Abstract
Metalworking places a very high demand on forest resources to provide fuel supplies, and environmental degradation has been associated with large-scale iron production in sub-Saharan Africa in the historic and prehistoric past. The paper summarizes ethnoarchaeological evidence for fuels used in manufacturing iron, juxtaposed with an archaeological case study from south-west Uganda. At the site of Munsa, large quantities of wood charcoal and plant-impressed slag were recovered from iron age deposits associated with a range of contexts including a furnace. Their preliminary analysis indicates differences between the charcoal assemblages from industrial and other areas of the site, and the combination of charcoal, pollen and phytolith studies will, we hope, aid an understanding of the environmental impact of metalworking and associated industrial processes operating in the area.
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Thompson, G., Young, R. (1999). Fuels for the Furnace. In: van der Veen, M. (eds) The Exploitation of Plant Resources in Ancient Africa. Springer, Boston, MA. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4757-6730-8_18
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