A global perspective on the pyrotechnologies of Sub-Saharan Africa. Issue 1 (2nd January 2016)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Killick, David
• Is Part Of: Azania. Volume 51:Issue 1(2016)
• Page Start: 62
• Page End: 87
• Publication Date: 2016-01-02
• Subjects: technology -- fire -- metallurgy -- pottery -- glass -- Sub-Saharan Africa; Archaeology -- Africa, Eastern -- Periodicals; Archaeology -- Africa -- Periodicals; Africa, Eastern -- History -- Periodicals; Africa -- History -- To 1498 -- Periodicals; Africa, Eastern -- Antiquities -- Periodicals; Africa -- Antiquities -- Periodicals; 960
• DOI: 10.1080/0067270X.2016.1150082
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 0067-270X

Abstract

ABSTRACT: Although Sub-Saharan Africa has the oldest evidence for the deliberate production of fire, its recent record of pyrotechnology is more often presented as a list of absences than as a list of accomplishments. In this review I summarise the evidence, both before and after the initiation of long-distance trade with the Islamic world. The literature is decidedly unbalanced, with almost all attention so far having gone to African iron smelting, but the recent discovery of a unique type of glass production in Nigeria suggests that much more attention needs to be paid to other branches of pyrotechnology. I also suggest that we need to look outside the continent to understand why the record of preindustrial pyrotechnology in Sub-Saharan Africa is so different from that in other parts of the Old and New Worlds.