posted                      

quote:

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Originally posted by Afronut Slayer:
Ah yes! The reinvention of Afrikan history. Don't you love it! What reputable historian is going to co-sign this fabrication besides an Afrocentrist?

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Posts: 13012 | From: Chicago | Registered: Jan 2006  |  IP: Logged | 

posted                      

quote:

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Originally posted by Afronut Slayer:
Ah yes! The reinvention of Afrikan history. Don't you love it!
What reputable historian is going to co-sign this fabrication
besides an Afrocentrist?

---

Posts: 8014 | From: the Tekrur in the Western Sahel | Registered: Feb 2006  |  IP: Logged | 

posted                      

quote:

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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)

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1. 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.” )
   .
2. Eric Huysecom,
   “The Beginning of Iron Metallurgy:
   From Sporadic Inventions to Irreversible Generalizations,”
   Meditarch, 3.
   .
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.
   .
4. 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.
   .
5. Basil Davidson,
   West Africa Before the Colonial Era: A History to 1850
   (London, 1998), 8.
   .
6. 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.
   .
7. Roland Oliver,
   The African Experience
   (New York, 1991), 65.
   .
8. 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.
   .
9. 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.

Posts: 8014 | From: the Tekrur in the Western Sahel | Registered: Feb 2006  |  IP: Logged | 

posted                   

quote:

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Originally posted by alTakruri:
:

STANLEY B. ALPERN
DID THEY OR DIDN’T THEY INVENT IT?
IRON IN SUB-SAHARAN AFRICA
History in Africa, Volume 32, 2005, pp. 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)

1. 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.” )
   .
2. Eric Huysecom,
   “The Beginning of Iron Metallurgy:
   From Sporadic Inventions to Irreversible Generalizations,”
   Meditarch, 3.
   .
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.
   .
4. 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.
   .
5. Basil Davidson,
   West Africa Before the Colonial Era: A History to 1850
   (London, 1998), 8.
   .
6. 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.
   .
7. Roland Oliver,
   The African Experience
   (New York, 1991), 65.
   .
8. 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.
   .
9. 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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Posts: 5905 | From: The Hammer | Registered: Aug 2008  |  IP: Logged | 

posted                   

quote:

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Originally posted by alTakruri:
Please keep this thread clear of unsourced opinionated
posts. Let's not ruin it for surfers seeking info on the
subject header by burying the data under mounds of
obscurant chit chat.

Academic based material, pro or con, as to internal
invention or external diffusion is welcome and solicited.

Thank you all.

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Posts: 2088 | Registered: Feb 2007  |  IP: Logged | 

posted                   

quote:

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So marked has been the work of Negro artisans and traders in the manufacture and exchange of iron implements that a growing number of archeologists are disposed to-day to consider the Negro as the originator of the art of smelting iron. Gabriel de Mortillet (1883) declared Negroes the only iron users among primitive people. Some would, therefore, argue that the Negro learned it from other folk, but Andree declares that the Negro developed his own “Iron Kingdom.”
Schweinfurth, Von Luschan, Boaz, and others incline to the belief that the Negroes invented the smelting of iron and passed it on to the Egyptians and to modern Europe. Boaz says, “It seems likely that at a time when the European was still satisfied with rude stone tools, the African had invented or adopted the art of smelting iron. Consider for a moment what this invention has meant for the advance of the human race. As long as the hammer, knife, saw, drill, the spade, and the hoe had to be chipped out of stone, or had to be made of shell or hard wood, effective industrial work was not impossible, but difficult. A great progress was made when copper found in large nuggets was hammered out into tools and later on shaped by melting, and when bronze was introduced; but the true advancement of industrial life did not begin until the hard iron was discovered. It seems not unlikely that the people who made the marvelous discovery of reducing iron ores by smelting were the African Negroes. Neither ancient Europe, nor ancient western Asia, nor ancient China knew the iron, and everything points to its introduction from Africa. At the time of the great African discoveries toward the end of the past century, the trade of the blacksmith was found all over Africa, from north to south and from east to west. With his simple bellows and a charcoal fire he reduced the ore that is found in many parts of the continent and forged implements of great usefulness and beauty.”44 Torday has argued recently, “I feel convinced by certain arguments that seem to prove to my satisfaction that we are indebted to the Negro for the very keystone of our modern civilization and that we owe him the discovery of iron. That iron could be discovered by accident in Africa seems beyond doubt: if this is so in other parts of the world, I am not competent to say. I will only remind you that Schweinfurth and Petherick record the fact that in the northern part of East Africa smelting furnaces are worked without artificial air current and, on the other hand, Stuhlmann and Kollmann found near Victoria Nyanza that the natives simply mixed powdered ore with charcoal and by introduction of air currents obtained the metal. These simple processes make it simple that iron should have been discovered in East or Central Africa. No bronze implements have ever been found in black Africa; had the Africans received iron from the Egyptians, bronze would have preceded this metal and all traces of it would not have disappeared. Black Africa was for a long time an exporter of iron, and even in the twelfth century exports to India and Java are recorded by Idrisi. “It is difficult to imagine that Egypt should have obtained it from Europe where the oldest find (in Hallstadt) cannot be of an earlier period than 800 B.C., or from Asia, where iron is not known before 1000 B.C., and where, in the times of Ashur Nazir Pal, it was still used concurrently with bronze, while iron beads have been only recently discovered by Messrs. G.A. Wainwright and Bushe Fox in a predynastic grave, and where a piece of this metal, possibly a tool, was found in the masonry of the great pyramid.”45

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Posts: 2642 | Registered: Sep 2007  |  IP: Logged |