This book is a very welcome addition to the Africanist literature.
Its major strength is the position chosen by the authors in ongoing
debates about the past and future of anthropology. Their work
reflects the shift away from a grand biology-derived paradigm of
social 'evolution' and toward a more modest and humanistic concern
for the particular.... I strongly recommend this book on the basis
of its ambition and its wealth of detail.
*International Journal of African Historical Studies*
This book is a welcome addition to an excellent and growing list by
AltaMira Press on African archaeology and prehistory.... [Bisson's]
synthesis of ethnohistoric accounts of copper smelting in Central
Africa is perhaps the best available rendering of how copper
smelting was conducted.... De Barros brings an informed and
wide-ranging synthesis to a complicated topic that is a
phenomenally rich field of symbolic study.... [This book is] also
an excellent reference to more particular and authoritative
literature. It has obvious importance to archaeologists and other
scholars interested in ideology and technology.
*American Antiquity*
If only the rest of the world had the rich record of metallurgy and
society that Africa has! In the US archaeologists struggle with
bits, literally bits, of rare prehistoric metallurgical data, from
which they wring (or, too often, invent) a past for indigenous
metal-using societies. Not so in the Africa depicted by Bisson and
company. The book begins with a comprehensive summary of metals and
precolonial African society by Augustin F.C. Holl. This very useful
chapter is followed by detailed accounts of early copper working
(Bisson) and early ironworking (Philip de Barros), each focused not
only on rich, dense, field-based material evidence but full
accounts of the social context of mining, smelting, smithing, and
trading. The final chapter is a narrative ethnographic account of
traditional ironworking as collected by S. Terry Childs in
contemporary Uganda. This is an absolutely first-rate book blending
historical, archaeological, and ethnographic data that will correct
widely held misconceptions about African technologies while
providing an entertaining read. Highly recommended for academic
collections.
*CHOICE*
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