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Skills and Tools
We know from archaeological data that by about
the fifth century after the birth of Christ the skills and technology required
for iron working had spread throughout much of central, eastern and southern
Africa.
It is not known exactly how this transmission of knowledge and expertise took
place, but it is believed to be linked to a mass movement of people across the
continent, known as the 'Bantu migration.' This episode in Africa's past has
often been ignored but its implications for the future development of the continent
is crucial.
Bantu is the word widely used as a description
of a body of people originally based in west or central Africa who, over
the course of three thousand years, moved to populate east and southern
regions.
It's not clear how the Bantu gained their skills in iron working. The great
smelting tradition of the Kushite Kingdom of
Meroe
(around 500 BC) did not spread either further
west or towards the south, although we do not know this for sure.
 Listen
to a dramatisation of geographer Strabo describing Meroe
In West Africa, the knowledge of iron working
may have come from the Phoenicians who in 800 BC founded the colony of Carthage
on the North African coast. The skills may have crossed the Sahara desert with
the Berber nomads who dominated much of the North African plains.
It has also been suggested that iron smelting may have started in Africa itself,
without any outside influences, but so far none of the theories are conclusive.
What we do know is that iron smelting was established in Nigeria, central Niger
and southern Mali by around 500-400 BC, spreading to other parts of West Africa
by 1000 AD.
Iron smelting is a difficult process because the extraction of iron from rock
involves a chemical process. Crushed iron ore and charcoal were placed in furnaces
and lime was added. After several hours of heating, the crude iron was taken
from the furnace and forged into weapons.
Iron Ore is widely available in much of tropical Africa but because iron rusts
easily few examples of implements have survived from the pre-historic period.
Armed with this technology the Bantu then dispersed across Africa.
Listen
to George Abungu, of the National Museum of Kenya on how Africans first developed
tools
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