Technology In Africa Research Articles

Innovation and industry during the Early Iron Age in East Africa: the KM2 and KM3 sites of northwest Tanzania

Both developmental and diffusionist models for the growth and spread of iron technology in Africa are characterized by a surprising absence of scientific understanding of how that technology developed. Heretofore there has been no basis for an assessment of the cultural and ecological factors that led to technical innovation in Iron Age Africa, for archaeological studies rarely go beyond descriptions of isolated smelting furnaces. Given the complex interaction of human labor, specialized cultural and technological knowledge, raw materials, and thermodynamics involved in smelting, it is not surprising that archaeologists have been slow to develop regional perspectives on iron technology. This paper provides a number of ways to redress past neglect by the study of iron production and innovation in an African region over which there is close chronological control. The new perspectives stress important indigenous innovations, analytical approaches applied to artifacts and structures, experiments on materials, and ethnoarchaeological observations. These are applicable throughout Africa and provide a foundation for understanding African technological innovation and the development and impact of a significant technology on Early Iron Age peoples.

Forage Preferences of Livestock in the Arid Lands of Northern Kenya

The desirability of forage plants by livestock or wildlife is an important consideration in evaluating suitability of the range for grazing. This desirability may also in some cases be used in determining range condition. In many range types periodic determination of plant species composition provides the best indication of long-term trends. Evaluation of the effects of grazing on range flora usually requires that the vegetation be assigned to significant groups. This work represents the first attempt to make this kind of classification for the arid zone of northern Kenya in the study area of the UNESCO Integrated Project in Arid Lands (IPAL). It was required for the preparation of grazing plans for the largely nomadic pastoralists there. Preferences for 250 plant species have been assessed for camels, sheep, goats, and cattle. They are based on the best information presently available, and forms our basis for the classification of range condition for 147 range types in the study area. The arid lands of Kenya, which cover over 75% of that country, are being seriously degraded as a result of increased pressures from human livestock populations, periodic droughts, and an imbalance between modern and traditional pastoral practices. The productivity of the range has been so reduced that pastoralists are under constant threat of famine. The Integrated Project on Arid Lands (IPAL), of which this work is part, was established by UNESCO to reverse this degradation. Research on the plant species preferred by livestock in Kenya, particularly in the arid north, has been limited. Since the establishment of the IPAL program in 1976, the published vegetational work has consisted of an annotated vegetation map (Herlocker 1979a), problems concerning the status of montane and other forests (Synott 1979a,b; Herlocker 1979b), an annotated check-list of the plants of Mount Kulal, Kenya (Hepper et al. 198 I), feeding observations of camels, cattle, sheep, and goats (Field 1978, 1979; Kayongo-Male and Field 1981; Lewis 1977) and herb-layer productivity in relation to rainfall (Herlocker and Dolan 1980a, 1980b, Walther and Herlocker 1980). Work on woodland availability, productivity and exploitation has also been reported (Lusigi 1981). The importance of forage plants for both livestock and wildlife is determined by their availability, palatability, and nutritive value. A combination of various levels of these 3 factors should be considered in the condition rating of a particular range site. In more productive rangelands and pastures in Kenya, work has proceeded from determining the availability of forage species to analysis of the nutritive value of preferred forage species (Dougall) and Bogdan 195la,b; Dougall et al. 1964; Field 1975; Gwynne 1969; Taerum 1970). In the less productive rangelands in the arid zone, information available on the nutritive value of indigenous forage species and their preference for livestock is still very scanty except for a generalized review of browse (Lamprey et al. 1980). The objective of this study was to classify the preference of livestock for Authors are project co-ordinator and range ecologist, plant ecologist and plant taxonomist with UNESCO Integrated Project on Arid Lands, UNESCO Regional Office for Science and Technology for Africa. P.O. Box 30592, Nairobi, Kenya. The authors wish to acknowledge contributions made to this study by all IPAL Scientists and Field Support Staff. Manuscript accepted December 15, 1983. 542 all major forage plants in the area so that range condition and trend can be assessed.

More Evidence for an Advanced Prehistoric Iron Technology in Africa

Abstract Ethnographic and technological observations of iron smelting among the Raya people of NW Tanzania during 1976 and 1979 have contributed important new evidence for a technologically advanced culture in East-Central Africa. The ethnoarchaeology of Haya iron working shows that the Raya practiced an iron-smelting technology that employed preheating of the air blast—a highly efficient technique—and formed a massive steel altogether different from that known in the European tradition of iron production.Excavations in 1977 at the KM2 site near Kemondo Bay west of Lake Victoria in Kagera Region, Tanzania, provided abundant evidence for an ancient technology, dating to the first six centuries A.C., that shared many similarities to the living iron-smelting technology. Excavations during 1978–1979 at the KM3 site, also located near Kemondo Bay, yielded physical evidence for the antiquity of the preheated process and provided definitive proof for a technology similar to the process in historical times. These...

More Evidence for an Advanced Prehistoric Iron Technology in Africa

More Evidence for an Advanced Prehistoric Iron Technology in Africa

Ceux qui jouent avec le feu: la place du forgeron en Afrique centrale

Opening ParagraphLa grande presse a fait assez largement écho à un article publié dans Science (Schmidt et Avery 1978) selon lequel on fondait il y a 2.000 ans de l'acier au coeur de l'Afrique. Grâce à une technique hautement sophistiquée, recourant notamment au préchauffage du vent, on obtenait un métal digne d'une aciérie moderne.

Problems of Educational Technology in Africa

Problems of Educational Technology in Africa

Science and Technology in Africa

“Studies carried out by the United Nations Economic Commission for Africa suggest that the sciences and technologies most essential for adaptation and application, and indeed for general economic development, somehow escaped the attention of those who designed most of the universities in Africa…. Science and technology cannot function as autonomous instruments of development. [But] they must be part of the whole structure for accelerated economic and social development.”Dr. Lardner is director of the Natural Resources and Transport Division of the U.N. Economic Commission for Africa, Addis Ababa, Ethiopia.

Afrikanske smede

Afrikanske smede