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Early trade and raw materials in South Central Africa

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  22 January 2009

Brian M. Fagan
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Extract

Three raw materials were essential to Iron Age peoples in South Central Africa: iron, copper and salt. This paper discusses some of the archaeological evidence for the development of regional and long-distance trade in these commodities during the earlier Iron Age. A distinction is drawn between regional trade in items for which there is local demand, and longer distance commerce in raw materials, which may have been conducted with the aid of some standardized units of monetary significance.

The big question for future research is that of assessing the degree to which the more sophisticated centres of metallurgy and trade affected those societies, living outside the immediate area, whose technologies and economies were less highly developed.

Type
Research Article
Information
The Journal of African History , Volume 10 , Issue 1 , January 1969 , pp. 1 - 13
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1969

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References

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2 This article has benefited from presentations and discussions at the ‘East Africa and the Orient’ conference held in Nairobi in March 1967, and at a seminar on Iron Age Africa held at the State University of New York, Binghamton, in April 1968. I am grateful to the Ford Foundation, the University of Illinois, Urbana, and the State University of New York, Binghamton, for financial support to attend these meetings. Dr Bernard Riley kindly drew Fig. 1.

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