AN INVESTIGATION OF IRON SMELTING SITES IN GAMBAGA AND THE IMPLICATIONS OF THE FINDINGS FOR IRON AGE STUDIES IN GHANA
Keywords:
Iron, archaeology, historical analysis, iron ore, Iron and steel industry, mining production, mining engineering, Ghana, West AfricaSynopsis
The development of interest in Ghanaian history since the early 20th century . has stimulated a demand that aspects of the Ghanaian culture and especially of .production be revealed to portray the nation's great past and help project a greater future. "Traditional" (that is while we wait for more data to reddress this issue of how traditional is "traditional") iron production has proved especially attractive since it provided the chief metallic base for technologies, agriculture and ~ndustry of the Early Iron Age societies. Y et in spi te of this, only a few smelting sites have been investigated. The large part of the data available on the industry is ethnological and dates to the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries which represent the closing period of this industry due to competition from imported substitutes of iron and its products. The data reveals that iron smelting was practised all over the country but there is not enough information to trace the history and development of this · industry. The number of archaeological investigations so far conducted is woefully inadequate. Thanks to the reports by geologists, anthropologists and archaeologists in the early twentieth century and the ethnographie work by the National Museums in the 1970's, Northern Ghana is fortunate to have good ethnographie descriptions of smelting practices. The règion, however, appears to lack known reconstructed archaeological remains (dated or not dafed) and their underlying technological parameters. The research in Gambaga has been able to characterize the iron technology of an area that has not received such examination and has established a base from
Downloads
Download data is not yet available.
References
Agorsah, E.K. 217 1976 Sorne considerations on the archaeology and traditional history of the Begho area. M. A. Thesis, Department of Archaeology, Legon. Agorsah, E.K.
An Ethnoarchaeological study of settlement and Behaviour patterns of a West African Traditional Society: The Nchumuru of
Band• - Wiae in Ghana. Ph.D. Thesis UCLA Los Angels, U.S.A.
Andah, B. 1983 Iron Age beginning in West Africa: reflections and suggestions. West African Journal of Archaeology 9:135-150.
Anquandah, J .R. 1967 Cultural Developments in Western Africa in the Iight of Pottery Studies. M.Litt. Thesis, Oxford.
Anquandah, J.R. 1982 Rediscovering Ghana's Past. Longman Great Britain.
Anquandah, J.R. 1985 Ethnoarchaeological Cines to Ghana's Great Past and a Greater Future: Monographs and Papers in African Archaeology. Legon.
Arkell, A.J. 1968 London.
Barker, P. 1986
Barnes, H.B. 1926 Bates, D.A.
A history of the Sodan - from the earliest times to 1821.
Peoples, Languages and Religion in Northern Ghana. Worldwide Evangelization Crusade. England.
Iron smelting among the Ba-Ushi.
Authropological lnstitute 76:189-4.
Journal of the Royal Study. Ph.D. Thesis Department of Anthropology, Indiana University, U.S.A ..
Boachie-Ansah, J. · 1978 An archaeological contribution to the history of Wenchi. M.A. Thesis .. Legon, Accra.
Boahen, A. 1966. Topics on West African history. London Longmans.
Bowdich, T .E. 1819. Mission from Cape Coast Castle to Ashante, London.
Brainmer, H. 1962 Soil in Agri~ulture and Land Use in Ghana ed. by J.B. Wills, · pp ..88-126, Oxford University Press, London.
Brempong, O.T. . . .1987 An Excavatiori at Awukugua and its significance to the Iron Age Archaeology of Kyerepong, Akwapim. M.Phil. Thesis. Department of Archaeology, University of Ghana, Legon, Accra. · ·
· Brown, S.D. 1975. Ritual aspects of Marriprusi Kingship. Cambridge.
Caillie, R~ 1830 Travels through Central Africa to Timbuctoo. London.
Calvocoressi, D. and N. David. 1979. A new survey of radiocarbon and thermoluminescence dates for West Africa. Journal of African History. 20:1~29.
Cardinal, A.W. 1958. Natives of the Northern Territories of the Gold Coast. London
Chaplin, J.H. . 1961. Notes on traditional smelting in Northern Rhodesia. South African Archaeological Bulletin, XVI:53-60.
Childs, T.S. and Schmidt, P.R.
Experimental Iron Smelting: The Genesis of a Hypothesis with Implications for African Prehistory and History. ln (Haaland
and Shinnie eds.). African Iron Working, 121-141, Bergen.
Cline, W. 1937. Mining and Metallurgy in Negro Africa. Menasha.
Rural_ water supplies. Agriculture and land use in Ghana (Ied.) J.B. Wills, London 62-76.
Bell am y, C.V.1904. A West African Smelting House. Journal of the Iron and Steel Institute, LXVI: 99-126.
Coghlan, H.H. 1956. Notes on prehistoric and early iron in the Old World. Oxford.
Crossland, L.B. 1973. A study of Begho Pottery in the Iight of Excavations conducted at Begho - B2 site. · M.A. thesis Legon. ·
Daaku, K.Y. 1970. Denkyira - Unesco Research Proiect on Oral Traditions, Legon.
Daaku, K.Y. 1971 Darkoh, M.B. Oral Traditions of Adanse, Legon.
Economie Iife of Buem. Bulletin of the Ghana Geographical Association. 9:40-54.
David, N.J. Sterner, and Gavua K. 1988 Why Pots Are Decorated. Current Anthropology, Vol 29 NQ. 3 June.
David, N.R. Heimann, D. Killick and Wayman M. 1989 Between bloomery and blast furnace: Mafa iron-smelting technology in North Cameroon. The African Archaeological review, 7 pp. 183-208. .
.Davies, O.1967. West Africa before the Europeans. London.
Davies, O. 1970 Davies, O. 1976 _Davis, D.C.
Ghana Field Notes. Part 2: Northern Ghana.
Ghana Field Notes: Part 4: Southern Ghana.
Continuity and Change in Mamprugu: A Study of Tradition as Ideology. Ph.D. Thesis Balme Library, University of Ghana, Legon. ·
de Barros, P.
Bassar: A quantified, chronologically controlled, regional approach to a traditional iron production centre in West Africa.
Africa. 56:149-173. de Barros, P.
Societal repercussions of the rise of large scale traditional iron production: a West African example. The African Archaeological Review 6:91-113.
Dickson, K.B. and Benneh, G. 1977. A New Geography of Ghana. Longman, London.
Diop, L. 1968. Traditonal iron working and the Iron Age in Africa. Bulletin de L'IFAN: 268-269.
Eckel, E.C. 1914. Iron Ores. New York: McGraw Hill.
Effah-Gyamfi, K. 1974. Oral Tradition and archaeology: a case study of the Bono · State. M.A. Thesis, Legon.
Effa-Gyamfi, K. 1978. Bono Manso - an archaeological investigation into early Akan Urbanism. Ph.D. thesis, Legon.
Fage, J.D. 1964 Reflections on the Early History of the Mossi-Dagomba Group of states. ln (Vansina, Mauny and Thomas eds.). The Historian in Tropical Africa. 177-191 OUP.
Fage, J.D. 1978. A History of Africa. New York: Afred A. Knopf.
Fagg, B. 1969. Recent work in West Africa: new light on the Nok culture.
World Archaeology, 1:41-50. Fili powiak, W.
Iron working in the Old Kingdom of Mali. ln (Haaland and Shinnie eds.) African Iron Working, 36-48. Bergen.
Forbes, R.H. 1933. The Black man's industries. Geographical Review, 23, 230-247.
Francis-Boeuf, C. 1937. L'industrie autochtone du fer en Afrique Occidentale Francaise. Bulletin du Comite d'Etudes Historiques et . Scientifique de
Jeffreys, M.D.W.1952. Bikom blacksmithing. Man 52: No.75.
Downloads
Published
June 22, 2023
Series
Copyright (c) 2023 CODESRIA Books Publication System
