Iron Technology in East Africa

Like the act of iron smelting itself, this important book can be understood and used on many levels: as a technological reference on a vanished craft; as a reference tool for archaeologists to analyse and explain the evidence of ironworking; as a study of the role ritual and belief play in technological process of recent societies; and - more challenging, more problematic - the use of this to understand symbolism and cognition in the earlier societies of the African Iron Age. -- Robin Derricourt * AFSAAP *
With archaeologists increasingly emphasizing the need of looking at a geographically broader range of case-studies and of integrating archaeology, anthropology and history, Schmidt's book comes at a highly appropriate time. -- Peter Mitchell, Lecturer in African Archaeology, Oxford University