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Radiocarbon Dates for Sub-Saharan Africa (from c. 1000 b.c.)—III
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 22 January 2009
Extract
The third list of radiocarbon dates for Sub-Saharan Africa later than 1000 b.c. is considerably longer than its predecessors. As new laboratories commence operations, so more and more dates become available. During the last eighteen months, many more dates from Rhodesian Iron Age sites have been processed, where the earliest Iron Age peoples are now dated to the fourth century a.d. if not earlier. The Kalomo culture in Zambia is now securely dated. Iron smelting furnaces were being operated on the Witwatersrand in South Africa by a.d. 1000, and it is now known that Iron Age peoples were living by the Kuene river in Angola by the eighth century. Recent dates from Katanga have shown that there was a flourishing copper trade there by the same period. An important series of dates have been processed from Saharan Neolithic sites, indicating that the Sahara was suitable for pastoral peoples in the fourth century b.c. Another date for the Nok culture in Nigeria places the later stages of the culture in the third century a.d.
By a resolution of the Cambridge Radiocarbon Conference, all dates are now calculated relative to a.d. 1950.
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References
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