We are pleased to be able to present our latest JAH Forum, comprising contributions from three of the most eminent archaeologists currently working on Eastern Africa. Forums are intended to spark wide-ranging discussions within the Journal and to encourage debate with our colleagues outside of African history on significant trends and cutting-edge developments taking place within it. Each Forum consists of two or more essays on a topic of broad interest within African history and beyond. When inviting contributions, the JAH editors ask authors to discuss the proposed topic from their own unique perspectives while providing some assessment of existing scholarship – both historical and interdisciplinary – and some suggestion of where future studies might or should be heading. We hope that this JAH Forum on ‘Historical Archaeology in Eastern Africa’ will be followed by other Forums dealing with similar issues, methodologies, and approaches in particular regions of the continent. For this one, we asked Peter Schmidt, Paul Lane, and Andrew Reid to consider the current state of historical archaeological research in the region, how this work has evolved over recent decades, and possible directions of travel in the future. We are delighted to be able to share their insights, which deal with the obstacles as well as the opportunities for archaeology in reconstructing the complex and contested histories of the Great Lakes region and beyond.