Three raw materials were essential to Iron Age peoples in South Central Africa: iron, copper and salt. This paper discusses some of the archaeological evidence for the development of regional and long-distance trade in these commodities during the earlier Iron Age. A distinction is drawn between regional trade in items for which there is local demand, and longer distance commerce in raw materials, which may have been conducted with the aid of some standardized units of monetary significance.

The big question for future research is that of assessing the degree to which the more sophisticated centres of metallurgy and trade affected those societies, living outside the immediate area, whose technologies and economies were less highly developed.

The Chadian Muslim states of Kanem, and later Bornu, have been linked throughout their history to North Africa by an important trade-route across the Sahara, from the Libyan coast to Lake Chad. The popularity and permanence of this route throughout the centuries have been detennined by the economic needs and specialities of the N. African littoral, as well as of the Western Sudan. This route, first controlled by Ibāḍī Muslim Berbers from Zawīla from the eighth to the twelfth centuries, then briefly by the Ayyubids of Cairo, came under the control of Kanem, which was expanding northwards in the thirteenth century. The Fazzān (and Zawīla) then came under the control of Kanem, which seems to have maintained friendly relations with the Hafsid dynasty of Tunis. After the thirteenth century, independent states arose in the Fazzān. Then, after the establishment of an Ottoman Turkish province in Libya, the Turks and the Mais of Bornu were soon in contact, probably from about 1555, and certainly in the time of Mai Idrīs of Bomu (on the throne in 1557–8), as some newly found correspondence from the Ottoman Archives in Istanbul makes clear. There was certainly a friendly association between Bornu and the Turks at this period, if not an actual alliance, as Mai Idrīs hoped to obtain arms and perhaps Turkish troops as well to use against his enemies of the W. Sudan, principally the Hausa state of Kebbi. However, Idris's hopes were deceived, and the Ottoman Sultan Murād III did not provide what was wanted, causing Idrīs to turn to the Sa'dī Sharifian ruler of Fās, Aḥmad al-Manṣūr al-Dhahābī, with a similar request.

A wide range of contact with other peoples has tended to produce variety and divergence in Igala traditions concerning the origin of the kingship. To select one or other of these traditions for special emphasis, as was done in the past, is to misrepresent the nature of the corpus as a whole. Analysis of this complex body of tradition can be simplified by concentrating on three problems, the problem of divergence, the question of chronology, and the need to distinguish between the historical and the political functions of oral tradition. Divergence in Igala tradition reflects divisions within the clan system on which Igala political structure is based. But these differences of emphasis can be resolved if the time span covered by the legends is properly understood. These traditions open with a mythical or quasi-mythical period in which events are placed without reference to their sequence in time. Mythical thought is concerned with structure in the abstract, with form rather than with process. Thus it is argued that the early period of Igala history, where most of the divergence occurs, demonstrates the interaction of different principles of political growth and change, the time span being defined conventionally by associating each major development with one reign or generation. Dating from archaeological and ethnographic material suggests that a much longer time span is involved in Igala history than might be indicated by a superficial analysis of the oral traditions, based on genealogical counting.

The Anteimoro, last of the overseas migrants to settle in Madagascar, conclude the essential formation of the Malagasy people. From genealogies and early European accounts, it is estimated that two initial contingents of the Anteimoro reached Madagascar around 1490 and settled at Matitana by 1512. The last and final one arrived by 1540. As a group, the Anteimoro were able to impose their own political and social structure on the tompontany of Matitana. Through intermarriage, the Anteimoro adopted the Malagasy language while moving toward endogamy to preserve their distinct identity as well as aristocratic position.

Alone in Madagascar, the Anteimoro developed a scribal tradition, manifested in countless Arabico-Malagasy Sora-bé manuscripts. One appears to antedate the 1600s, most were composed in the nineteenth century, but some are undoubtedly copies of earlier Sora-bé. An old Anteimoro vocabulary reveals a much higher percentage of Arabic words than are found today. While Islam is now extremely diluted among them, due to the complete isolation of the Anteimoro, there is no doubt that they were once zealotic Muslims.

The problem of their origin, explored by Grandidier, Ferrand and Julien, has been suspended between Arabia and the Swahili coast. Neither can be accepted. At least one genealogy shows a ‘pause’ of ten generations between the great ancestor of the Anteimoro in Madagascar and the last descendant of a line that had fled from Arabia. While there is no plausible alternative for this ‘pause’ other than Africa, the Swahili coast must be discounted in the absence of any architecture among the Anteimoro and of Swahili loan-words, phonemes and calligraphy. Attempts to see the etymon of Anteimoro (phon. temūrū) as Malagasy or as Swahili ‘Mahūrū’ (slaves) are also unsatisfactory. Imperfect as it may be, partial evidence points to Temur, a people of eastern or southern Ethiopia who vanished locally in the fifteenth century. It is also suggested that there were connexions with the Qadiriyya tarika, which Anteirnoro religious specialists sought to extend into Madagascar without success.

From the sixteenth century until the coming of the Salazar regime, Portuguese control in the Zambezi basin rested on the prazos da coroa—grants of crown land. Portuguese acquisition of land and jurisdiction began with the establishment of the trading fairs in Mashonaland in the second half of the sixteenth century. Private titles first became common in the seventeenth century, when individual conquistadores, who had obtained concessions from chiefs in return for their help in local wars, sought official titles for their land from the Portuguese crown. In the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries the Crown tried to modify the terms of these grants and alter the character of the institution of the prazos. The prazo-holders successfully resisted these encroachments because their power rested on their followings of African slaves and clients, and on their control of local administration and their family alliances. In the nineteenth century their dependence on their African followings, coupled with increasing inter-marriage, greatly accentuated the African characteristics of the prazos. The most important of the prazo holders became the chiefs of newly emerging African peoples, and adopted the customs and beliefs associated with chieftainship. At the same time the disordered state of the Zambezi following the Ngoni invasions and the growth of the slave-trade eliminated the weaker families and concentrated power effectively in the hands of four major family groupings. The wars waged by the Portuguese government against these families lasted from the 1840s till teh end of the century. In spite of many victories, the internal feuds among the prazo families and the establishment of British administration in Central Africa brought about the end of their dominance. The prazos themselves survived into the twentieth century as units of fiscal and administrative policy.

Starting with a small band of refugees, Mzilikazi built a personal military kingdom on the Zulu model at three successive locations in South Africa. His early successes might be attributed to the disturbances resulting from the Difaqane. Later, his strength was maintained by his ability to incorporate diverse peoples into his polity. The aggressive policy for which he is known was not maintained during those periods in which he felt secure, but rather when he was forced to migrate farther from his major enemy, the Zulu. Evidence supports the contention that his main aim was a search for security. His policies were successful against the threats from African enemies. Only with the coming of white men did they fail. The essential features of Mzilikazi's political system are described to show what he preserved of traditional Nguni practices, what he borrowed from Dingeswayo and Shaka, and what he modified to fit his particular circumstances.

The viability of Mzilikazi's developing polity is confirmed by his success in reconstructing his kingdom north of the Limpopo River. Without minimizing the traditional characterization of Mzilikazi as a warrior, a desolator and a tyrant, it is as a creative political administrator that his full stature can be appreciated.

In the period before the rise of Emperor Theodore, the provinces in Ethiopia tended to behave like independent entities. Shoa was one of the more successful provinces in this respect. By the middle of the nineteenth century, a strong independent nationalism had developed in Shoa which threatened to stand in the way of national unity. This was not favoured by Emperor Theodore, who therefore strove to destroy provincial independence and unite all the provinces under an effective central government.

For a long time it was thought that Theodore had an easy task with Shoa, defeating her in a single combat and thereafter completely pacifying the country. Recent researches have revealed that this was not the case. Theodore did not gain an easy victory over a timid enemy. On the contrary, he met with a strong and determined resistance from the Shoan kingdom. He did in the end succeed in conquering it, but he did so only after a vigorous campaign which lasted five months. His final victory was affected by two related factors which seriously weakened the morale of the Shoan soldiers. The first was the sudden death of the king of Shoa at the height of the campaign. The second factor was that the heir to the Shoan throne was a boy of ten years, and incapable of giving effective leadership in the war against the emperor. Shoan resistance collapsed with the capture of the heir and of a number of the leading personalities in the kingdom. The emperor established his own administration in the conquered territory, which he hoped would effectively execute imperial policy there.

The administration was, however, unable to pacify the conquered territory, and the period of imperial control was spent suppressing one rebellion after another. On two occasions during this period, Theodore had to go down to Shoa himself to strengthen imperial attacks on the rebels. Although the Emperor managed to gain a hard-won victory over the rebels on the first occasion, he could not make any headway on the second occasion, and eventually he left the country in the hands of the rebels. Thus, in spite of all his efforts, Theodore never succeeded in gaining complete control over Shoa, and by the time he died in April i868, Shoa had already regained her independence.

Following the establishment of the city-state of Abeokuta, the Egba and Owu returned to the forms of government known and respected before the retreat from the north, each township running its own affairs and reclaiming old prerogatives. This urban parochialism proved increasingly cumbersome after the death of Sodeke, when, without effective central leadership, the Ogboni and Ologun manœuvred for political predominance.

These difficulties were compounded after mid-century as the tempo of economic and cultural change quickened in southern Yorubaland. The Egba were intent on establishing themselves as commercial middlemen between the coast and interior. On the one hand, they were thus drawn into the ever-widening focus of European economic and political influence and demands radiating from Lagos. On the other, seeds of change were planted at Abeokuta itself: European merchants, missionaries, and Saros, who were soon promoting new economic forms and demanding political expression.

The formal appearance of the Saros as political contenders in 1860 coincided with the breakdown of the uneasy Yoruba peace. Their first bid for power was consequently unsuccessful, and, as the war progressed, the military became the controlling political force. In fact civil government came close to vanishing completely during the next five years, a point of near-anarchy being reached, and with deteriorating relations with Lagos.

The responsibility for the retention of the British Protectorates during the period leading up to Union lay more with Lord Selborne than with the British government as a whole. Governemental dealings (both Conservative and Liberal) with the Protectorates up to the era of Lord Selborne had been consistently heedless of the interests of the Africans involved.

The key to the change in policy seems to have been Selborne's dealings with the Basutos. The High Commissioner, from the time of his first exposure to them until years after his departure, continually evidenced the highest regard for the Basutos' intellect, accomplishments and military prowess. Through the vehicle of the National Council, he had a real chance to learn what the nation was thinking, wishing or fearing. Through correspondence with local traders and missionaries (notably the Rev. Jacottet), Selborne had become convinced, by the eve of the National Convention, that the Protectorates, whatever the outcome of the native franchise question, must be withheld from the Union if the current African restlessness, especially in Basutoland, were not to be transformed into outright rebellion. The virtual denial of native representation by the Convention provided Selborne with a plausible and strong reason for doing so. In the face of determined opposition by the Convention, Selborne stood firm, and was backed up by the Colonial office for fear, among other reasons, that he would resign if it did not.

The Sixth List contains many dates from Eastern and Southern Africa. An important sequence of dates from Malawi is published, indicating that the Iron Age there had begun as early as the third century A.D. The beginnings of the Zambian Early Iron Age are well established by the fourth century, while important new dates for ‘Dimple-based’ wares in Rwanda and Kenya place that pottery type within the same time span.

The Palabora dates from the Transvaal indicate that the Limpopo valley was settled by Iron Age people by the eighth century, and numerous isolated samples are recorded. The five dates from Ife in Nigeria confirm that the terracotta sculpture there was being made before European contact, while numerous samples for earlier sites are published.