UNESCO Ancient Civilizations of Africa (Editor G. Mokhtar)

Introduction to the later prehistory of sub-Saharan Africa
has even suggested that the flying gallop attitude of the horses has links
with the Aegean area. Connah 36 has postulated that as iron working is late,
around +500 at Daima, near Lake Chad, which is situated on the
likely corridor route from the Nile valley, iron must have come from the
north; otherwise one would expect to find evidence of iron technology
earlier in the Chad area than in the Jos area. Other relatively early
dates for iron working come from Ghana, Hani (+80) and Senegal. It
is just as possible, of course, to suggest that iron working could have come
from North Africa via Mauretania in the trail of the copper workers and
spread along the Sudanic belt westwards and southwards, though in that
case the dates should be earlier in Senegal and Mauretania than in Nigeria.
It is of course possible to suggest multiple lines of influence bringing iron
working to tropical Africa with a line to Mauretania from the Maghreb,
another across the Sahara to Nigeria and a third one across the Red Sea
to Ethiopia, as well as others via the east coast from the Red Sea area,
India or south-east Asia to East Africa.
The suggestion has recently been made that iron working may have
developed indigenously in Africa. A strong proponent of this view is
C. A. Diop 37 who is supported by Dr Wai Andah in Chapter 24 of the
present volume. The main argument in favour of indigenous development
is that for far too long archaeologists have looked for evidence of iron
working based on the Mediterranean model whereas iron in Africa may
have been worked rather differently. Iron smelting requires high temperatures
(up to ii50°C to turn the ore into a bloom compared to noo°C
for the actual melting-point of copper), and it also requires a knowledge
of the chemistry in so far as iron is the result of carbon and oxygen to the
ores being smelted. Those who argue in favour of a single origin for
iron working adduce evidence that this specialized knowledge developed
as a result of experience in copper and in the kiln firing of pottery. They
further argue that chronology is on their side in that there is abundant
evidence for iron working in Anatolia in the early second millennium before
our era, whereas it is scarce outside western Asia until the turn of the first
millennium before our era. The proponents of the indigenous development
theory, however, argue that knowledge of smelting could have been
obtained through the experience of pot firingin pits and that the surface
lateritic ores of Africa were easier to work than the hard rock ores of the
Middle East. It is further suggested that as many of the early sites for iron
technology in West Africa, such as those associated with the Nok culture
or in Upper Volta, are associated with stone tools then the possibility must
remain open that iron working took place in predominantly late stone age
contexts.
The apparently recent kilns which are now being investigated in the
36. G. Connah, 1969a, pp. 30-62.
37. C. A. Diop, 1968, pp. 10-38.
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