Metallurgy

Main articles: Copper metallurgy in Africa and Iron metallurgy in Africa

9th-century bronze staff head in form of a coiled snake, Igbo-Ukwu, Nigeria

The first metals to be smelted in Africa were lead, copper, and bronze in the fourth millennium BC.[74]

Copper was smelted in Egypt during the predynastic period, and bronze came into use after 3,000 BC at
the latest[75] in Egypt and Nubia. Nubia was a major source of copper as well as gold.[76] The use of
gold and silver in Egypt dates back to the predynastic period.[77][78]

In the Aïr Mountains, present-day Niger, copper was smelted independently of developments in the Nile
valley between 3,000 and 2,500 BC. The process used was unique to the region, indicating that it was not
brought from outside the region; it became more mature by about 1,500 BC.[78]

By the 1st millennium BC, iron working had been introduced in Northwestern Africa, Egypt, and Nubia.
[79] According to Zangato an Holl, there is evidence of iron-smelting in the Central African Republic and
Cameroon that may date back to 3,000 to 2,500 BC.[80] In 670 BC, Nubians were pushed out of Egypt by
Assyrians using iron weapons, after which the use of iron in the Nile valley became widespread.[81]

The theory of iron spreading to Sub-Saharan Africa via the Nubian city of Meroe is no longer widely
accepted, and iron metalurgy is considered by some to have been independantly invented in sub-Saharan
Africa. Metalworking in West Africa has been dated as early as 2,500 BC at Egaro west of the Termit in
Niger, and iron working was practiced there by 1,500 BC.[82] Iron smelting has been dated to 2,000 BC
in southeast Nigeria.[83] In Central Africa, there is evidence that iron working may have been practiced
as early as the 3rd millennium BC.[84] Iron smelting was developed in the area between Lake Chad and
the African Great Lakes between 1,000 and 600 BC, and in West Africa around 2,000 BC, long before it
reached Egypt. Before 500 BC, the Nok culture in the Jos Plateau was already smelting iron.[85][86][87]
[88][89][90] Archaeological sites containing iron smelting furnaces and slag have been excavated at sites
in the Nsukka region of southeast Nigeria in what is now Igboland: dating to 2,000 BC at the site of Lejja
(Eze-Uzomaka 2009)[83][91] and to 750 BC and at the site of Opi (Holl 2009).[91] The site of Gbabiri
(in the Central African Republic) has also yielded evidence of iron metallurgy, from a reduction furnace
and blacksmith workshop; with earliest dates of 896-773 BC and 907-796 BC respectively.[90]