Africa in the Iron Age
c.500 BC–1400 AD

Roland Oliver (Author), Brian M. Fagan (Author)

9780521099004, Cambridge University Press

Paperback / softback, published 29 October 1975

244 pages
21.5 x 13.9 x 1.9 cm, 0.295 kg

Africa in the Iron Age is a comprehensive and authoritative introduction to African history between about 500 B.C. and A.D. 1400. The authors are not so much concerned with a particular technological revolution as the enormous changes - political, social and economic - that took place during the period 500 B.C.-A.D. 1400 all over the African continent. The book falls into three parts. Early chapters describe conditions about 500 B.C. when North Africa is already in the Bronze Age, Middle Africa is engaged in Stone Age farming and south of the Sahara most men live by hunting and gathering food. Between 500 B.C. and A.D. 1000 life in settled communities becomes normal throughout the continent. Finally, the Iron Age sees the rise of state systems, the development of long-distance trade and the spread of Islam and Monophysite Christianity. Any study of this period has to combine historical and archaeological methods in the search for evidence and in the subsequent interpretation of data. While literary evidence does exist for the period, Iron Age archaeology necessarily supplies most of the evidence examined. Roland Oliver is a leading African historian and the author of several standard books on the subject. Brian Fagan is an acknowledged expert on African Iron Age archaeology.

List of figures
Preface
1. Northern Africa at the end of the Bronze Age
2. Early food production in middle Africa
3. Late Stone Age hunter-gatherers in Africa south of the Equator
4. North-east Africa and the Greek-speaking world
5. North Africa and its invaders from 500 B.C. till the Arab conquests
6. Sub-Saharan West Africa in the Early Iron Age - 500 B.C. to A.D. 1000
7. West-central Africa around the first millennium A.D.
8. East Africa to about the eleventh century
9. South-central Africa to the eleventh century
10. South of the Limpopo and the Kalahari
11. Muslim Egypt and Christian Nubia
12. Christianity and Islam in north-east Africa
13. The eastern Maghrib and the central Sudan during the early Muslim period
14. The western Maghrib and Sudan c. 700–1250
15. Mali and its neighbours c. 1250–1450
16. West Africa south of Hausaland c. 700–1400
17. Eastern Africa and the outside world c. 1000–1400
18. States and trading systems of central Africa c. 1000–1400
Index.

Subject Areas: African history [HBJH]