Africa Iron Age

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Africa Iron Age
Atakpame, Togo West Africa
Tuesday, May 15, 2007
by Andy of HoboTraveler.com

I am interested in how cultures develop or do not develop, I want to know who I am or was.

QUOTE form Encyclopedia Encarta:

- Iron Age, period in the development of any culture, when iron was commonly used for making tools and weapons. As one of the three ages (See also Bronze Age; Stone Age) into which archaeologists divide human prehistory, it generally follows the Bronze Age. Chronologically, the term is only of local value because iron took the place of bronze at different times in different cultures. -

- Making tools -

This is a common site in Togo, easy to find, they are making tools by the forging of steel, I think technically steel and iron are different, but they are making tools.

Does this mean there is part of the culture that is somehow still in the Iron Age?

I receive an email from a person saying is New York or Paris, London primitive under the consumer items. This is interesting how the world denies we are an animal first, and then something civilized second.

I would guesstimate the animal part of humans controls about 90 percent the day of the average person in New York, Paris or London, and the separations between Togo and these cities is not as vast as you believe.

Animals get hungry, and then they eat, try to stop this desire.

I would say reactions are animal, pro-active and planning are not, try to get a reaction from the worker next to you, I bet it is easy.

Africa Iron Age

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Reader Submitted Comments | Deleted Comments (0)

Richard Trillo said on Wednesday May 16th, 2007 03:47:00 AM

Interesting question Andy. Yes, this photo shows that Togo is in the Iron Age (I wouldn't say "still", as that implies some kind of inevitable chronology). Fact is, Togo is in the Iron Age and the Digital Age at the same time. I can't remember if you've been through Mauritania or Mali yet? In the crafts market in Timbuktu they sell not only lots of crafts, but also huge numbers of small arrowheads and stone axes and hand knives, scrapers and other tools, that people find in the dunes just north of town, and also all over the desert in Mauritania. If you found stone tools like that in Europe, you'd think "Stone Age", caves, probably 20,000 years ago or more, literally pre-historic. But in West Africa the stone age persisted right into historical times, and there were hunters out there in the bush making stone tools just a couple of hundred years ago, maybe less, until there were enough iron tools, and iron technology was widespread enough for people to switch and lose the old stone-flaking skills. But I believe there are people in southern Africa, San hunters in Botswana, some of whom stil have those skills. So these "ages" have come to carry a slightly perjorative baggage in our popular culture.