I like this paper firstly for it attempts to redress, forcefully, the biased perceptions of Africa often still held by usually external observers, and secondly for it engages directly with materiality through an object-based perspective in indicating the complexities that existed in the Siin (Senegal), primarily in the 18th and 19th centuries. Richard is to be congratulated on providing us with a thoughtful and thought-provoking paper indicating that, like other recent research on African and external entanglements and connections (e.g. Croucher 2006), research framed broadly under the remit of ‘historical archaeology’ is some of the most stimulating currently being undertaken in the continent (e.g. Gavua 2008; Schmidt 2006).