The phrase “Iron Age” is both useful and deceptive as a historical indicator. It suggests a dramatic break with what came before and a transformative effect on all that followed. In reality, the use of metals in Africa developed extremely gradually and coexisted with the continuous use of stone tools. In the end, however, the result was revolutionary, fostering not just increased economic output but also increased lethality in conflict.
Iron and other metals have had an equally deep cultural influence, but one that is more diversified and difficult to measure historically. Sub-Saharan Africa has a greater understanding of the history of metallurgy than North Africa. In the Sahel and the areas to the south, it is likely that metals have been mined for over 2,000 years. The producers of these metals and the artifacts they fashioned have played significant roles in the subcontinent’s history.
In several creation myths, the advent of metalworking is seen as a defining moment, while iron, copper, and gold have long played prominently in political, economic, social, and religious life. Africa’s gold reserves were so rich that, for centuries, the continent was synonymous with the precious metal, first in the Arab and Indian Ocean nations, then among Europeans. However, in Africa itself, iron has been the dominant metal in all sectors of life, from the utilitarian to the sacred, while copper has historically been regarded as more valuable than gold in many communities.
Ironworking in Africa: Materials and History
The red soil that characterizes much of Africa south of the Sahara consists of exposed lateritic crust, or low-grade iron. Metallurgists typically mined the richest resources of oxides, including hematite, magnetite, and limonite. Gold, in both alluvial and reef forms, is far more widespread across the continent than is often believed, but not all sources have been exploited.
Copper deposits, on the other hand, are limited in West Africa, with the exception of sections of the southern Sahara in Mauritania and Niger and tiny concentrations in eastern Nigeria, but are abundant in regions of central and southern Africa. Lead occurs sometimes, notably in association with copper; tin was also mined in a few locations, particularly in southern Africa and probably in Nigeria’s Bauchi plateau.
Despite persistent Portuguese notions to the contrary, silver is scarce throughout Africa, and its usage is very recent, with the exception of the Sahara and Sahel. During the time from around 500 BCE to 500 CE, the use of iron and copper evidently expanded simultaneously throughout the whole continent; there is no indication of a progression from copper to arsenical copper or bronze and then to iron, as in the Middle East and Europe.
The subject of origins remains unanswered, in part because the chronology of metalworking in the places from which it was previously believed to have reached Africa is quite imprecise. Some researchers hypothesize that Africa may have evolved metallurgy independently due to the absence of apparent routes of dissemination.
Technically, this would have been challenging because iron smelting requires precise control of temperature and gases within the furnace. It is difficult to imagine how mastery of these factors could have been attained without extensive experimentation with metals that are easier to manipulate, such as copper and its alloys, or without kiln firing of ceramics, which also requires high temperature pyrotechnology.
Early dates related with iron smelting in the Termit area of Niger have nonetheless enhanced the likelihood of independent innovation. If these dates are confirmed, there is still a difficulty in explaining the sporadic spread of this throughout West Africa. Long ago, it was believed that the expansion of metalworking throughout the Congo Basin and into eastern and southern Africa was connected to the movement of Bantu farmers.
Except in southern Africa, modern archeological and language reconstructions have contradicted this notion. Simultaneously, stone-using hunter-gatherers and iron-using farmers coexisted in numerous regions, indicating that the technology spread in complicated patterns. In fact, ironworkers continued to utilize stone tools for crude forging up until quite recently.
Further, the existence of iron technology is no longer seen as the determining factor in Bantu expansion; rather, it is generally recognized that non-Bantu speaking peoples were closely involved in the creation of iron technology even before the Bantu. Iron tools and weapons enhanced the efficacy of agriculture, hunting, fishing, and fighting, contributing to the emergence of complex societies defined by surplus production, craft specialization, and social stratification.
Iron, copper, and gold joined trading routes. Raw iron and copper, as well as forged products, were exchanged locally with individuals who lacked access to resources and experts. Copper and brasswares were important imports into West Africa with the rise of trans-Saharan commerce throughout the first and early second millennia CE, and were frequently swapped directly for gold.
In the second part of the fifteenth century, the opening of maritime channels between Europe and West Africa led to an exponential growth in these imports and, for a brief time, exports of gold. Eventually, iron bars also became a standard European import. The mineral richness of Africa was a primary impetus for European colonization and conquest.
Ironworking in Africa: Technology
As more sites are examined and excavated throughout Africa, the tremendous magnitude of precolonial iron smelting becomes evident. While some industries merely produced enough to meet local demands, others participated in intensive production, frequently over extended time periods.
The Middle Senegal valley, the Bassar region of western Togo, Kano and its surrounds in northern Nigeria, and the Ndop Main of Cameroon are the most well-known of these proto-industrial hubs; however, Futa Jallon and Yatenga may have also been significant producers.
Almost all copper deposits in Sub-Saharan Africa, with the exception of certain deep ores in what became known as the Copperbelt (in Zambia), were discovered and exploited by indigenous metallurgists prior to the colonial period, according to modern geological studies.
African smelters utilized a vast array of furnace types to manufacture bloomery iron or raw copper, including open bowls, low shaft, high shaft, permanent, and temporary furnaces. It is now hard to determine whether the shape of furnaces was determined by the characteristics of local ores or the charcoals employed almost everywhere as fuel.
The tall shaft furnace that depends on natural airflow, sucking air into a multitude of holes around the base, rather than bellows, is a uniquely African innovation; outside of Africa, just one specimen is recorded from Burma. Such a furnace uses fuel inefficiently, but eliminates the labor-intensive efforts of bellows operators.
In certain regions, a single artisan smelted and forged iron and copper. In previous societies, smelters and blacksmiths, as well as those who created tools and ornamentation of copper, brass, or gold, were highly specialized.
In addition, these jobs were and still are frequently inherited, particularly in the western Sudan. However, blacksmiths and smelters were always male, while women and children performed a substantial amount of mining, ore preparation, and charcoal production.
As far south as the Cameroon Grasslands, the skill of lost-wax casting attained a stunning degree of excellence throughout West Africa. This entails constructing a wax model of the thing to be cast, followed by encasing it in clay. When the wax is melted, the metal is poured in to take the desired shape.
Discoveries from three minor sites at Igbo Ukwu in southern Nigeria, dated to the ninth to tenth centuries BCE, contain bronze pendants, staff heads, and jugs that demonstrate a mastery of the technology and a virtuosic joy in imitating natural elements in metal.
African brass casters have added their own innovations to a technique that stretches back to ancient Egypt. Thus, both Akan and Grassfields artists frequently connect crucibles to molds to limit the formation of gases and improve the flow of molten metal.
Despite the fact that conventional lost-wax casting employs copper alloys such as bronze or brass due to their lower melting temperature and higher ductility without undesired gases, some of the iconic heads and figures from Ife were cast in pure copper, a technological marvel of the highest order.
Ironworking in Africa: Role of Metallurgists and Metals in Culture
While much of the literature emphasizes the “otherness” of the African smith, this is most prevalent among West African peoples such as the Mande, where smithing is restricted to certain endogamous “castes,” and pastoral societies such as the Masai, where smiths are looked down upon because they perform manual labor.
Where the skill is not inherited, candidates are sometimes required to pay expensive apprenticeship and initiation fees, which tend to limit entry. Smiths may also be sculptors, diviners, amulet makers, circumcisers, and morticians; their women are frequently potters and circumcisers. The complicated and sometimes ambiguous opinions regarding blacksmiths stem largely from the recognition of their strength.
The rest of society, from farmer and hunter to king and priest, depends on their capacity to change inanimate matter into hoes, spears, symbols of power and prestige, and emblems of the spirit-objects that are thought to be imbued with action. Because metalworkers physically “play with fire,” they must collect a wealth of ceremonial knowledge.
This is particularly true of smelting, the primary act of transformation, which frequently takes place in seclusion and involves making offerings to the ancestors, strictly observing sexual and menstrual taboos, and making extensive use of medications.
Similar rites may accompany the installation of a new forge or the production of a new hammer or anvil. Due to their obvious access to supernatural power, blacksmiths are frequently associated with monarchy, particularly in central Africa, where they may play a significant role in royal investiture and the production of regalia.
Similar to chiefs, smiths are frequently viewed as potential sorcerers or witches, as the power they hold may be either beneficial or harmful.
Smiths, like chiefs, may have power over reproduction, both symbolically and even literally. Particularly, smelting rituals usually cite the human paradigm of gender and age to explain and guarantee transforming potential.
Ironworking in Africa
