Proceedings of the XVI World Congress of the International Union of Prehistoric and Protohistoric Sciences (Florianopolis, Brazil, 4-10 September 2011), Volume 7, Session XVI African Prehistory is at the core of UISPP concerns, namely due to its crucial role to understand the origins and evolution of humans, but also for the complexity of its cultural diversity, in all major issues that are focused by the Union: cultures, economy and environments; specific environmental contexts like deserts or coastal areas, artistic expressions, prehistoric technologies, related methods and theories, history of research or the interaction between archaeology and current society. This volume presents eight papers that cover some of the major debates in African contexts: the lower Palaeolithic of Western Africa (A. Camara), the interaction between human cultures and environment in the late Holocene (S. Ozainne), the rock art in western central and austral Africa (C. Martins, L. Oosterbeek and G. Heimlich), metallurgy (H. Kienon Kaboret and K.S. Kouassi), pottery (M. Sall) and archaeological knowledge socialization (S. Fonseca and E. Gil).