Region of Study>> African Archaeology >> Metal using Africa

Wheat and barley, sheep and goats were quickly adopted from Asia by African farmers but the early use of metalworking was not widely introduced in Africa until the Egyptians' joined the Bronze Age around 4,000 BC.

Pockets of bronze usage appeared in subsequent millennia but metal did not supplant stone in the continent until around 500BC. But both iron and copper spread southwards through the continent, reaching the Cape around 200AD. The widespread use of iron revolutionized the Bantu farming communities. They drove out the remaining hunter-gatherer societies they encountered as they expanded to farm wider areas of savanna. The technologically superior Bantu spread across southern Africa and became rich and powerful, producing iron for tools and weapons in large, industrial quantities.