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[QUOTE]Originally posted by zarahan- aka Enrique Cardova: [QB] [b]Data on iron-working - by Takuri[/b] STANLEY B. ALPERN[/b][i] DID THEY OR DIDN’T THEY INVENT IT? IRON IN SUB-SAHARAN AFRICA[/i] 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… [i][b][URL=http://www.]in favor of those advocating independent invention[/URL][/b][/i]. For [b]Gérard Quéchon[/b], the French archeologist to whom we owe very early dates for iron metallurgy from the Termit Massif in Niger, “[i]indisputably, in the present state of knowledge, the hypothesis of an autochthonous invention is convincing.[/i]” (1) According to [b]Eric Huysecom[/b], a Belgian-born archeologist, “[i][o]ur present knowledge allows us . . . to envisage one or several independent centres of metal innovation in sub-Saharan Africa.[/i]” (2) [b]Hamady Bocoum[/b], a Senegalese archeologist, asserts that “[i]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.[/i]” He thinks that “[i]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].[/i]” (3) The American archeologist [b]Peter R. Schmidt[/b] tells us “[i]the hypothesis for independent invention is currently the most viable among the multitude of diffusionist hypotheses.[/i]” (4) Africanists other than archeologists are in agreement. For [b]Basil Davidson[/b], the foremost popularizer of African history, “[i]African metallurgical skills [were] locally invented and locally developed.[/i]” (5) The American linguist [b]Christopher Ehret[/b] 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)[/QUOTE]The eminent British historian [b]Roland Oliver[/b] thinks that the discovery of iron smelting “[i]could have occurred many times over[/i]” in the world and that African ironworking probably originated in the northern one-third of the continent. (7) The equally eminent Belgian-American historian [b]Jan Vansina[/b] took the rather extreme position that “[i][i]ron smelting began in several places at about the same time,[/i]” naming the - western Great Lakes area, - Gabon, - Termit Massif, - Taruga site in central Nigeria and the - Igbo region in southeastern Nigeria. He maintained that “[i][a] simple dispersal even from Taruga to the Igbo sites not far away is excluded because different types of furnaces were used.[/i]” (8) In the concluding chapter of UNESCO’s recent book on the subject, the Senegalese-born scholar [URL=http://www.]Louise-Marie Maes-Diop[/URL] surveys the beginnings of iron metallurgy worldwide and finds “[i]the earliest vestiges of reduced ore[/i]” in eastern Niger, followed by Egypt. (9) [list=1] [*][b]Gérard Quéchon[/b], “Les datations de la métallurgie du fer à Termit (Niger): leur fiabilité, leur signification” in [b]Hamady Bocoum[/b], ed., [i]Aux origines de la métallurgie du fer en Afrique: une ancienneté méconnue[/i] (Paris, 2002), 114. The same statement is found in an almost identical chapter with the same title by Quéchon in [i]Mediterranean Archaeology[/i] 14 (2001) (hereafter [i]Meditarch[/i]), 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.” ) . [*][b]Eric Huysecom[/b], “The Beginning of Iron Metallurgy: From Sporadic Inventions to Irreversible Generalizations,” [i]Meditarch[/i], 3. . [*][b][URL=http://www.]Hamady Bocoum[/URL][/b], “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 [i]The Origins of Iron Metallurgy in Africa: New Light on Its Antiquity—West and Central Africa.[/i] . [*][b]Peter R. Schmidt[/b], “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. . [*][b]Basil Davidson[/b], West Africa Before the Colonial Era: A History to 1850 (London, 1998), 8. . [*][b]Christopher Ehret[/b], 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. . [*][b]Roland Oliver[/b], The African Experience (New York, 1991), 65. . [*][b]Jan Vansina[/b], “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. . [*][b]Louise-Marie Maes-Diop[/b], “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. [/list] [/QB][/QUOTE]
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