, and southern Ethiopia; and northern and southern Somalia. Most discoveries have been unsystematic, and in many cases the simple occurrence of a site was only recorded. So far, very few systematic surveys have been carried out, few sites have been properly excavated, and very few detailed stratigraphic sequences are available.

The early and middle Stone Age in the Rift Valley and on the Somali plateau, and the pre-Aksumite and Aksumite periods (ca. 1000 b.c.–a.d. 1000) on the northern Ethiopian plateau, have been the main areas of investigation. Late prehistory (ca. 10,000–2000 b.c.) and later periods (ca. a.d. 1000–1600) on the plateau have been almost completely neglected by scholars except for studies of rock art, megaliths, and rock-hewn churches. Islamic archaeology has been practically ignored.

Nevertheless, archaeological investigations in the Horn of Africa have enabled scholars to outline the main trends of the cultural history in the region. At present, the oldest known remains of hominids, which date to about 4 million years ago, have been discovered in the Afar. The earliest evidence of lithic tools, going back to 2.3 millions years ago, has been collected in the Omo Valley, and traces of one of the earliest spatially organized settlements, dating back to Oldowan times (ca. 1.8 million years ago), have been found at Melka Konture in the middle Awash Valley. These results have confirmed that the Horn of Africa was most likely the cradle of mankind, or at least a region where very important human physical and cultural evolutionary steps occurred.

Later Stone Age microlithic industries, dating back to the early to middle Holocene epoch (ca. 10,000–4000 b.c.), have been recorded, both on the Ethiopian plateau and in Somalia. These industries suggest that hunting and gathering people with different lithic traditions occupied the region at that time (Brandt 1986; Clark 1954; Faure, Gasse, Roubet, and Taieb 1976).

Food-producing peoples appeared in the region during the middle Holocene epoch (ca. 4000–1000 b.c.), and domestic cattle and possibly wheat and barley were introduced into the highlands from the western lowlands between