Did Africa Have The First Iron Age?

Stefan Milo
Stefan Milo
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Published 2020-11-28
Did iron working reach sub saharan Africa from the north or did it in fact have the earliest iron age? Oooooh lets see!

thumbnail by Ettore Mazza
instagram.com/ettore.mazza?igshid=ghskv7zocpv2

Thanks to Pete Bensen for helping with recording.

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Sources:
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2. Sanmartí, Joan, et al. “Filling Gaps in the Protohistory of the Eastern Maghreb: The Althiburos Archaeological Project (El Kef, Tunisia).” Journal of African Archaeology, vol. 10, no. 1, 2012, pp. 21–44., www.jstor.org/stable/43135565. Accessed 2 Nov. 2020.
3. Humphris, J., Scheibner, T. A New Radiocarbon Chronology for Ancient Iron Production in the Meroe Region of Sudan. Afr Archaeol Rev 34, 377–413 (2017). doi.org/10.1007/s10437-017-9267-x
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All Comments (21)
  • @joshuastarkloff9602
    Africa of the antiquity is so interesting. Outside of Egypt, Carthage, and Nubia not much is really known for non history nerds
  • @phoule76
    When I get kicked out of the house and have to sleep in the car, I also pretend I just wanted to see the sunrise.
  • @SC-zq6cu
    The problem with iron artifacts is that it becomes very hard very quickly to get well preserved iron samples from older time periods. For example: Bronze artifacts from ~2000 BCE are sometimes better preserved than iron artifacts from ~1200 CE.
  • @bobcharlie2337
    No matter which side of the argument you are on, it's clear that there needs to be research and excavations in Africa. It's really cool to learn more about the iron age on the continent of Africa.
  • @FromNothing
    Amazing content as usual man. Love it alot and perfect compliment to my mapping part of this collaboration.
  • @kiritugeorge4684
    When it comes to Africa, the outside world always comes at it with the highest levels of doubt, skepticism and underestimation, even when Africa produces good evidence on par with other regions of the world.
  • @coffeeabernethy2823
    In science, if you've had an idea, most likely someone else has as well. So it's entirely possible, maybe even likely, that just like calculus, iron working was invented more than once, in more than one place.
  • @edwardgreen4684
    I just couldn't grasp this radio carbon dating time gap issue until I saw that metal horses head with a fairly light tiarra and it all just magically fell into place
  • @jackdelvo2702
    Pottery was the first manmade material. To make pottery you need high heat, a kiln. Mess around with high heat for long enough you notice its effects on various other raw materials besides clay. So where ever pottery is produced given enough time and curiosity metallurgy follows.
  • @ivanclark2275
    You may not like it, but this is what peak archeology looks like
  • @dogons2k12
    << By the late 1960s some surprisingly early radiocarbon dates had been obtained for iron smelting sites in both Niger and central Africa (Rwanda, Burundi), reviving the view that iron-making was independently invented by Africans in sub-Saharan Africa as far back as 3600 BCE>> - Pringle, Heather. "Seeking Africa's First Iron Men" (PDF). Science. p. 2. <> <> - Holl, Augustin F. C. (June 2020). "The Origins of African Metallurgies". Oxford Research Encyclopedias. 22 (4): 415–438. Below are lectures (which can be found on youtube) by Professor Chris Ehret (University of California) Ancient Africa in world history: Innovation, Invention, and Impact Lecture by Chris Ehret (University of California) Africanity of Ancient Egypt Lecture by Chris Ehret (University of California)
  • @A3Kr0n
    It's not the age of the wood that matters but how you wiggle your stick.
  • @YaBoiDREX
    Thank you for this video! African archeology is criminally ignored.
  • @TommoCarroll
    The use of Irn Bru constantly throughout this video made me more happy than it should. This was so interesting, I love when topics challenge preconceived ideas/stuff we just assume is fact!
  • @MrrMatts
    What a man smashing out all these interesting videos! I've been struggling with sleep recently, and I say this in the nicest possible sense, your videos are fantastic to have on if I can't get to sleep. They are wonderfully calming and if I still can't sleep, at least I'm learning about some fascinating topics. Thank you for your hard work and big love to you Stefan!
  • @justtalking4279
    There is a good read published by George Celis 1991 on the last bloomeries in Africa. The technology presented there is so strikingly different from what we know today from the early iron workings in Mesopotamia, that it truly looks like being a native invention especially in western Africa.
  • @douglasphillips5870
    Poetry is a reasonable precursor to iron. Potters could have accidentally smelted crude iron in kilns then developed the technology to work it.