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Fipa iron smelter

This smelter design predates the coming of Europeans. The historian Basil Davidson has surmised that Africans invented iron smelting independently of other societies. Iron and steel from Europe became readily available and then iron smelting ceased here. Iron workers continued to make weapons and tools with imported materials and so they retained their important status.

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Uploaded on January 30, 2011
Taken on February 4, 2007