posted
I remember transfering or rewriting some of this stuff here on ES AE&E forum sometime after posting it to the original TheNileValley forum but since I can't find it here goes again.
Posts: 8014 | From: the Tekrur in the Western Sahel | Registered: Feb 2006
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We now know that one form of iron working is an independent invention of West Africans from 5000 BP. Egaro Niger so far holds the earliest iron age record at 2900 BCE (all dates follow L. M. Maes Diop's reckoning) possibly predating Gizeh and Abydos.
Neighboring Termit's last iron days were contemporary with the Amarna age but started 700 years earlier. Oliga Cameroun is another West African site contemporary with the Amarna age.
In Nigeria Nok (950 BCE) and Taruga (880 BCE) foundations predate Piye and are roughly contemporary with the settling of the Phoenicians at Carthage.
Tigidit Niger comes later (8th cent BCE) but still like all the above it's earlier than Meroe, the premier iron foundry of the Nile Valley.
Although it was once considered a fact in the 1940's that iron was an Inner African discovery it's generally taught that iron in Africa was a late adaptation and of an extra-African origin. The African process of making iron however, considerably differs from Anatolian metallurgy. Both regions' discoveries are independent of one another. Africans use direct reduction to form iron crystals instead of sintering solid particles. This is semi-conductor technology not smelting.
The leap from stone age directly to iron challenged the accepted understanding of a gradation in metals use from copper and various intermediary metals to iron. Yet the African process produces iron and steel from the same kilning. Steel production remained an unknown outside of Africa and India until somewhere between the 14th and 19th centuries.
Unlike other continents, or in Meroe itself, iron was shrouded by mystic underpinnings though integral to its making yet served to disable it from further advancements in production, use, and distribution of a kind that led to the industrial age (the Bassari were on their way to overcoming the non- technical limitations). Still, African iron remained the superior product. This iron, or rather carbon steel, was manufactured in furnaces attaining temperatures sometimes exceeding 1800°C (3275°F). It was exported to India were it was used in the synthesis of the famous ukku (wootz) steel for weapons manufacture.
Of the films below I've seen Tree of Iron where, following the instructions of a 2000 year old oral manual, moderns construct and produce carbon steel from a type of kiln and a technology not used for centuries due to its environmental effects (depletion of forrestry). Tree of Iron can be compared and contrasted to Inagina for the relatedness of ancient African ferrous metallurgy from regions as far apart as the Great Lakes (TaNzania) and the Niger Bend (Mali).
Eeeeeeeeee blacksmiths are numerous, Aaaaaaah but those who can melt iron from stone have grown rare. Beekillers are many. Lionhunters are few. -West African Song
In his article "La connaissance du fer en Afrique occidentale"[2], since 1952 and before any dating was undertaken, the late H. Lhote, realized that the iron industry in black Africa was indigenous and did not come from North Africa through the Sahara (contrary to the claims made by R. Mauny based on an imaginative point of view instead of valid reasoning).
H. Lhote, to whom one must render hommage, observed that:
the bellows made of pottery is original and exclusive to the Sudan
that the Berbers in the Sahara are not metallurgists: they mistrusted iron-working (the 'Enaden' are mostly repairmen)
no traces of blast furnaces have been found in the Sahara even though iron is present but the nearby peoples do not on their own know how to work iron;
there are numerous traces of blast furnaces in the Sudanese zone up to the 16th northern parallel [4]
the northern limits to finding these blast furnaces are found up to approximately the southern reaches of the BRZL linguistic family that uses a word of semitic origin for iron.
He concludes that:
"The ethnographic, linguistic, historical and archaeological facts can be combined to affirm the exclusively African character of iron working in the black world."
For R. Mauny, Blacks could not be anything but slaves to whom the Berbers 'gave menial tasks ' [5]. But at the same time, those who are forced to do this labour can't by definition understand it because, not only are they slaves, but they are incapable of finding out by themselves the mining and smelting processes of iron ore. But how can the Berbers, who do not know these techniques, have taught their supposed slaves? R. Mauny explained this as follows: in the second half of the first millenium A.D. the Saharan Berbers (non- initiated in iron-working techniques) enslaved metallurgical artisans in North Africa who ' brought with them the iron industry from the Mediterranean coasts down to the borders of the black world' [6]. It was this same idea he used to specify the following: 'the "mallems" brought in from the North certainly had slaves to help them in their skilled work" (slaves, meaning black slaves). To be clear, it has to be admitted that:
the reappropriated smiths from the North Sahara taught their technique to black slaves seized in the south by the same Berber masters,
these black slaves, who either by escaping, or 'being sent specifically to obtain metal commodities' [7] managed to implant iron smithing in occidental Africa.
This transmission and translation were assured by the second half of the first millenium A.D. by the Berber 'masters', who lacked this knowledge themselves, despite;
the fact that iron became common in North African tombs only after the 3rd century B.C., while by the 4th B.C. 'Ethiopians' on the atlantic coast (Cerne), 'used fire-hardened traits' [I am not sure what the article means by this] and by the 5th century B.C. at least, the iron mining process was already being used in Nok (Nigeria);
the fact that there is no common linguistic origin for the word 'iron' in North Africa on one hand and the Sudan on the other;
the fact that there are no blast furnaces in the Sahara.
This theory, upon analysis, reveals itself as opinionated and relies on preconceived notions rather than on fact.
On their own, ethnographic, linguistic, historical, geographical, archaeological elements that have been discovered or elucidated, contradict the hypothesis of the iron industry being introduced in Black Africa from North Africa and the Sahara. We can also add other evidence to that obtained by H. Lhote since 1952.
The smith occupies an important position in the traditional African society, either through legends or through diverse and important roles the smith and his wife had to fill in the black African village. The cult of the god Gou or Ogun, the god of iron and of war, also points to the traditional nature of this industry in African society.
The greatest black Empires, from the most ancient (Ghana) to the most recent (Songhai), Sahelian or Sudanese were postioned mostly in the Sahara, many large regions of which were directly administered by black governers [8].
Who says that prior to the Arab invasions, the Berbers were the most numerous and greatest conquerors of the central and southern Sahara?
The black populations living in the Sahara in the past, and ultimately suppressed by the Arabo-Berber Muslims in the oases and mountain ranges, would have only been part of the 'despised casts' of smiths after the invasion, like the Haddads [9], but who knew, probably for centuries before, how to work iron. On the other hand, let's not forget the 'Haratins' were not only black slaves brought there from the caravans and slavers, but also represented, perhaps above all else, a residual population of the neolithic Sahara, humid and negroid.
To this debate, detailled articles by P. Huard added more elements [10]. He separates, for example, the origin of the libyan-berber of the sagaie teda [11]. He instead supports, as does V. Paques, two traditions on the introduction of metal working to Fezzan: Jews from the North brought it to Sebba, Sudanese smiths brought it to Ghat [12]. This group, he writes, 'passes for having been one of the first peoples to have worked iron in Chad..., the Zaghawa were mentioned by the Arab story tellers since the 8th century... They have maintained their practices of agricultural sacrifice and do not get along with islamisation that has been going on for a millenia' [13]. How did the Arab story tellers describe the Zaghawa?
- Ibn Munabbet (738) 'counts the Zaghawa as belonging to the Sudanese peoples';
- Idrisi (12th century) 'depicts them as negro camel riders who occupied the area between Fezzan and Chari, Xaouar and Darfour'.
- Ibn Khaldoun (14th century) 'includes the Zaghawa as part of the black kingdoms of the Sudan.'
Posts: 8014 | From: the Tekrur in the Western Sahel | Registered: Feb 2006
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posted
In the Ennedi, P. Huard showed 'the importance of figurative evidence and archaeological traces concerning the age of iron working.' He writes, 'the extremely stiff arm holding a dagger can be seen from the Nile at Hoggar to the middle of Niger, and is depicted at Hallema (North-East corner of Ennedi) to the arm of a dressed spear-user, dating to the late iron age, finely engraved with his herd of cattle with two of them sporting deformed horns, a practice amidst group C Nubian herders that was spread through out the Sahara zone around Chad and still seen at Tibesti during the iron age.' [14].
Despite this, in 1964, eleven years after the publishing of the opposing theories of H. Lhote and R. Mauny (1952-1953), and as a follow up of the observations P. Huard made and reported, he admitted in his first set of conclusions, without reservation and without mentioning his reasoning, the hypothesis of a slow and progressive transmission of Mediterranean iron into the black world in the following fashion:
3rd century B.C.: the arrival of worked iron of Carthaginic origin through indirect trade ('dating proposed by R. Mauny')
4th century A.D.: black Sudanese acquire Mediterranean iron working ('dating thanks to W. Cline').
And yet he added:
'The traces of a possible ancient contribution of Mediterranean iron from the North-East to North-West limits of Tibesti are being researched in the field.' [15].
This leaves us to suppose that, just up until now, the traces of evidence were not yet discovered.
Yet, we can keep as important elements of his conclusions the following propositions:
'What has been said about metals in the centre of Chad and to the West of the lake shows us that the questions concerning them bypass - both territorially and by their scope - the confines of the Sahara, in which the interest is to laterally record the evidence of the East-West transmission into the area between the valley of the Nile and Niger, where iron became one of the evolutionary factors attributing to the creation of organized states'.
'[i]But from Chad to Mossi, the traditional factors collected going back to the local age of metals, are deformed, fragmented, and uncoordinated, and they require being put in their respective contexts at the heart of the common origins of the Nile valley, for which limiting factors of material and cultural transmission have been uncovered by Wainwright in Nigeria and Arkell in Ghana[i]'. [16].
[In summary, if there was no tangible proof of a North-South flow of iron industry across the Sahara, there was various evidence, particularly archaeological, that allowed the affirmation of the invention of an ancient iron industry in a very vast area from the Nile to Tibesti, from Chad to the west of the lake, and going by Ennedi.
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posted
One can conclude that there was a lateral transmission from the East to the West, not only across the southern Sahara, but also across all of the Sudan to the Nile and Niger, the location of origin being in both cases Nubia.
However, in the absence of certain dating, not only for the beginning of the iron age in Nubia, but also for all of the other sites mentioned in central and western Sudan, this could also signify an immense dispersion area of iron industry, even before population migrations began in the valley of the Nile towards the west, south-west and the south during the 6th century B.C.
As a matter of fact, concerning the age of iron working in Nigeria, Basil Davidson indicated in his work Africa before the whites [18] that 'four charcoal fragments in the Nok strata were revealed to have dates between 3500, 2000, 900 B.C. and 200 A.D by carbon dating'.
The author then continues by giving the following commentary by Bernard Fagg.
'The two first dates certainly come from more ancient sediments, while the 900 B.C. (around the time of the climate of Nakura becoming rainier) and 200 A.D. dates show the earliest and latest dates of the statuettes belonging to the Nok civilisation.'
It is necessary to attract attention to the assumption made freely that the two first dates come from more ancient sediments. One must remain circumspect of interpretations that attempt to move the date forward on objective results derived by scientific methods.
One can no longer explain the archaeological claim that allowed P. Huard to make the following remark [19]. 'B. Fagg has recently lessened the obstacle that these dates created in keeping us from putting forth a future description of the propagation of iron working in West Africa when he wrote: " We think now that the Nok culture is the product of a revolution that started around the introduction of iron and probably flourished between -400 (possibly as early as -900) and +200".' In the general context of this study', continues Huard, 'it is evidently the end of this period that seems acceptable to us.'
We can naturally no longer see any reason to agree with his opinion.
In this region of Chad, the recent 'bovidien' an epoque during which iron was affirmed to having been in use, is considered to be from the 1st millenium B.C. Yet, P. Huard notes that 'in the recent bovidien' of Ennedi, in the style of Fada, which we consider to have occurred before iron working, gave the Bailloud core grid spears'. On the other hand, the Nubian group C (to whom the depiction of the spearman accompanied by his herd of cattle in the north-east portion of Ennedi belongs) started, according to Arkell, at the end of the 3rd millenium B.C. (between -2300 and -2150) [20].
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Thusly, from 1967-1968, the factual analysis of these arguments allows me to conclude
that against all probability, iron metallurgy in the African continent is indigenous and was not introduced by outside influences
that this ancient and traditional industry remained very much alive just up until the era of colonialisation
that we are dealing with transitional, siderolithic (in which stone and iron industries coexist) civilisations according to an expression by W. Fagg;
that the establishment of a black African chronology is still in its infancy. Lack of precision allows us to be able to think that iron technology could have started as early as the 3rd millenium B.C. or during the first (Nok);
that archaeological discoveries done up until recently have revealed Nigeria, Mali, Chad, Zambia, and the region of the Great Lakes as the principal siderolithic sites. But they are not limited to this list. Prof. Hiernaux indicates that dimple-based pottery was recently discovered at Kasai (Congo). And William Fagg writes, '
it is possible that we only know of certain traces of deeply buried, ancient cultures that reside within rocks that are not readily accessible
'. He expresses later on the idea that civilisations buried in African soil risk never being uncovered.
Along this line of thought, another factor that we can never underestimate is the speed of degradation via oxidation of all of the iron objects coming from the hot and humid climates of Africa.
6. that, in these conditions, it seems premature to confirm the first centres of propagation of iron in Africa and the routes of dispersal of iron across Africa, especially since the different metallurgical centres already found seem to all be situated in the very distant past. The Prof. Hiernaux wrote in 1962: 'if we are tempted to look at Meroe, where iron scoria formed important stockpiles, while we look for the cradle of metallurgy in central and oriental Africa, we must wait for substantial data that will allow us to create hypotheses that will be sufficiently supported.'[21]
If it seems proven, in the 60s, that traditional iron metal working in Africa is very ancient, was widespread and indigenous, the cradle of these processes, their exact dating and the hyptothetical routes of propagation remain to be determined [22].
All of these considerations do not keep people from teaching without perturbation the path of transmission of iron-working techniques from North Africa to the occidental Sudan across the Sahara. Even the fact that Henri Lhote uncovered the original and indigenous character of iron industry in occidental Africa has been forgotten.
quote:Originally posted by alTakruri: Thusly, from 1967-1968, the factual analysis of these arguments allows me to conclude
that against all probability, iron metallurgy in the African continent is indigenous and was not introduced by outside influences
that this ancient and traditional industry remained very much alive just up until the era of colonialisation
that we are dealing with transitional, siderolithic (in which stone and iron industries coexist) civilisations according to an expression by W. Fagg;
that the establishment of a black African chronology is still in its infancy. Lack of precision allows us to be able to think that iron technology could have started as early as the 3rd millenium B.C. or during the first (Nok);
that archaeological discoveries done up until recently have revealed Nigeria, Mali, Chad, Zambia, and the region of the Great Lakes as the principal siderolithic sites. But they are not limited to this list. Prof. Hiernaux indicates that dimple-based pottery was recently discovered at Kasai (Congo). And William Fagg writes, '
it is possible that we only know of certain traces of deeply buried, ancient cultures that reside within rocks that are not readily accessible
'. He expresses later on the idea that civilisations buried in African soil risk never being uncovered.
Along this line of thought, another factor that we can never underestimate is the speed of degradation via oxidation of all of the iron objects coming from the hot and humid climates of Africa.
6. that, in these conditions, it seems premature to confirm the first centres of propagation of iron in Africa and the routes of dispersal of iron across Africa, especially since the different metallurgical centres already found seem to all be situated in the very distant past. The Prof. Hiernaux wrote in 1962: 'if we are tempted to look at Meroe, where iron scoria formed important stockpiles, while we look for the cradle of metallurgy in central and oriental Africa, we must wait for substantial data that will allow us to create hypotheses that will be sufficiently supported.'[21]
If it seems proven, in the 60s, that traditional iron metal working in Africa is very ancient, was widespread and indigenous, the cradle of these processes, their exact dating and the hyptothetical routes of propagation remain to be determined [22].
All of these considerations do not keep people from teaching without perturbation the path of transmission of iron-working techniques from North Africa to the occidental Sudan across the Sahara. Even the fact that Henri Lhote uncovered the original and indigenous character of iron industry in occidental Africa has been forgotten.
Yo word, there's so many holes and unchartered areas of african archaelogy it's ridiculous. There hasn't really been a chance for diggers to investigate ancient history (especially west and central) in Africa due to civil wars, lack of preservation, and what not it's really a shame hopefully that'll change in the near future.
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The Early Iron Age Ironworkers of the Okanda Tradition
Ironworking in west central Africa began in the Mandara mountains in northern Cameroon (MacEachern 1996) and in the area around Yaounde in the south (Essomba 1989) around 2,600 B.P. The first evidence from the middle valley of the Ogooue is around 2,600-2,500 B.P. at Otoumbi 2 and Lope 5, but it was not until around 2,300-2,100 B.P. that the Okanda tradition expanded, to the Otoumbi 4, Okanda 2 and 5, and Lindili 1 sites. The arrival of the new Okanda pottery style coincides with the abrupt disappearance of the Neolithic peoples. From a strictly chronological viewpoint, radiocarbon dates suggest that the first ironworkers may have coexisted with the last Neolithic peoples, but the range of dates for each group suggests that if they did cohabit, it was not for long (Oslisly and Fontugne 1993). There is no evidence of coexistence from cultural remains, suggesting that the superior weapons of the ironworkers enabled them to supplant the previous inhabitants.
These ironworking peoples invariably lived on hilltops, but their villages were much larger than those of the Neolithic culture; the flat hillcrest was surrounded by belts of refuse pits, with furnaces nearby on the first slopes. These furnaces were built from clay to an average height of about 1 m above the ground and were ventilated through pipes entering the base at ground level. The ironworkers seem to have been more numerous than the Neolithic peoples; almost twenty known sites date between 2,300 B.P. and 1,800 B.P.
Pottery styles can be used to map the expansion of the Okanda group. Their pottery was particularly distinctive and completely different from that of the Neolithic Epona group. The closed and bilobed shapes disappeared, to be replaced by larger, taller, bell-shaped pots with handles (including one that was 50 cm high, with a capacity of 30 liters), decorated with characteristic patterns. The most typical feature of the pattern is the presence of concentric circles on or at the base of the handles.
Similar concentric circles appear among the iconography of rock engravings at the Doda, Ibombi, Kongo Boumba, and Lindili sites (Kongo Boumba area) and at the Epona and Elarmekora sites (Epona area). These engravings were made by hammering pointed iron tools to form cuplike depressions in the rock. They cannot be dated directly, but the patterns correspond to those found on Okanda pottery dated between 2,300 and 1,700 B.P. (Oslisly and Peyrot 1993; Oslisly 1996). Of just over 1,600 engravings found to date, 67% are simple or concentric circles similar to those found on the handles of pottery (Oslisly 1993a, 1993b). In all, geometric shapes account for 75% of engravings, emphasizing the importance of abstract, symbolic characters. More realistic and vivid are animal representations, which account for a further 8%, portraying small quadrupeds or reptiles; but there are no depictions of such large mammals as elephants, buffalo, or antelopes, as are found in engravings in the Sahara and southern Africa.
A third, poorly represented group includes such weapons and tools as throwing knives (the classic weapon of central Africa), spears, axes, and hunting nets.
Looking at the types of images portrayed, one can identify two styles, one abstract and symbolic, the other figurative. The dominance of symbolic figures suggests that the engravings served a magic or mystic purpose, illustrating events in an abstract form. Circular forms perhaps depict a culture inhabiting small open savannas enclosed by the forest.
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The History of Human Settlement in the Middle Ogooue Valley Implications for the Environment
by Richard Oslisly
Ironworkers of the Otoumbi Tradition
A new wave of ironworkers arrived in the middle Ogooue valley around 1,900 - 1,800 B.P. and took up residence on the hilltops vacated by the Okanda peoples. Apparently, after inhabiting the area for four or five centuries, they moved away to the south, following ridges through the forest to the savannas that descend toward the center of the Massif du Chaillu to the west of the Offoue river, and then on to the savannas of the upper Ogooue and northwest Congo. Such a scenario corresponds well with the more recent radiocarbon dates of iron smelting at Moanda in the upper Ogooue valley around 2,300 -1,800 B.P. (Digombe et al 1988) and on the Bateke plateau around 1,600-1,500 B.P. (Pincon et al. 1995).
The Otoumbi ironworkers used the same smelting methods as the Okanda, but their pottery styles were new, with medium-sized pots that had out-curving lips and flat bases, decorated with indented lines, as well as small bowls with incurving lips. They were without handles and the decoration was more complex. A new style applied with a notched wheel appeared, and concentric circles were no longer featured. Similar pottery has been found 200 km further north in Gabon, at the Oyem 2 site in refuse pits dated to 2,300-2,200 B.P. (Clist 1989), and although data are few, the indications are that the Otoumbi ironworkers arrived in the savannas of the middle Ogooue valley from the forests to the north.
These peoples expanded out from the Otoumbi area (see figure 7.5) between 1,900 and 1,600 B.P. along either side of the river and along ridgelines into the forest to the south, leaving tell-tale furnaces (at Anzem 1 and Mingoue 5) as well as large areas of charcoal from forest fires, dated to 1,500 - 1,400 B.P. (Oslisly and Dechainps 1994). These charcoal deposits represent the first evidence in the region of people with an itinerant slash-and-burn lifestyle living within the forest.
The Hiatus
Whereas the presence of ironworkers in the region has been confirmed for the period 2,500 - 1,500 B.P., radiocarbon dates suggest that between 1,400 and 800 B.P. the middle Ogooue valley was devoid of humans. No remains from this period have been found among seventy five sites dated so far (Oslisly 1993a, 1995). This suggests that a brutal phenomenon affected Iron Age peoples such that the region was empty until the arrival of the peoples of the recent Iron Age, who were the ancestors of populations present in the area today. The effect is not due to an ananomaly in the calibration curve of 14C values with time, because it is essentially linear during the period in question (Stuiver and Becker 1993), and indeed the phenomenon is not restricted to the middle Ogooue valley; human remains dated during this period are rare throughout Gabon. The carbon dates that do fall between 1,400 and 800 B.P. are spread across the three coastal provinces, Nyanga, and the Haut Ogooue, but there is no evidence of human populations during the same period in the four other provinces of Gabon, which account for 46% of all carbon dates available for the time period (90 of a total of 194).
The History of Human Settlement in the Middle Ogooue Valley Implications for the Environment by Richard Oslisly
Ironworkers of the Otoumbi Tradition
A new wave of ironworkers arrived in the middle Ogooue valley around 1,900 - 1,800 B.P. and took up residence on the hilltops vacated by the Okanda peoples. Apparently, after inhabiting the area for four or five centuries, they moved away to the south, following ridges through the forest to the savannas that descend toward the center of the Massif du Chaillu to the west of the Offoue river, and then on to the savannas of the upper Ogooue and northwest Congo. Such a scenario corresponds well with the more recent radiocarbon dates of iron smelting at Moanda in the upper Ogooue valley around 2,300 -1,800 B.P. (Digombe et al 1988) and on the Bateke plateau around 1,600-1,500 B.P. (Pincon et al. 1995).
The Otoumbi ironworkers used the same smelting methods as the Okanda, but their pottery styles were new, with medium-sized pots that had out-curving lips and flat bases, decorated with indented lines, as well as small bowls with incurving lips. They were without handles and the decoration was more complex. A new style applied with a notched wheel appeared, and concentric circles were no longer featured. Similar pottery has been found 200 km further north in Gabon, at the Oyem 2 site in refuse pits dated to 2,300-2,200 B.P. (Clist 1989), and although data are few, the indications are that the Otoumbi ironworkers arrived in the savannas of the middle Ogooue valley from the forests to the north.
These peoples expanded out from the Otoumbi area (see figure 7.5) between 1,900 and 1,600 B.P. along either side of the river and along ridgelines into the forest to the south, leaving tell-tale furnaces (at Anzem 1 and Mingoue 5) as well as large areas of charcoal from forest fires, dated to 1,500 - 1,400 B.P. (Oslisly and Dechainps 1994). These charcoal deposits represent the first evidence in the region of people with an itinerant slash-and-burn lifestyle living within the forest.
The Hiatus
Whereas the presence of ironworkers in the region has been confirmed for the period 2,500 - 1,500 B.P., radiocarbon dates suggest that between 1,400 and 800 B.P. the middle Ogooue valley was devoid of humans. No remains from this period have been found among seventy five sites dated so far (Oslisly 1993a, 1995). This suggests that a brutal phenomenon affected Iron Age peoples such that the region was empty until the arrival of the peoples of the recent Iron Age, who were the ancestors of populations present in the area today. The effect is not due to an ananomaly in the calibration curve of 14C values with time, because it is essentially linear during the period in question (Stuiver and Becker 1993), and indeed the phenomenon is not restricted to the middle Ogooue valley; human remains dated during this period are rare throughout Gabon. The carbon dates that do fall between 1,400 and 800 B.P. are spread across the three coastal provinces, Nyanga, and the Haut Ogooue, but there is no evidence of human populations during the same period in the four other provinces of Gabon, which account for 46% of all carbon dates available for the time period (90 of a total of 194).
Distribution of uncalibrated radiocarbon dates between 2,500 and 100 B.P. Adapted from Oslisly 1998
Was this hiatus caused by a severe epidemic? The tropics are certainly recognized as a region of crippling endemic diseases where sudden outbreaks can devastate human populations. For instance, early in the twentieth century bubonic plague devastated populations in many parts of Gabon (Deschamps 1962). At the start of my work, I was surprised to find sites that seemed almost intact, with artifacts lying on the surface of the ground as if suddenly abandoned. In an area where conditions were already difficult and settlements small, a serious illness could have decimated Iron Age communities in a very short time. This seems to be the most likely explanation for the population void and may even be the reason for the current low human population density. It would not be surprising if such an epidemic led to a taboo, preventing repopulation of the area by surrounding peoples.
The six-hundred-year “human silence” most likely led to significant changes in the forest-savanna mosaic of the middle Ogooue valley. Anthropogenic fires, which currently maintain the savanna, would have been much less frequent, and the forest would have expanded dramatically, given that humid conditions favorable for forest growth have been prevalent in the region since 2,000 B.P.
The Late Iron Age: Ironworkers of the Lope and Leledi Traditions
Ironworking populations reappeared in the middle Ogooue valley from 800 B.P. and again occupied hilltop dwelling sites. Ceramics of this period include large and small pots of flattened spherical shape with out-curved apexes and pots of uneven curvature, as well as clay pipes. The decoration of these pots is unique, with small circular motifs made with knotted strips of plant material arranged in herring-bone patterns. The designs on pots form a band of variable width high on the sphere, and similar patterns are found on the clay bowls of pipes. This distinctive pattern has also been found on a pot from a cave at Lastoursville, 150 km upstream (Oslisly 1993a, 1995). Seeds of Sesamum cf. calycinium (Pedaliaceae - a species of sesame), which, when pounded, yield edibl oil, were found on the inside of this pot. Carbon dates from sites containing this style of pottery confirm historical and linguistic studies of the Okande peoples currently resident in the area (Ambouroue-Avaro 1981), which suggest that their ancestors arrived in the region around the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries.
This same style of pottery, named Lope, has been found in an area greater than 1,500 km.sq. in size and indicates that a unified cultural group occupied at least 250 km along the length of the Ogooue valley. This would have been possible because of these people’s renowned skill at navigating the rapids of the Ogooue by dugout canoe, described by Savorgnan de Brazza in 1876 (Brunschwig 1966).
New and ongoing research has revealed numerous furnaces and extensive remains of slag along ridgelines opened up by logging roads in the middle valley of the Leledi to the south of the Ogooue in a forested area at about 500 m altitude. Carbon dates fall between 800 and 200 B.P. Associated pottery found to date has been badly weathered, but the form, pattern, and composition are completely different from those of the Lope tradition. Iron-smelting furnaces of these peoples consisted of holes dug to about a meter down into the sandy-clayey layer, into which alternate layers of iron ore and charcoal were loaded, with large clay pipes angled downward, through which air was pumped by means of a bellows into the base. Previous smelting technology used in the middle Ogooue valley had involved the erection of a clay structure above ground, which had to be broken open and destroyed to obtain the iron. This new method would have facilitated removal of metal and waste and subsequent reloading and reuse (Collomb 1977), distinguishing between these recent Iron Age peoples and those of the early period.
Hence, from the fourteenth through the nineteenth centuries, ironworkers in the region lived both in savanna (Lope peoples) and within the forest (Leledi tradition), extracting iron using the same technology but making pottery with different form and decoration. We will have to undertake further research to ascertain whether there was any commercial or cultural exchange between these two groups.
It is a sad reflection on “progress” that pottery traditions which had lasted about 4,500 years rapidly became extinct with the massive recent importation of containers from Europe. Pottery is no longer made or used in the middle valley of the Ogooue.
Climatic Savannas Isolated Within the Forest
Following the long dry climatic phase of the Leopoldvillian, when savannas dominated the central African landscape, forests recovered in the humid Kibangian, reaching their present distribution around 6,000 B.P.(Maley 1987). Aubreville (1967) has already proposed that the “strange” middle Ogooue savannas (he termed them Booue) are a paleoclimatic relict. They have now been dated to around 9,000-8,000 B.P. using and analyses (Oslisly and White, in press; Oslisly et al. 1996), suggesting that they are a relict of the dry Leopoldvillian climatic phase, during which they would have been much more widespread. Further evidence that these are ancient savannas comes from the local presence of specialist savanna animals and plants: for example, such bird species such as the long-legged pipit, Anthus pallidiventris; the pectoral-patch cisticola, Cisticola brunnescens; and the black-faced canary, Serinus capistratus, which are thought unlikely to cross large expanses of forest (Christy and Clarke 1994; P. Christy, pers. comm.). Savanna frogs of the genus Ptychadena, considered good biological indicators of ancient grassland, are also present (Blanc 1998; C. Blank, pers. comm.), as is the bushbuck, Tragelaphus scriptus, a mammal that lives in savanna and woodland vegetation but which does not occur deep in the forest. The presence of these savanna specialists is good evidence that a savanna corridor once connected the middle Ogooue valley to Congo.
Identification of plant species from charcoal found in village sites known to have been located in the savanna demonstrates the presence of indicators of mature forest vegetation within the forest-savanna mosaic during the late Stone Age (White 1992, 1995). Further more, charcoal from the forest tree Pterocarpus soyauxii (Padouk) was favored by all Iron Age peoples for smelting ore and must have been obtained from within the forests of the period. This paints a picture of successive groups of peoples living in open savanna but making extensive use of nearby forests. It would have been their fires, lit to maintain their open habitat and, perhaps more important, to facilitate hunting of large savanna grazers, that prevented recolonization of the savannas by forest vegetation. Equally, during the hiatus when fires would, presumably, have been far less frequent, savanna areas were colonized rapidly by forest species, illustrating the important ecological role played by humans (Oslisly andWhite, in press).
Research from the middle Ogooue valley does not provide evidence of true forest dwelling until the quite recent past. Even sites discovered within the forest today were actually located within savanna vegetation when inhabited (White and Oslisly, unpublished data). This emphasizes the need to take into account vegetation history when considering the dynamics of central African peoples, as well as when attempting to interpret the significance of archaeological remains.
Because of the lack of sites in forested central Africa with well-maintained stratigraphy dating to early or middle Stone Ages, we are currently unable to say much about the way these earlier peoples lived. From about 10,000 B.P. onward we possess a relatively detailed picture of population dynamics in the middle Ogooue valley, which demonstrates the arrival of a long sequence of civilizations, particularly from the Neolithic (c. 4,500 B.P.) onward. It seems that the major migrations of Bantu ironworkers were linked to a dry climatic phase in the Kibangian B (3,500-2,000 B.P.), which probably resulted in decreased forest cover and may have enabled these savanna-dwelling peoples to avoid the prospect of a daunting trip into extensive forest vegetation (Maley 1992, Schwartz 1992;). These migrations were undertaken through Gabon following ridge lines (Oslisly 1995), although elsewhere river navigation was used (see, e.g., Eggert 1993). The migrating peoples seem to have favored areas with at least some savanna vegetation, reflecting their origins outside the forest ecosystem, and it is not surprising that the middle Ogooue valley was appealing to them. It seems that they systematically supplanted resident cultures, although it is possible that they also assimilated some local knowledge (see, e. g., Vansina 1990).
Elsewhere in forested Africa, as in the middle valley of the Ogooue, the recent Holocene was a time of successive waves of migrating Bantu peoples replacing resident populations. Hence, the overriding theme of human settlement in the middle Ogooue valley, as well as in other parts of Africa, is one of savanna dwelling peoples who made use of the forest environment but who preferred to avoid dwelling within it as true “forest peoples.” Therefore, this is not dissimilar to present patterns of migration within the forest zone, which tends to result in forest conversion. This study demonstrates the rich and dynamic prehistorical past of the middle valley of the Ogooue, particularly during the Holocene, a period for which there are numerous archaeological remains. lt also raises a number of questions, perhaps the most fundamental of which is: How important are these isolated savanna regions to the history of human populations in the middle valley of the Ogooue, and how has the long history of human habitation affected the savannas and the surrounding forest? Ongoing multidisciplinary research on archaeology, vegetation history, palynology, and plant ecology should provide answers and also reveal to what extent the history of human populations in the central African region as a whole mirrors that of the middle Ogooue valley.
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STANLEY B. ALPERN DID THEY OR DIDN’T THEY INVENT IT? IRON IN SUB-SAHARAN AFRICA History in Africa 32 (2005), 41–94
Judging from a number of recent publications, the long-running debate over the origins of iron smelting in sub-Saharan Africa has been resolved… in favor of those advocating independent invention.
For Gérard Quéchon, the French archeologist to whom we owe very early dates for iron metallurgy from the Termit Massif in Niger, “indisputably, in the present state of knowledge, the hypothesis of an autochthonous invention is convincing.” (1)
According to Eric Huysecom, a Belgian-born archeologist, “[o]ur present knowledge allows us . . . to envisage one or several independent centres of metal innovation in sub-Saharan Africa.” (2)
Hamady Bocoum, a Senegalese archeologist, asserts that “more and more numerous datings are pushing back the beginning of iron production in Africa to at least the middle of the second millennium BC, which would make it one of the world’s oldest metallurgies.” He thinks that “in the present state of knowledge, the debate [over diffusion vs. independent invention] is closed for want of conclusive proof accrediting any of the proposedtransmission channels [from the north].” (3)
The American archeologist Peter R. Schmidt tells us “the hypothesis for independent invention is currently the most viable among the multitude of diffusionist hypotheses.” (4)
Africanists other than archeologists are in agreement. For Basil Davidson, the foremost popularizer of African history, “African metallurgical skills [were] locally invented and locally developed.” (5)
The American linguist Christopher Ehret says
quote:Africa south of the Sahara, it now seems, was home to a separate and independent invention of iron metallurgy . . . To sum up the available evidence, iron technology across much of sub-Saharan Africa has an African origin dating to before 1000 BCE. (6)
The eminent British historian Roland Oliver thinks that the discovery of iron smelting “could have occurred many times over” in the world and that African ironworking probably originated in the northern one-third of the continent. (7)
The equally eminent Belgian-American historian Jan Vansina took the rather extreme position that “[i]ron smelting began in several places at about the same time,” naming the - western Great Lakes area, - Gabon, - Termit Massif, - Taruga site in central Nigeria and the - Igbo region in southeastern Nigeria. He maintained that “[a] simple dispersal even from Taruga to the Igbo sites not far away is excluded because different types of furnaces were used.” (8)
In the concluding chapter of UNESCO’s recent book on the subject, the Senegalese-born scholar Louise-Marie Maes-Diop surveys the beginnings of iron metallurgy worldwide and finds “the earliest vestiges of reduced ore” in eastern Niger, followed by Egypt. (9)
Gérard Quéchon, “Les datations de la métallurgie du fer à Termit (Niger): leur fiabilité, leur signification” in Hamady Bocoum, ed., Aux origines de la métallurgie du fer en Afrique: une ancienneté méconnue (Paris, 2002), 114. The same statement is found in an almost identical chapter with the same title by Quéchon in Mediterranean Archaeology 14 (2001) (hereafter Meditarch), 253. That issue is titled “The Origins of Iron Metallurgy: Proceedings of the First International Colloquium on the Archaeology of Africa and the Mediterranean Basin Held at the Museum of Natural History in Geneva, 4-7 June, 1999.” ) .
Eric Huysecom, “The Beginning of Iron Metallurgy: From Sporadic Inventions to Irreversible Generalizations,” Meditarch, 3. .
Hamady Bocoum, “La métallurgie du fer en Afrique: un patrimoine et une ressource au service du développement” in Bocoum, Origines, 94, 97. UNESCO published an English translation of Bocoum’s book in 2004 under the title The Origins of Iron Metallurgy in Africa: New Light on Its Antiquity—West and Central Africa. .
Peter R. Schmidt, “Cultural Representations of African Iron Production” in Schmidt, ed., The Culture and Technology of African Iron Production (Gainesville, 1996), 8. .. See also: Pierre de Maret, “L’Afrique centrale: Le `savoir-fer’” in Bocoum, Origines, 125; . François Paris, Alain Person, Gérard Quéchon, and Jean-François Saliège, “Les débuts de la métallurgie au Niger septentrional: Aïr, Azawagh, Ighazer, Termit,” Journal des Africanistes 72(1992), 58; . Schmidt and D.H. Avery, “More Evidence for an Advanced Prehistoric Iron Technology in Africa,” Journal of Field Archaeology 10(1983), 428, 432-34; . Candice L. Goucher, “Iron Is Iron ’Til It Is Rust: Trade and Ecology in the Decline of West African Iron-Smelting,” JAH 22(1981), 180; . John A. Rustad, “The Emergence of Iron Technology in West Africa, with Special Emphasis on the Nok Culture of Nigeria” in B.K. Swartz and R. Dumett, eds., West African Culture Dynamics: Archaeological and Historical Perspectives (The Hague, 1980), 237. .
Basil Davidson, West Africa Before the Colonial Era: A History to 1850 (London, 1998), 8. .
Christopher Ehret, The Civilizations of Africa: a History to 1800 (Charlottesville, 2002), 161. Curiously, he suggests African iron metallurgy was developed in two places, northern Nigeria/Cameroon and the Great Lakes region, while ignoring Niger, source of the earliest available dates. .
Roland Oliver, The African Experience (New York, 1991), 65. .
Jan Vansina, “Historians, Are Archeologists Your Siblings?” HA 22(1995), 395. .. See also: John Thornton, Africa and Africans in the Making of the Atlantic World, 1400-1800 (2d ed.: Cambridge, 1998), 46; . P.T. Craddock and J. Picton, “Medieval Copper Alloy Production and West African Bronze Analyses–Part II,” Archaeometry 28 (1986), 6; . Ralph A. Austen and Daniel Headrick, “The Role of Technology in the African Past,” African Studies Review 26 (1983), 165-68. .
Louise-Marie Maes-Diop, “Bilan des datations des vestiges anciens de la sidérurgie en Afrique: l’enseignement qui s’en dégage” in Bocoum, Origines, 189. Thirty-four years earlier Maes-Diop had written that “in all probability, iron metallurgy on the African continent is autochthonous and was not introduced through external influences,” but hers was a lonely voice then. L.-M. Diop, “Métallurgie traditionnelle et âge du fer en Afrique,” BIFAN 30B (1968), 36.
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You're welcome. And now that I know someone's interested in the subject I'll try continuing the serialization of Aurore's translation of Diop-Maes (time permitting).
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2. Confirmation of the indigenous invention of iron metallurgy
Despite the slow accumulation of dates, we have to wait for the first international colloquium of archeology of Cameroon, held at Yaounde from the 6th to 9th of January, 1986, and whose transcriptions were published [23] to finally get the following statement: 'Long and sterile quarrels occurred between certain researchers who opposed the archaeological findings. The reason for this is simple. The founders [workmen] were Blacks...' [24]
The author was especially referring to copper.
Pertaining to microlithic industry of north-east Zaire, the Belgian prehistorian F. van Noten wrote [25]: 'The industry of Ishango was dated -21 000 /- 500 B.P. that is 19 000 B.C., which seemed too old... But seeing the dates obtained at Matupi, this result seems today less improbable.' Here is how dates and facts were systematically separated from each other because they didn't fit with someone's visions of how things should be. In 1984, in their important work, 'The dating of the past, measuring time in archaeology' [26], R.P. Giot and L. Langouet specified that, contrary to what was said, one date is already an indication (but not necessarily a confirmation), and that the quality of the sample, in all points of view, is the essential element.
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One must emphasize the fact that the stores at Nok have provided iron hachets 'still shapped like those in stone' [27]. This is why W. Fagg coined the phrase 'siderolithic' civilisation that went directly from stone to iron and continued to develope these two industries in a parallel fashion.
On the other hand, in 1976, C.A. Diop commented on the Nok dates in the following fashion:
'These statuettes from Nok were found in place, 12 m deep with scoria, and tailpipes, and were dated by the 14C carbon dating of twigs of carbonised wood that were associated with them. The ages obtained were the following: 3500 B.C., 2000 B.C., 900 B.C. These dates were perhaps too old for African iron, but none of the arguments put forth to reject these dates was scientifically valid or consistant. We must take them into consideration along with other facts that will support or refute them.
Fagg omitted to provide an intelligible schematic of the alluvial positions of the twigs (polluting materials); it is impossible to reach the (supposed) area where the upstream twigs came from without removing other more contemporary twigs from the gully, that is the twigs from the more conventionally accepted iron age date (500 B.C.), and those twigs dated to the more ancient ages were supposedly contaminated with later samples, which is not the case.
Fagg's idea that the C-14 dating technique was not precise when the dating was carried out is false and should not be taken into consideration.
The interpretative diagram above corresponds roughly to the dates that were put in place from data taken on the materials, some of which came from a conversation I had with the professor Th. Shaw on this subject at the congress of UISPP in September 1976 in Nice.
However the excavation of a Senegalese tumulus 25 km from Kaolack (Ndalane) has revealed facts that were judged as abberations by their discoverer G. Thilmans, IFAN, Dakar (cf. C. A. Diop, "Datations par la méthode du radiocarbone, série III", Bulletin de l’IFAN, t. XXXIV, série B, n° 4, 1972, pp. 678-701. Voir p. 690 DaK-110 et DaK-111.]
The dating that was come across by Daka and Gif-sur-Yvette, in the conditions chosen by the researcher, of charcoal collected from the location, 330 cm deep, gave the following results:
DaK-110 = 4811 +/- 137 BP that is 2861 +/- 137 BC
GIF-2508 = 4770 +/- 115 BP that is 2820 +/- 115 BC
results that are even more significant if one takes into consideration that Mrs. Delibrias, at Gif, did not know about the measurements I had obtained.
However, it is important to emphasize that an iron and copper tool was extracted from that tumulus that is associated to the end of the Neolithic, that was of Capsian tradition. The difficulty came at first from the fact that it would be unseemly to date this material to such a distant time in the past.
Even though dating via thermoluminescence techniques is still semi-imperical [28], it would be interesting to use it to test the tailpipes of Nok and the pottery from the Ndalane tumulus; this would permit to rapidly answer the question.
Finally, the dates that we established for M. Roset, unfortunately in very bad conditions for taking measurement, something he admitted, if they are confirmed, will take the date of iron in the southern Sahara from the 5th century B.C. to the 10th century B.C. 'in the Termit mountain range'.
DaK-145 = 2628 +/- 120 BP that is 678 BC
DaK-147 = 2924 +/- 120 BP that is 974 BC
DaK-148 = 1747 +/- 110 BP that is 203 AD"
The above dates indicate that we can perhaps go back to the question of the iron age in black Africa. [29]
Since then, new research has been undertaken in different regions and new dates have been provided.
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The above dates indicate that we can perhaps go back to the question of the iron age in black Africa. [29]
Since then, new research has been undertaken in different regions and new dates have been provided.
In fact, in the western part of the Nok region, at Taruga, supplementary dates have been obtained, the oldest dating back to the 9th century BC. [30] In the north of this region, in the Termit mountain range, in oriental Niger, the abundant traces of ancient iron metallurgy (furnaces, scoria, hearths [from blast furnaces], diverse objects) has permitted J.P. Roset and G. Quechon to date four charcoal samples in the IFAN laboratory in Dakar (C.A. Diop), that we have just seen. The results were published in 1974 in the notebooks of ORSTOM [31]. The most ancient date goes back to 974 BC around the iron age of the western portion of the Termit mountain range [32]. Something that few people judged as plausible. But following new digs carried out by G. Quechon, other dates were provided by two laboratories at the University of Paris (J.Ch. Fontes and J.F Saliege). Again not only were the previous dates confirmed, but the iron age was moved back to the second millenium BC, before 1350 [33]. Such dates of course exclude the North African origin of iron metallurgy in western sub-Saharan Africa, but instead confirm the correct reasoning of H. Lhote.
All of this didn't keep C. Coquery-Vidrovitch from writing even in 1993 that the Nok civilisation learned iron technology 'from Carthaginian influences', through an intermediary in the central Sahara [34], a statement confirmed rather than refuted by the following sentence pertaining to metallurgy in West Africa:
'the dates and the style of the ovens were more ancient than the iron industry in Meroe, and one can conclude that the technology was either indigenous or more probably dispersed from Punic North Africa' [35] (emphasis ours).
Beyond that, in the Journal des Africanistes (62, 2, 1992 : pp. 55-68 ), in collaboration with F. Paris, A. Person et J.F. Saliège, Gérard Quéchon wrote:
'... in the Egaro region (West Termit), two pots coming from the sites contained iron objects, which provided even more ancient dates: 2520 and 1675 BC and even 2900-2300 BC in one case. These dates were obtained in good, laboratory conditions (Saliege, Lodyc, University of Paris and M. Curie) as well as in the field (Paris excavation and Quechon, 1986)'. (emphasis ours)
'The probability of the calibrated age in this time range is 95% (confidence range 2a). The calibration table used is that of Klein et al. 1982' [36].
Of course of the authors publish these two dates "with all reservation" and "are waiting confirmation through other results", but homing in on the date obtained at Ndalane (Senegal) is imposing itself (cf. the above publication by C. A. Diop, in Notes Africaines, n°152, October 1976, IFAN, Dakar), as well as the re-examination of the lower layers at Nok and neighbouring sites.
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In the work, otherwise clear, precise and well-documented of Marianne Cornevin, which usually restores the history of research, the pertinent arguments of H. Lhote (1952) is completely ignored as well as the article by C.A. Diop cited above (1976) and mine as well (1968). The suggestion of the independant invention of iron metallurgy in the south of the Sahara has put into question 'the carthaginian theory' that was presented back in 1985, with an article by D.W. Phillipson in African Archaeology! (p. 119)
In his contribution to Métallurgies Africaines [37], entitled 'Les métallurgies du cuivre et du fer autour d’Agadez...', D. Grebenart indicates that the ancient iron age is represented by forty different sites located on the southern side of the Tigidit cliff (p.114). 'It started around 500 B.C. and seemed to have had a southern origin' (p.110) (emphasis ours). Since then, he has found even older dates (9th century).
In North Cameroon, A. Marliac obtained 700 B.C. for the iron age in the bottom layer [38]. He will have to dig even more deeply. In Gabon, the iron age started around 600 B.C. [39], or perhaps even earlier.
'In Gabon in the middle valley of Ogoue, founders [workmen] were present since ca 2600 BP in a timely fashion and on isolated sites at Otoumbi (2 640 /- 70 and 2 400 +/- 50 BP) and at Lope 10 (2 310 /-70 BP); they don't leave any traces of ceramics (Oslisly 1992a). Later on the founders appear at Moanda in the High Ogoue ca 2300 - 2100 BP (Schmidt et al 1985), near Oyem ca 2 280 BP (Clist 1989) and in the east of the Makokou country ca 2 150 (BP) (Peyrot and Oslisly 1987).'
The authors also indicate that,
'on the banks of the middle valley of Ogoue, around 2 300 - 2 200 BP we see a net expansion of founders of Okandian tradition identified on the Otoumbi 2 ( 2 260 +/- 120 BP) and Okanda (2110 /- 70 BP) sites, which will largely take over areas between savannah enclaves of the Lope/Okanda reservation (Okanda and Lindili sites) up until ca 1 900 - 1 800 BP'.
If we go into central-oriental Africa or 'interlacustre', the work of Marie Claude van Grunderbeek, Emile Roche and Hugues Doutrelepont has revealed 'very ancient traces' of iron metallurgy [40]. The dates obtained at Burundi (ca 1 230 B.C. at the Rwiyange I site, ca 1 210 B.C. at the Mubuga V site) were put into perspective with dates taken from sites located near the banks of Lake Victoria: ca 1470, ca 1250 and ca 1080 B.C. (at Katuruka, southern bank of the lake). In other words, it is during the 13th century B.C. and perhaps the 15th when the iron age started in thsis region. This is how the authors concluded:
'Seeing the great age of certain of the dates, the hypotheses provided about the propagation of iron technology in interlacustre African need to be reconsidered.'
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Contrary to the theories supported by M. Guthrie and J.H. Greenberg (and generally thought of as correct), F. van Noten thinks that iron working knowledge is not linked to a 'Bantu expansion' because:
'It has been noticed that, comparatively, in the Bantu languages, the words dealing with metallurgy are very diverse for the vocabulary designating the forge.' [41]
'However,' he continues, 'several reconstructions allow one to think of an iron usage at the proto-Bantu level, likes forges, hammer and bellow... Finally, other metallurgical words appear to have an identical origin with Bantu and non-Bantu languages.... it is difficult to tell if the 'Bantus' worked iron before their expansion, we can't find any linguistic evidence'.
'In the absence of writing, archaeological reconstructions don't allow one to establish direct correlations between the documentation of the iron age and the linguistic notions of the Bantu' [42].
Th. Obenga [43] reminds us that several African peoples designate iron 'by the same metaphore as the Egyptian clans': metal of the sky. This asks again, at the same time, the question on the origin of iron in Pharaonic Egypt and in Nubia in comparison to iron in east, west and central Africa.
On this subject C.A. Diop wrote:
'Iron ore use, contrary to the use of meteoritic iron was affirmed to have existed 2 600 BC in Egypt, by several soft iron samples [44]; we have never come to the conclusions of such an important discovery. However, cast-iron using an alloy of iron and carbon containing approximately 6% carbon; makes it brittle. Soft iron, or pure, is theoretically void of carbon, which explains its malleability. We go from cast-iron to soft iron by progressive extraction of carbon from the special alloy in the casting process; during this process of reducing the carbon content, we go from all intermediary concentrations of carbon in the iron, corresponding to the different varieties of cast-iron, to steel: steel is but an alloy of iron and a carbon content of less than 0,85%' [45].
'So those who have made soft iron have passed by steel; that is the case of the Egyptians of the pyramids, and such is the case of the black African smith. It is important to distinguish between two types of smiths:
He who produces cast-iron from a blast furnace and whose task stops there; he is the producer of pig iron: wen bu nuul (in Walaf) [46]. That is the metallurgist smith.
The refining smith who, by reheating and appropriate hammering of the cast-iron, reduces the carbon just up to the right amount corresponding to whether he wants steel or iron; his work is equivalent to that which occurs in a Bessemer converter, where one reduces cast-iron into steel. Steel never comes out of a blast furnace, it would be too wonderful; it is the work of the refining smith.'
'So, taking into consideration the processes of making iron, it would be absurd to say that the Africans did not know about steel and that they only knew how to make soft iron; those who can do the least can do the most; those who made soft iron knew when to stop the reduction process to make steel; if they could make 'hard' iron or soft iron, it was all dependant on what the domestic uses would be. The technical performance is thus more involved when producing pure iron than in the production of steel: today, specialists lose themselves in conjectures before two samples of pure iron (from more recent time periods than the iron of the pyramids) found in India and China. How can you explain for one time period such a power of reduction that gives completely pure iron?'
'How long ago does the iron age go back in Africa?'
Reuniting the elements allows us to put the question of the iron age in black Africa forth in the very near future.
The skill involved in iron metallurgy shown by the Egyptians around 2 600 B.C. has been affirmed; at this time, iron was not yet available from the Orient, and Egypt had no iron ore, which leads us to believe that it came from Nubia and the rest of black Africa. Since the Old Kingdom, the Egyptians were used to installing factories to derive primary materials from the ground in the region of Nubia and the country of Kush. Thus luxury furniture was made at the heart of black Africa. The same procedure was probably used in the treatment of iron ore at a very ancient date that still needs to be determined. It is not until research is further advanced that we will know, whether Egypt and the depth of Africa that influenced each other. This provides, in our eyes, an increase in interest in several important discoveries, the interpretation of which has disappeared (Lepsius, Denkmäler aus Aegypten und Aethiopien, Dritte ABTEILUNG, BI 117)" [47].
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Concerning Nubia, one must distinguish between the Northern region, between the first and fourth cataract, and the region located south of the fifth cataract. In the review Meroïtic Studies, Meroïtica 6, S. 17-18, Berlin 1982, Peter L. Shinnie et François J. Kense (Calgary) published an important article entitled: 'Meroitic Iron Working', which showed that the presence of iron objects dating back to the 18th dynasty (1580-1320 B.C.) was sporadic.
'They are not necessarily proof that iron was being smelted in Egypt and it may have come from western Asia in lingot form and have been forged into objects of use or ritual in Egypt', they mentioned without realizing that it could have come just as well from central Sudan (Termit). In Nubia, 'a few iron objects were found in royal tombs from at least the time of Taharqa' (p. 20), that is to say at the beginning of the 7th century BC (the Nepata region upstream of the fifth and sixth cataract). At Meroe (between the fifth and sixth cataract)
'The earliest fragment of slag from iron smelting was found in a level which carbon 14 dates suggest is to be dated somewhere in the late sixth century BC'.
But the technique revealed by the furnaces and bellows is different from that which was practiced in Egypt. Unless new sites come about that haven't yet been discovered, or haven't yet been dug deeply enough, or older traces of iron metallurgy in Nubia, in the actual state of current research, Meroe can no longer be considered the centre of the propagation of iron across Africa, because in interlacustrine East Africa and in West Africa has been dated back to the 13th to 15th century B.C., that is six to seven hundred years before it existed in Nubia, without even invoking the sites of Nok, Ndalane, and the even more ancient dates of the Termit mountain range (3rd millenium B.C.). In fact, each region has its own particular furnaces and bellows (cf. addendum). However, in the first centuries of our era, those of Meroe are, according to R.F. Tylecote (London), similar to those used by the Romans [48]. But during a recent academic defence on the thesis devoted to central African furnaces (the nature of the quality of the iron ore, the use for which the iron coming out of the furnace was intended...), it was noted that the founding smiths changed their furnaces and their procedures depending on the circumstances and needs. In these conditions it is difficult to assign types of furnaces in tight categories. Depending on the uses the types and origins of each type changed. The criteria for classification is thus very complex.
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We still don't know where iron metallurgy started in Africa. But its technique managed to expand from neighbour to neighbour, without massive migrations of people.
S. Lwanga-Lunyiigo (Uganda), co-author of chapter 6 of volume III of the General History of Africa (Unesco 1990), showed his opinion in these terms (pp. 186-187):
'Supporting my conclusions on archaeological proof, I have recently come up with the hypothesis that the Bantu language populations occupied since ancient times a large band of territory going from the Great Lakes region of East Africa to the Atlantic shore of Zaire, and that their supposed migration from West Africa to central, eastern and southern Africa never took place.'
The known facts indicate that people of negroid features occupied sub-Saharan Africa since the middle of the stone age and the populations of Bantu speakers came from this negroid lines. It is possible that the Bantu languages developed thanks to interaction with primitive black collectives, borrowing heavily from each other and that culminated in the appearance of new Bantu languages based off of various linguistic almagamations. This does not eliminate though the genetic factor that demonstrates the unique origin of the populations connected linguistically, but underlines that the genetic factor put forth by the linguists to explain the origin or origins of the Bantu is not in any way exclusive.
The archaeological traces show the presence in sub-Saharan Africa of several settlements of primitive blacks in many areas... In west Africa, the most ancient proof of the black presence come from Iwo Eleru in western Nigeria, where a 'proto-black' skull was exhumed, dating back to the 10th millenium (-9250) BC.
I agree with this reasoning. It is corroborated further by the linguistic considerations of F. van Noten and Th. Obenga, as described above.
In Zambia, iron is present at least since the beginning of the Christian era. In South Africa (southern bank of Limpopo) iron metallurgy is proven to have existed since the 3rd century A.D.
The very presence of the iron industry which developed in sub-Saharan Africa, in parallel to that of stone and other metals (copper, gold, tin, bronze...) implies, in passing, at a relatively large population. Trade already existed in black Africa at this epoque (cf. the expeditions of the Egyptian caravan leader Herkouf, already mentioned at the end of the 4th dynasty, around 2400 B.C.). Also, 'a certain number of objects found in digs show that, since the ancient iron age, there existed vast networks of trade' [49]. F. van Noten noted that trade was 'in principle limited' to the areas closest to large rivers, because those sites that were located too far away from the river axes or from the interlacustre region yielded very little in the way of imported objects.
Posts: 8014 | From: the Tekrur in the Western Sahel | Registered: Feb 2006
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You have introduced many profound topics. Most of those topics can be looked at from various directions and all these topics really belong to a complete African system. Think HOLISTICALLY.
Red Ochre which is the dye that African Rock Art paints come from:
Word origin: The name "Red Ochre" comes from Greek ochros = yellow, pale yellow.
Chemical name: Anhydrous iron(III)-oxide
It comes from IRON!
The oldest known red ochre mine come from southern Africa.
from:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_ochre The oldest evidence of mining activity, at the "Lion Cave" in Swaziland, is a 43,000 year old ochre mine. This is the world's oldest mine period!
A better article:
At Lion Cave in Swaziland, ancient miners cut a tunnel 25 feet wide, 30 feet deep, and 20 ft high. This tunnel was cut into a cliff face 500 feet tall. This is apparently the oldest known mining operation. The activity has been securely dated to go back at least 43,000 years by carbon 14 and probably goes back even further to 70-110,000 years ago.(Dart and Beaumont, 1971, p. 10; Bednarik, 1992, p. 15; Dart and Beaumont, 1967; Vermeersch and Paulissen, 1989, p. 36). Apparently, the mining was terminated when a 5-ton boulder fell from the roof of the tunnel and blocked the entrance. (Dart and Beaumont, 1967, p. 408)
In the case of this mine, it is even known where the ancient miners "mined" their tools. Dart and Beaumont (1967,p. 408) write:
"Quartz, white quartzites, grey and white dappled quartzite, black indurated shales and greenish cherts were the principal materials used by the miners. These rock types occur mostly on a ridge overlooked by, and about 0.25 miles from, the cavern. The exposures there are patently flaked. Dappled grey and white quartzite exposures occur about a mile and more northwest of the site."
Since some like Hugh Ross (1995b) believe that archaic humans were merely an intelligent mammalian species, like the primates, it is important to realize that there are significant differences between what we know from activities at Lion Cave and the activities of chimpanzees. The distance the mining tools were carried is, by far, a greater distance than chimpanzees carry tools. Boesch and Boesch (1984, p. 162) tabulate the distances tools were carried by chimpanzees to crack open nuts to obtain food. 96 percent of the tools were obtained within 200 m of the nut tree. In the mining case, the miners had to have in mind the red ochre back at Lion Cavern a quarter mile away while they spent time manufacturing tools appropriate to the task of breaking the hard, hematite ore. Then they had to remember the ore while they hauled the newly made tools back to the mine for use. And when the tool broke and a new one was required, the miner must remember where the tool mine was, travel there with the idea in mind to make a new tool. In contrast, chimpanzees may remember where rocks suitable for cracking nuts are, but they do not travel so far nor engage in such complex behavior in order to fashion the tool. (In the case of nut cracking, they engage in absolutely no manufacturing work but use the stones as they are found).
The interesting thing about this mine is what was being mined. The ancient peoples were not mining flint, which would be considered useful for obtaining food. Lion cave is a pigment mine. They were mining red ochre, a pigment used by primitive peoples as body paint for their rituals. The amount of material moved is quite impressive. In the literature, I have heard estimates of 50-100 tons. But if the entire cavern carved out by the miners was hematite, I calculate that nearly 2700 tons of material was removed from this site. This is an incredible amount of material for paleolithic man to have removed from the site. Obviously, red ochre was an important item. What was it used for?
Dickson gives a history of the use of red ochre. He writes (Dickson, 1990, pp 42-43):
"Specimens of ochre have been reported from some of the oldest occupation or activity sites known from the Lower Paleolithic period in the Old World, including Bed II at Olduvai Gorge in Tanzania, Ambrona in Spain, Terra Amata in France, and Becov in Czechoslovakia. The use of ochre apparently increases during the Middle Paleolithic period in the Mousterian tradition and becomes common in the Upper Paleolithic period. "Ochre has no apparent practical or technological use until the development of iron metallurgy sometime in the second millennium before Christ when it becomes a principal ore for iron smelting. Nonetheless, many of the Paleolithic period ochre specimens show evidence of having been worked or utilized in some fashion. For example, the two lumps of ochre recovered at Olduvai Gorge show signs of having been struck directly by hammerstone blows (M. Leakey 1971). Howell (1965:129) states that the ochre specimen recovered at Ambrona showed evidence of shaping and trimming, although Butzer (1980:635) asserts this may only be natural cleavage. Still the ochre comes from the same horizon as the famous linear arrangement of elephant tusks and bones and was probably brought to the site by the hominids who are thought to have killed and butchered elephants there. "At Terra Amata, which was occupied around 300,000 B.P., de Lumley (1969:49) reports a number of ochre specimens recovered from the two occupation layers associated with the pole structures uncovered at the site. Specimens of red, yellow, and brown were recovered and the range of color variations suggests the ochre may have been heated. De Lumley also reports that the ends of some of the specimens were worn smooth suggesting they had been used in body painting. "Clearer evidence of ochre use comes from Becov in Czechoslovakia. This cave site, occupied ca.250,000 B. P., yielded a specimen of red ochre that was striated on two faces with marks of abrasion together with a flat rubbing stone with a granular crystalline surface that had been abraded in the center possibly during the preparation of ochre powder (Marshack 1981: 138). Whether or not the rubbing stone was actually used in the preparation of ochre powder is uncertain, but a wide area of the occupation floor from which the ochre lump had been recovered was stained with red ochre powder."
Why was pigment so important to people 70-80,000 and years ago that they would begin the massive mining operation? Why would they heat it to alter its color as Dickson suggests? If archaic Homo sapiens, Neanderthals and Homo erectus were simply intelligent mammals lacking a religion (as Hugh Ross suggests [Ross, 1991, p. 159-160; 1995, p. 2]) then why all the interest in carrying around useless ochre? There can only be one reason. Since ochre (mineral: specularite, Fe2O3) can not be eaten nor used for any utilitarian purpose in a primitive society, art and ritual are the only remaining possibilities. The active mining of ochre for the past 80,000 years is highly indicative of a religious or spiritual sense for that entire time. The occurrence of ochre in Homo erectus sites as far back as 1.5 million years ago, would also argue for ritual among them. This red ochre mine is highly indicative of the ritual and spiritual lives of those who lived between 50 and 100 thousand years ago.
But this may not be the earliest evidence of a desire for pigment. The earliest evidence of a red pigment, a weathered basalt which when rubbed produces red powder, came from Bed II at Olduvai, dated at 1.7 million years ago (Oakley, 1981, p. 206-207)
Neanderthals, by everyone's admission, used ochre and manganese dioxide (a black pigment) to color something. Mellars (1996,p. 370) writes:
Posts: 1115 | From: GOD Bless the USA | Registered: May 2006
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Yes, many of us learned of the mine in Swaziland way back in the mid-70's when Doc Ben photo-statted a newspaper article about in in his book Black Man of the Nile.
The topic here however is iron metallurgical processing, something a tad different than mining and the production of pigments. Your contributions of 22 June were important additions to the study of metallurgy in Africa and I thank you for them.
Posts: 8014 | From: the Tekrur in the Western Sahel | Registered: Feb 2006
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You have done as much as you can do with this topic and have surpassed all of the English language articles on African Iron production on the Web and in print. This is not right.
The Egyptsearch articles contributors are on the vanguard of practically every topic.
Posts: 1115 | From: GOD Bless the USA | Registered: May 2006
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Amazing! Neither a GOOGLE nor a YAHOO! search yields a hit for this thread when using the keys site:egyptsearch.com altakruri metallurgy.
Now I wonder why is that?
Luckily I saved the page to my hard drive then found it online based on the last post date in my saved copy.
Posts: 8014 | From: the Tekrur in the Western Sahel | Registered: Feb 2006
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I also read somewhere the Berbers are thought to have spread metallurgy throughout West Africa, particularly Nigeria, where metallurgy is well known due to people like the Nok, Yoruba, Igbo, and Edo. It seems like anything in Africa that black people have done it had to have been taught to them from somewhere else. Posts: 603 | From: Mobile, Alabama | Registered: Jan 2007
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Why you hatin on "Berbers" most of whom are blacks except out-liners who are mostly on the coast.
Posts: 6546 | From: japan | Registered: Feb 2009
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“Modelling Early Metallurgy: Old and New World Perspectives”
SAA 2008
Early West African Metallurgies: Glosses, Facts, and Fictions
Augustin F.C. Holl
Abstract The debate on West African metallurgies cannot be properly understood without reference to the Colonial template that featured Africa as the receiving partner in all crucial social, economic, and technological development. The interesting debate that took place in West Africa during the Colonial period was more meta-theoretical than factual. These conflicting glosses, despite their lack of empirical foundations, have constrained the nature of the archaeological research and oversimplified the main tenets of the many facets of technological innovation. The relative boom of archaeological research that took place from the 1960s’ onwards resulted in an exponential growth of factual information. Paradoxically however, a number of scholars are unwilling to pay any attention to new data. This paper outlines the positions of some of these scholars, discusses their logical consistency in the light of increasingly challenging evidence from Niger, Nigeria, Burkina Faso, Cameroon, Central African Republic, Gabon, Togo, and Senegal. The picture that emerges from this survey calls for more complex and elaborate explanations than a single non-African source.
Conclusion Empirical evidence pertaining to ancient West African metallurgies strongly supports an early development of metallurgical systems for the production of copper and iron artifacts. The extreme variability of early copper furnaces from Niger is a serious impediment to typological classification. Such diversity takes on a totally different meaning and is better explained by a long period of low production intensity that was part of a long trial and error sequence. Once the techniques were mastered, a system of transmission of knowledge based on apprenticeship was developed. Such a system can explain the overall similarities of the smelting furnaces from the later part of the Niger copper and ensuing early to later iron metallurgy. The earliest metal artifacts were confined to two major categories, weaponry and personal adornment. These early metal objects were more likely items of social distinction, geared to support or enhance individuals’ prestige and status. The manufacture of tools for production purposes was a much later development. African metallurgies did not emerge from the explicit imperative of boosting the production of food. As is the case for the emergence of Modern Humans debate, a number of Africanist archaeologists stick to a dogmatic 500 BC date for the advent of iron metallurgy in Africa despite the huge amount of falsifying evidence (Bocoum 2002, 2006, Bisson et al 2000). For these scholars, Africa and Africans have always been at the “receiving end” and will never shift to the “giving end” despite strong supporting evidence.
Posts: 2007 | From: Washington State | Registered: Oct 2006
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I don't know that most living "Berbers" are blacks. Nor do I know the darkest of the Kel Tamasheq align with blacks.
What I do know is MY thread is about metallurgy and I want it to stay on that topic alone and not be another banal black n white chit chat. Take it elsewhere.
Thank you.
PS -- I appreciate Ebony pointing out the past historiographic myth that misappropriated Gnawa talent to Imazighen as one of the things related in the article.
Posts: 8014 | From: the Tekrur in the Western Sahel | Registered: Feb 2006
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UBBFriend: Email this page to someone!
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hopefully that'll change in the near future.
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