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Copper metallurgy in Africa encompasses the study of copper production across the continent and an understanding of how it influenced aspects of African archaeology. == Origins == It was previously believed that sub-Saharan Africa either did not have a period of using copper until the nineteenth century, going from the Stone Age into the Iron Age, or they started smelting iron and copper at the same time (Herbert 1984). Copper artifacts recovered from Nubia are the earliest evidence of metal smelting in sub-Saharan Africa, dating back sometime after 4000 BC and they were most likely imports from Egypt. Present evidence of copper smelting is thought to be introduced to Nubia from Egypt during the early Old Kingdom ca.2686-2181 BC (Childs and Killick 1993). The principle evidence for this claim is an Egyptian outpost established in Buhen around 2600 BC to smelt copper ores from Nubia. Alongside this, a crucible furnace for bronze casting was found dating to 2300-1900 BC at the temple precinct at Kerma, however the source of the tin is unknown. Over the next millennium Nubians developed great skill in working copper and other known metals (Childs and Killick 1993). Discoveries in Agadez region of the Niger show signs of copper metallurgy as early as 2000 BC. This date pre-dates the use of iron by a thousand years (Herbert 1984). Copper metallurgy seems to be an independent invention, because there is no clear evidence of influences from Northern Africa, and the Saharan wet phase was coming to an end, hindering human interactions across it. It appeared to not be fully developed copper metallurgy, which suggests it was not from external origins. The people used native copper at first and experimented with different furnaces styles in order to smelt the ore between 2500-1500 BCE (Ehret 2002). Copper metallurgy has been recorded at Akjoujt in Western Mauritania. The Akjoujt site is later than Agadez, dating back to around 850 BC. There is evidence of mining between 850 and 300 BC. Radiocarbon dates from the Grotte aux Chauves-souris mine shows that the extraction and smelting of malachite goes back to the early fifth century BC. A number of copper artifacts including arrow points, spearheads, chisels, awls and plano-convex axes as well as bracelets, bead and earrings were collected from Neolithic sites in the region(Bisson et al. 2000). Collecting dates from Tropical Africa has been extremely difficult. No dates are available for the copper mine in pre-colonial Nigeria and the earliest dates available south of the equator are around 345 AD at Naviundu springs near Lubumbashi in the Democratic Republic of Congo. Kansanshi mine in Zambia and Kipushi mine in DRC are between the fifth and twelfth century. Sites further south have produced later dates, for example the Thakadu mines in Botswana dates back between 1480 and 1680, and other major mines Botswana, Namibia, and South Africa remain undated (Bisson et al. 2000). 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Copper metallurgy in Africa」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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