STYLE IN TECHNOLOGY: A VIEW OF AFRICAN EARLY IRON AGE IRON SMELTING THROUGH ITS REFRACTORY CERAMICS. (VOLUMES I AND II) (ARCHAEOLOGY, EAST AFRICA, TECHNOLOGY, MATERIALS ANALYSIS)

Extensive archaeological work has been conducted on the iron-smelting technology which existed in the Kagera region of northwestern Tanzania during the Early Iron Age. Some of its principal remains are the refractory ceramics which have been found in furnace pits at seven sites. These include: bricks to build the furnaces, clay liners for the furnace pits, and tuyeres, or blowpipes, through which air was issued into the furnace to promote steel bloom formation. These artifacts constitute the facilities of the technology, not its products. They provide the opportunity to delineate the technical, environmental, and cultural influences on traditions involved in the entire technological process.;The methods used are based in ceramic ecology and technology. Collection and laboratory testing of a variety of clays local to the Kagera region provided an understanding of the environment in which variable resources were mined and manipulated prehistorically. Similar physical, chemical, and petrographic analyses were then conducted on the ancient refractory ceramics to examine traditions of resource selection, resource processing, object formation, and use in iron smelting.;By determining what traditions developed and why, the relationships between the traditions, and the behavioral priorities established, it was possible to formulate the technological style of this prehistoric industry. Given suggestions of shifts in the integrating mechanisms involved over time, a change in the style was indicated.;Technological style is an aspect of all technologies since it is the expression of a formal set of relationships between patterned behaviors. A variety of technical, environmental, and cultural factors impinge on how technological behavior is patterned. The choices made are often institutionalized as traditions--communicated knowledge and procedure associated with the individual activities of a technology. The integration of these traditions by culturally-specific mechanisms yields a technological style which can be uniquely expressive of the culture group that performs it. The style can be studied directly since it is manifested through the physical attributes and properties of the artifacts related to the technology.