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Did They or Didn't They Invent It? Iron in Sub-Saharan Africa

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  09 May 2014

Stanley B. Alpern
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Extract

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.” 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.”

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 proposed transmission channels [from the north].” The American archeologist Peter R. Schmidt tells us “the hypothesis for independent invention is currently the most viable among the multitude of diffusionist hypotheses.”

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.” The American linguist Christopher Ehret says

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.

Type
Research Article
Information
History in Africa , Volume 32 , 2005 , pp. 41 - 94
Copyright
Copyright © African Studies Association 2005

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References

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20 Barzel is still the word for iron in Hebrew.

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23 Mauny, Raymond, “Autour de l'historique de l'introduction du fer en Afrique occidentale,” Encyclopédie Mensuelle d'Outre-Mer, III, fascicule 32 (April 1953), 109–10Google Scholar.

24 Mauny died in 1994 but appears to have stopped writing by 1978.

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36 Keesmann, Ingo, “Untersuchungen zur Metallurgie im archaischen und punischen Karthago,” Meditarch, 99, 102, 108Google Scholar (I am grateful to Hans Friedrich Tomaschek for translating this article). (Meditarch, 14, is dated 2001 but came out in December 2002.) Keesmann clarified certain points in a personal communication, 3 April 2003. British archeologists working in the old harbor area of Punic Carthage in the late 1970s found evidence of ironworking in what seemed to have been an industrial area. R.F. Tylecote examined the finds, said smithing was involved, and dated the objects to ca. 350-250 BCE. Niemeyer, Hans Georg, “Archaeological Evidence of Early Iron Technology at Carthage and Other Phoenician Settlements,” Meditarch, 86, 91Google Scholar. Lancel speculated that magnetite iron ore was brought to Carthage by sea from the Annaba (ex-Bône) area in present-day Algeria, a distance of about 150 nautical miles. Lancel, , Byrsa II, 233–34Google Scholar; idem, Colline de Byrsa, 18-19.

37 In a personal communication of 8 February 2004, archeometallurgist David Killick questioned Keesmann's interpretation, saying he has found “no unambiguous mineralogical distinction between smelting and smithing slags” in Africa.

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42 Grébénart, Danilo, “Les métallurgies du cuivre et du fer autour d'Agadez (Niger), des origines au début de la période médiévale” in Echard, Nicole, ed., Métallurgies africaines: Nouvelles contributions (Paris, 1983), 115–16Google Scholar; idem, “Characteristics of the Final Neolithic and Metal Ages in the Region of Agadez (Niger)” in Angela E. Close, ed., Prehistory of Arid North Africa: Essays in Honor of Fred Wendorf (Dallas, 1987), 313; idem, Les premiers métallurgistes en Afrique occidentale (Paris, 1988), 253; idem, “Les premiers métaux en Afrique de l'Ouest” in Jean-Pierre Leroy, ed., La préhistoire de l'Afrique de l'Ouest: nouvelles données sur la période récente (Saint-Maur, 1996), 82.

43 Naffé, Baouba ould Mohamed, Vernet, Robert, and Khattar, Mohamed ould, “Archéologie de la Mauritanie” in Vernet, Robert, ed., Archéologie en Afrique de l'Ouest: Sahara et Sahel (Saint-Maur, 2000), 162Google Scholar.

44 Mauny, , Siècles obscurs, 69Google Scholar; idem, “Western Sudan,” 83-84.

45 Mauny, , “Trans-Saharan Contacts,” 280–81Google Scholar. Mauny's hesitancy over using the “routes des chars” in his iron technology-transmission theory and his continuous use of quotes when referring to them suggests he was never fully satisfied with the concept of “roads.”

46 Lhote, Henri, Les chars rupestres sahariens des Syrtes au Niger, par le pays des Garamantes et des Atlantes (Paris, 1982), 48, 62Google Scholar. See also Lhote, , “Les chars rupestres du Sahara et leurs rapports avec le peuplement dans les temps protohistoriques” in Camps, Gabriel and Gast, Marceau, eds., Les chars préhistoriques du Sahara: Archéologie et techniques d'attelage (Aix-en-Provence, 1982), 23, 25Google Scholar.

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58 They are also called Libyo-Berbers, Libyan Berbers, paleo-Berbers, proto-Berbers, or simply Berbers or Libyans. “Libyco-Berbers” has been used as well for people who moved into the western Sahara.

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63 Iwelen means potsherds in the Tuareg language.

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140 Ibid, 138-39.

141 Bernard Clist, personal communication, 10 October 2004; idem, “Des premiers villages aux premiers Européens: Quatre millénaires d'interactions entre l'homme et son milieu autour de l'estuaire du Gabon” (Doctorat, Université Libre de Bruxelles, 2005),769, 771-72, 781.

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166 Mauny, Raymond, “Datation au C-14 de sites ouest africains de l'âge du fer” in Hugot, Henri J., ed., Actes du VIe Congrès Panafricain de Préhistoire et d'Etudes du Quaternaire (Dakar, 1967), (Chambéry, 1972), 533Google Scholar. See also McIntosh, /McIntosh, , “West African Prehistory,” 609Google Scholar; idem, “Stone to Metal,” 103; Phillipson, , African Archaeology, 159Google Scholar.

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191 Ibid., 256.

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193 Holl, , “Metals,” 9Google Scholar.

194 Herbert, Eugenia W., “African Metallurgy: The Historian's Dilemma,” Meditarch, 42Google Scholar.

195 Holl, , “Metals,” 9Google Scholar; Schmidt, , “Culture and Technology,” 8Google Scholar.

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197 Quéchon, , “Datations,” Meditarch, 253Google Scholar; idem, “Datations” in Bocoum, Origines, 114. These quotes come from the last sentence of what were otherwise almost identical articles. It would appear the change was made to cater to a UNESCO audience.

198 Bocoum, Hamady, “Introduction généralé” in Bocoum, , Origines, 11Google Scholar.

199 De Maret, , “Afrique centrale,” 131Google Scholar.

200 Schmidt, , Iron Technology, 4, 5, 8Google Scholar.

201 Woodhouse, , “Iron in Africa,” 170Google Scholar. See also Holl, , “Metals,” 16Google Scholar.

202 Vansina, , “Historians,” 383–84Google Scholar.

203 Marianne Cornevin is a well-known French archeologist whose opinion on independent invention shifted from “probable” in 1986 (“New Data,” 111) to “possible” in 1993 (Archéologie africaine, 122). French prehistorian Robert Vernet, a Niger specialist like Grébénart, Haour and Roset, allows for “an autonomous center of invention” there but says that “there is no doubt proto-Berbers from North Africa … introduced metal objects … and metallurgical techniques” to the region. Vernet, , Le Sud-ouest du Niger de la Préhistoire au début de l'Histoire (Niamey, 1996), 360Google Scholar.

204 McIntosh, , “Archaeology,” 77–78Google Scholar.

205 Do Dimmi is at 16°25' N, Afunfun 175 at 16°40' N, Walalde at 16°31' N.

206 Goucher, , “Iron Is Iron,” 181–84Google Scholar; Haaland, Randi, “Iron Production, Its Socio-Cultural Context and Ecological Implications” in Haaland, /Shinnie, , African Iron Working, 54–56, 61–64, 66–67, 69–70Google Scholar; Okafor, Edwin Eme, “Eguru Amube Amalla Orba: Blacksmith Clan Among the Orba,” Nyame Akuma no. 32 (December 1989), 26Google Scholar; Kense, François J. and Okoro, John Ako, “Changing Perspectives on Traditional Iron Production in West Africa” in Shaw, et al., Archaeology, 455, 457Google Scholar. See also Rehder, , Mastery and Uses, 149–52, 158–59Google Scholar.

207 Vansina, , “Historians,” 394Google Scholar.

208 Ibid., 395.

209 Kense, /Okoro, , “Changing Perspectives,” 456Google Scholar.

210 Quéchon, , “Datations,” Meditarch, 248Google Scholar; idem, “Datations” in Bocoum, Origines, 106.

211 Tylecote, , “Furnaces,” 21Google Scholar.

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215 Killick, , “What Do We Know,” 110Google Scholar.

216 Iron reached the British Isles no later than the seventh century BCE and was being smelted there by the fifth. See Haselgrove, Colinet al., Understanding the British Iron Age: an Agenda for Action (Salisbury, 2001), 25, and www.biab.co.uk/chronology.asp; www.bbc.co.uk/history/timelines/britain/o_iron_age.shtmlGoogle Scholar.

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217 Cline, Walter, Mining and Metallurgy in Negro Africa (Menasha, 1937), 5Google Scholar.