ABSTRACT
Northern Libya, with its pronounced lack of tree cover, would not have been a promising environment for iron-working, and a close reading of Herodotus suggests that in the fifth century bc the culture of eastern North Africa was still basically neolithic. Certainly, one of the Sahelian areas richest in early Iron Age remains is the Jos plateau of north-eastern Nigeria and the lower-lying country immediately to the south of it. In Africa south of the sub-Saharan Sahel, iron directly replaced stone. Southern Zaire with its great system of parallel river valleys which descend from the Congo-Zambezi watershed towards the central Congo basin, was a region highly favourable to early Iron Age settlement. The rivers were well stocked with fish. The earliest inhabitants seem to have been fishermen and fowlers, who hunted crocodile and tortoises, as well as the game animals which came to the waterside to drink.
