UNESCO Ancient Civilizations of Africa (Editor G. Mokhtar)

Ancient Civilizations of Africa
In all three main cultural regions, however, the transition from food
gathering to food growing modified man's attitude towards his natural
environment and his human group in several ways. From being a gatherer,
he became a producer and 'storer', and subsequently (through long-distance
trade) exchanged some of the resources which his neighbours lacked for
commodities which his own group needed. The economic change also
encouraged the development of handicraft activities and new technologies
(ceramics, metal working, etc.) as well as active and complex trading
networks, in addition to more profound social changes. But these social
changes varied in kind and degree according to the type of agricultural
base that was established.
The early iron age
Iron age developments do not seem to have differed» markedly from
Neolithic trends, except that the earliest instances of transition to metal/iron
age in West Africa occurred at both ends of the Sahel/savannah zone rather
than in the forest regions to the south. In this respect, as with early food
production, all the cultural and chronological evidence strongly suggests
that there was much that was indigenous in this venture into metal working.
As set out in detail elsewhere, 40 the evidence about the early iron age
in West Africa may be typologically and to some extent chronologically
and stratigraphically divided into assemblages containing: (i) pottery, iron
and ground stone tools; (ii) pottery, iron and/or other metals, sometimes
in conjunction with special (pot) burial practices; and (iii) pottery alone.
Sites where traces of iron working are mixed with a more or less
flourishing stone industry are usually the oldest types of iron age
assemblage, and probably reflect the transition from stone to iron age.
Sites belonging to such transitional industries have been identified in
several parts of West Africa, as well as elsewhere (e.g. in the Great Lakes
region of East Africa). Such industries generally contain iron slag, knife
blades, fragments of arrow and spearheads, hooks and bracelets, hammerstones,
a variety of axe/adze forms, stone discs (rings), querns and rubber
stones. There are also distinct regional trends. For instance, terracotta
figurines seem to be particularly characteristic of northern Nigeria, but
they also occur in some sites in Ghana. Iron-smelting tuyeres and pieces
of presumed furnace wall are known from northern Nigeria. On the other
hand, crudely flaked biface tools are most characteristic of the Sierra
Leone sites of Kamabai and Yagala. At Rim in Upper Volta such heavy
biface tools together with axe/adzes occur in association with pot burials
and indicate links with the preceding Guinea Neolithic.
Regional variation is also evident in pottery from the early iron age.
For example, Bailloud's 41 sequence from Ennedi of two related styles,
40. B. W. Andah (formerly B. Wai-Ogosu).
41. G. Bailloud, 1969, pp. 31-45.
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