International Journal of Advanced Engineering Research and Technology (IJAERT) 323
Volume 4 Issue 10, October 2016, ISSN No.: 2348 8190
A REVIEW: TECHNOLOGY AND PRODUCTION
Dr. A.B. Etukudoha, Prof A.I. Okpokob,
a
Project Development Institute, (PRODA), Enugu State, Nigeria
b
University Of Nigeria, Nsukka, Nigeria
Abstract
Technology is also regarded as the material expression
of a peoples life values and attitudes that is culture. In
this regard, it represents mans way of applying
scientific knowledge to specific practical use so that he
can live more comfortably and securely tomorrow than
he does today and more so today than he did yesterday.
Keywords: Stone / Wood, Pottery making in parts of
Africa, Metal working in parts of Africa
1.0 Introduction
Technology
This is defined as the study, mastery and utilization of
manufacturing methods and industrial arts, systematic
application of knowledge to practical tasks in industry.
It also refers to all that it takes (in terms of mental and
material energy) for man to set in motion the natural
forces of his body that is his arms, legs, head and
entire body in order to make natural materials available
in forms useful to his own life [1]. It represents all of
mans effort to influence and control nature to aid his
survival as a social being, and all his attempts to solve
essential but specific material and spiritual problems in
his life. These include problems of obtaining food,
shelter, clothing, procreation and physical as well as
spiritual up liftment or satisfaction. Technology is also
regarded as the material expression of a peoples life
values and attitudes that is culture. In this regard, it
represents mans way of applying scientific knowledge
to specific practical use so that he can live more
comfortably and securely tomorrow than he does today
and more so today than he did yesterday [1]. It embodies
also mans efforts at transforming his knowledge of
specific scientific laws with the help of his personal
skills, into concrete objects or thoughts which are called
artefacts. These artefacts represent abstractions or
concrete embodiments of mans thoughts and
ideas.Technology is concerned with a peoples
understanding of specific objects and objectives in terms
of themselves, and the functions and utility of these
objects. It is skill in action, and understanding of the
means through which some end or ends may be
achieved. Changes, developments and innovations in
technology depend on changes in mans notions of what
is desirable and on changes in his store of scientific
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knowledge which affect his understanding of causal
links, and the extent to which these can be manipulated
or controlled by man. Technology is therefore a concept
of praxis and productive human practice. Technology
may of course be defined in other narrow ways.
However it suffices to note that one distinguishing
feature of technology is that it concerns all practical
things [4]. Historically there is a reciprocity between
technological change and developments in practical
fields like hunting and collecting, farming and stock
keeping, in all forms of industries and domestic and non-
domestic crafts, building and transport, as well as
warfare.
1.2 Production
This is defined as a process of producing e.g. the
production of crops, manufacturing of goods, etc. A
great many scientific/technological factors (break
through) were involved in the development of settled life
in Africa especially in towns and cities.
1.3 Wood/Stone
Archaeology testifies to the existence of developed
technology in stone and wood in various parts of Africa
from at least early iron-age times and this was in the
form of art traditions. In some parts, this event dates
back to the middle first millennium BC, while in others
it was later (in some places as late as first millennium
AD). Generally, this art was very varied. However,
some of the more important elements were ornate
pottery, sculpture in different materials (clay, wood,
bronze). Sites like Nok in West Africa have yielded
ceramic figurines some of which date back to the first
millennium BC as have sites in Southern Africa
(Transval, date of the first millennium AD 500AD) [3]
wood sculptures, much rare for obvious reasons have
also been found. One single such example known from
the whole of central and East Africa, an animals heads
from the Liavela area of Central Angola is dated by
radio carbon to the 8th century AD [2]. It seems there
was a fairly widespread and well developed sculptural
tradition within this period. It is possible that wood
sculpture represents only part of the tradition. Figures
were made of wood, unfired clay and other perishable
materials that would not leave traces in archaeological
deposits, as a result, the record may be incomplete and
 International Journal of Advanced Engineering Research and Technology (IJAERT) 324
the distribution pattern distorted. Stone works in some
cases are done through carving and modelling.
Examples of stone works are: the stone monoliths of
Ekoi country and the tumuli civilization of Middle
Niger, distinguished by funeral objects, stone, bronze
and terracotta, pottery embellished with geometric
designs, and dating back to the days of Ghana Empire.
The excavation that took place at Igbo Ukwu yielded
some reasonable amount of wooden stool and carved
wooden panel, ivory, human bones, bronze and copper
material and pottery. As shown in materials recovered
from the Igbo-Ukwu excavation, these have influenced
some studies on Igbo carved doors and panels and
wooden stools. It is noted that the geometric designs on
the carved wooden door and panels at Awka are similar
to that of Igbo-Ukwu excavation sites.
1.4 Pottery Making in Parts of Africa
The enthographic data revealed that the potters of Warri,
Western Nigeria choose blue clay from a putty-like clay
which contained chalk-like white spots, and lumps of
blue and red clay [4] care in choice of clay was directed
sometimes at utilitarian (i.e. scientific) and sometimes at
aesthetic considerations. Ethnographic data also
suggested that there is much cross variation in the length
to which potters will go in order to obtain suitable
potting clay. Some fetching expeditions. Mining
operations have been an important feature of history in
all regions of Africa including West, East Central Africa,
in particular the Congo Basin [3]. Ignorance of mining
techniques and the necessary scale of organisation were
probably important reasons why some people did not
exploit deep lying deposits. For sure, it was fear of
shafts collapsing [4&5]. Changes from better to worse
methods often occurred through time, among some
people. In many parts of the continent prior to European
advent, potters dug shafts into hillsides to obtain potting
clay, however following the negative rub off of
European advent, many prefer to dig pits in the same
place, because this is a safer method of exploiting the
deposit. The work requires the cooperation of many
women who work as a team in digging the clay, passing
it from hand to hand in baskets to the top of the pit
which may be up to 16 metres (50 feet) deep. The sides
of the pit have to be re-dug after each wet season and
new steps cut out to facilitate access to the bottom of the
pit. Such scale of activity is remarkable in view of the
primitive and local character of the industry. Suitability
of clay is matched to type of potting technique. For
example, the gritting coarse clay used by many Nigeria
potters in hand forming and bonfiring is ideal for
traditional methods of production, but if thrown on the
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Volume 4 Issue 10, October 2016, ISSN No.: 2348 8190
wheel would cut the potters hands. Clay for throwing
needs to be of finer grains. This in turn requires a
different method of preparation, and the pots formed
from it would have to be fixed more carefully than is
possible in a bonfire [3]. For example ethnographic data
revealed that the Elmolo people of Lake Rudolf, Kenya,
produced irregular shaped bowls with painted bases and
impressed decoration. The raw material was an
extremely fine sub-aqueous ash, which must contain a
percentage of alteration products in the form of clay
minerals. Also at Baringo district, Kenya, stages in the
process of making clay pots by Njemps women are
detailed. At first crushing the clay which has been
collected from the base of ant-hill, sorting out the finer
clay particles by shaking on a skin, then added water. No
temper is added. Forming the base of the pot, the pot is
made entirely on the potters lap, no support is used at
any stage. Then added coils and smothered the coil with
the fingers and thumb smoothing and thinning with a
piece of calabash and further smoothing after the
addition of further coils is beginning to bring the upper
wall of the inwards in which the final shape of the pot is
achieved after a bon firing. A series of generalisation
have been forwarded concerning the scale and
specialisation of pottery production. In some cases,
potters participating in normal subsistence activities
could be called par-time or casual. Others spend more of
their time and obtain more of their resources from
potting and could be term specialists. In contemporary
Berber pottery production in the Meghreb in North
Africa, it was found that pottery was produced at three
scales (a) Non-specialist production by women for their
own use. (b) In certain cases women and men earn
some money from pottery manufacture and these may be
termed semi-specialists (c) There is also a sphere of
large scale highly specialised production corporations
involving only men. In the Meghreb these differences in
scales of production appear to have many other
consequences. The Lozi in Zambia are ruled by royal
personages, and a complex bureaucracy. By any
standards this is a highly ranked society. Yet most of the
craft production is, and always has been carried out at
the household level or by local specialists not linked to
the royal establishments. Pottery production was carried
out by women, largely for their own use. Although there
were potters who were closely linked to the royal
centres, their works were mainly for those centres
themselves. There was no market at the capital and
exchange of craft products was by person-to-person
reciprocity. Potters do not form a separate caste amongst
the Nuba in Sudan, but concepts of pollution are again
here relevant to the differences in the organisation of
 International Journal of Advanced Engineering Research and Technology (IJAERT) 325
production of the Moro and Mesakin, the Moro makes
pots in special workshop areas away from the village,
production is thus separated and to a certain degree
centralised. The adjacent Mesakin, on the other hand,
make pottery in amongst the houses and compounds of
the villages. Production is dispersed and not separated
from other activities. In both tribes women make the
pots. No evidence could be found of any differences in
the degree of stylistic variability amongst the pots of the
two tribes. In Moro and Mesakin societies, the
centralisation of pottery production is not seen as a
chance to streamline production and produce batches of
similar pots. In Many walks of life the Moro and
Mesakin use the symbolic separation between pure and
impure in different ways, and the results of this
difference are seen in the pottery production. The Moro
takes steps to keep pure and impure, male and female,
separate. The compounds are kept clean, pigs
(associated with women and dirty) are kept in special
pens, male and female activities, carried out by women
and potentially polluting, is removed physically from the
village into separate pottery-making areas. Pottery
manufacture is organised separately and is carried out at
certain times of the year. The Mesakin, on the other
hand, mark the boundary between pollution and
cleanliness by complex decoration and ritual. Their
compounds are often dirty and unlike the Moro, the
compound floor is surrounded in rich decoration. The
Mesakin more often decorate calabashes and pots.
1.5 Early Metal-Using Peoples in Parts of Africa
Historical, archaeological and anthropological
reconstructions have characterized Africa socio-
economic development as dependent on the Sahara or
more northern regions, but current research works have
cast some doubt on these conclusion. The development
of farming societies in Africa has been described that, by
the middle centuries of last millennium BC the
archaeological record reveals that settled agricultural
village life was widespread, and that some areas were
beginning to see the development of metal technology
and high-quality artistic work, particularly in clay, these
communities grew steadily more complex as time
progressed. The evidence so far available suggests that
by the beginning of the first millennium AD, West
Africa already possessed those elements that were to
enable its peoples to develop greater social complexity,
to advance their technology, to foster local and regional
commercial contracts, to engender interaction and
interdependence between communities, and to promote
specialisation and diversion of labour within individual
societies. These important factors resulted in the
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Volume 4 Issue 10, October 2016, ISSN No.: 2348 8190
accumulation of wealth, in the development of an
appetite for consumer goods, in status differentiation
within society, the agglomeration of settlements and
development of urban centres, in the personification of
power, and in the attraction across the Sahara of external
peoples in search of goods or services for which they
were willing to trade. Archaeological research in the
Agadez region of Niger, principally at the sites of
Akwaten, Azelik, Afundun and Sekiret, has produced
controversial evidence about the early smelting of
copper in Africa claims that such activities may have
begun as early as 2000 BC are now discredited although
arrow heads and other small items may occasionally
have been hammered from native copper during the
second millennium. Nevertheless metallurgy has been
confirmed in the Azelik region for the period between
800BC and AD100, and intensified during later
centuries. The products, mostly arrow points, blades and
pins, were trades as far as Air, some 300km to the north-
east. Malachite ores were also exploited in the Akjoujt
area of Mauritania at this time. Analysis of copper tools
from widely scattered sites in Southern and Western
Mauritania showed that the metal was derived from this
area, rather than having been imported from the north as
was previously thought. In Senegal, it has been reported
that the Cire Perdue techniques of copper and bronze
working traditions which flourished in later times in
many parts of Africa, mostly notably at places such as
Igbo Ukwu and Ife. There can no longer be any doubt
that the technologies employed, both for smelting and
for Cire Perdue casting, were basically indigenous
developments which owned little if any debt for foreign
traditions of copper in Africa does not appear to have
preceded, or necessarily to have been independent of the
corresponding developments relating to iron.
Investigation into early West African iron-working have
mostly been focused on the question of whether it was
locally invented or introduced by diffusion or otherwise
from north of the Sahara. The amount of reliable data
that are available for answering the question, or even for
illustrating and dating the techniques involved, is
lamentably small undue emphasis has sometimes been
placed on isolated radiocarbon dates despite the
acknowledged difficulties both of eliminating the effect
of charcoal made from old hardwood being use for
smelting and of calibrating radio carbon age
determinations relating to this particular period.
Example, at Do Dimmi in Niger, a single date of 750BC
has been quoted as relating to iron-working, although the
associated settlement appears to be about 1,000 years.
Probably the best evidence for early iron metallurgy in
West Africa comes from gifts of the so-called Nok
 International Journal of Advanced Engineering Research and Technology (IJAERT) 326
culture centred on the Jos Plateau of Nigeria. The area
first came to the attention of archaeologists when finely
modelled anthropomorphic and other clay figures were
discovered in the courses of mining the alluvial deposits
for tin. Excavations at Teruga demonstrated that these
figures were associated with evidence for the smelting of
iron. Twenty concentration of iron slag with several
furnace structures of the low-shaft, slag-tapping type [4].
A total of thirteen furnaces have been investigated at
Taruga, and there are several radiocarbon dates in the
fifth, fourth and third centuries BC. Since no stone
artefacts are associated, it may be concluded that the
sites inhabitants were fully iron-using at this time [3].
The Nok discoveries demonstrated that West African
figurative art traditions extended back into the first
millennium BC. These terracotta figures depicted men
and women, providing also valuable information about
their activities, clothing, hair-style, physical
characteristic and infirmities. Animals, notably
monkeys, elephants and snakes are also represented. It
has been speculated [2] that the Nok figures may have
been made and used in connection with cults concerned
with the fertility of the land. If that was the case, the
stylistic similarities in function. By the first half of the
millennium AD, distinct local styles of terracotta figures
were produced in several widely separated areas, as in
the inland Niger Delta, the Kainji region of Nigeria and
the plains bordering Lake Chad.
In the Kainji Dam region of the middle Niger Valley, a
rescue archaeology project in the late 1960s revealed
traces of a number of early settlements of iron using
people, dating between the second and the fifth centuries
AD as at Yelwa, Baha and Ulaira. The furnace appear to
have been of the same basic type as those at Taruga.
Several sites in Ghana, notably BrongAhafoBegho and
Atwetwebooso provided evidence for the working of
iron between the second century BC and the third
century AD, but disappointingly little detail has been
published of the associated furnace types or metal tools.
Research at Dahoya, when fully published may throw
light on the transition from stone tool-making to
metallurgy. In Northern Nigeria there is as yet no clear
indication for the use of iron before the second half of
the first millennium AD. Likewise, in the far West, the
earliest date that has been obtained for iron-working in
Senegal is between the fifth and eight centuries AD at
Sinthiou Bara where low slag-taping furnace was in use.
Little reliance should, however, be placed on negative
evidence such as this because of the exiguous quantity of
archaeological research that has so far been undertaken.
There thus seems to be good evidence that metallurgy
was practised in many parts of Africa from around the
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Volume 4 Issue 10, October 2016, ISSN No.: 2348 8190
middle centuries of the first millennium BC copper
working was initially restricted to those areas where
suitable ores occurred, but iron was much more
widespread. Once the relevant technology become
known it appeared rapidly to have been adopted over
wide area. It adaptive advantage are not hard to see.
Despite the high input of labour required for their
manufacture, iron tools greatly facilitated cultivation
including where necessary, clearance of natural
vegetation. Improved agriculture may have permitted
increased human populations to be supported on a given
area of land, and expansion of settlement into forested
regions would have been assisted. The regional
availability of ores and the other resources (notably
charcoal) needed for the production of metal provided a
stimulus to the establishment of exchange networks.
Increased population densities and the development of
interregional exchange may between them have
facilitated the concentration of wealth and political
authority in the possession of certain individuals or
groups. Metal was used to symbolize statue and power
in Eastern Nigeria, similarly phenomena were
widespread in other parts of West Africa also [2&5].
Metal was used in rites of passage, in title-taking as
currency and for the production of symbols of office. It
is thus easy to appreciate the relationship between metal,
particularly iron, and the development of social and
political complexity in African societies.Attention
should also be drawn to two classes of funerary
monument which, although as yet poorly understood,
appear to date back to the period here considered.
Tumuli are widely distributed in the Savannah from
Senegambia to the Niger bend. Some are large and
elaborate constructions, modern meticulous excavation
could probably yield much valuable information about
the funerary practices with which they were associated.
In Senegal and the Gambia, Megaliths including stone
circles and single dressed stones appeared, at least in
some instances, to be of similar antiquity, as do the large
anthropomorphic stone carvings at Esie and in the Cross
River area of Nigeria.
Conclusion
Many historians considering the early development of
West African trade have concentrated their attention
almost exclusively on trans-Saharan links, to the extent
that local exchange networks within Africa have
received little scholarly attention. Trans-Saharan trade is
well described in the written Arabic sources which
themselves often provided pointers for those involved in
archaeological research. The archaeological recognition
of trade or exchange presupposes the ability to detect
 International Journal of Advanced Engineering Research and Technology (IJAERT) 327
Volume 4 Issue 10, October 2016, ISSN No.: 2348 8190

objects or commodities which have been transported

from elsewhere, even now the requisite coverage of
research is only available in certain areas. It must also
be recognised that many of these items would have
comprised materials that are rarely if ever preserved in
the archaeological record. It is appropriate to attempt a
survey of life in Africa during the 1,000 years period
between the appearance of metallurgy and the
establishment of trans-Saharan trade. Despite the
exiguous attention which has previously been devoted to
it, it is clear that this period was of paramount
importance in setting the scene for the subsequent
florescence of African culture. Some Arab travelers in
the late first millennium AD commented on the social
and political cohesiveness of the people whom they
encountered South of Sahara, on the scale of their towns
their wealth, their armies and the complexity of their
burial customs. Both Koumbi Saleh and Awdaghast
were urban settlements before the eighth century. But
are now known to have occurred further to the South, in
what is now Ghana, urban development at Bono Manso
can be traced back to the third or fourth centuries AD.
The important trade at Begbo, which developed during
the seventh to twelfth centuries as a base for exchange
between the products of the forest and those of the
Savannah, had its origins as early as the second century.

References
[1] Andah B. (1988) African Anthropology by Shaneson
C. I. Limited.

[2] Granville et al (1899) Notes on Jekria

[3] Sobos and Ijos J. Anthropology Institute, 104

[4] Nicklin K. (1979) The Location of Pottery

Manufacture Man (N.S. 14, 3 436)

[5] Shaw T. (1978) Nigeria: Its Archaeology and Early

History: Themes and Hudson

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