Iron Smelting Develops in the Nok Culture of West Africa
- Date
- c. 800 BCE
- Category
- Science, technology & invention
- Region
- West Africa (present-day central and northern Nigeria)
- Era
- Ancient Civilizations
- Significance
In the region of present-day central and northern Nigeria, east of the Niger River and north of the Benue, the Nok culture became one of the earliest iron-using societies in sub-Saharan Africa.
Scholars estimate that iron metallurgy emerged among the Nok between roughly the 9th century BCE and 550 BCE, with smelting furnaces, tuyeres, slag, and wrought-iron objects recovered from sites such as Taruga, southeast of modern Abuja. Whether this technology was independently invented or diffused across the Sahara from Carthage to the north or from Nubia to the east remains a major point of scholarly debate, complicated by the 'old carbon' problem in radiocarbon dating. Strikingly, the Nok appear to have moved directly from a Stone Age toolkit to ironworking, skipping a distinct Bronze Age. Alongside their celebrated terracotta figurines, Nok iron technology laid a foundation for later West African civilisations, including the Yoruba kingdom of Ife and the Kingdom of Benin.
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Empires active in c. 800 BCE
- Neo-Assyrian Empire911 BCE – 609 BCE
- Zhou Dynasty1046 BCE – 256 BCE
- Scythians800 BCE – 300 BCE
- Kingdom of Kush1070 BCE – 350 CE
- Phoenician City-States1200 BCE – 539 BCE
- Elamite Kingdom2700 BCE – 539 BCE
Related science, technology & invention events
- The Cascajal Block: earliest writing in the Americasc. 900 BCE
- Standardisation of the Phoenician alphabetc. 1050 BCE
- Compilation of MUL.APIN and Babylonian astronomyc. 1000 BCE
- Casting of the Houmuwu Ding, Peak of Shang Bronze Artc. 1200 BCE
- The Bronze-to-Iron transition and the early Iron Agec. 1200 BCE
- Edwin Smith Surgical Papyrus, earliest known treatise on traumac. 1600 BCE
Further reading
The wider story
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