ABSTRACT
IN her recent article1 Candice Goucher shows the need for a more detailed examination of the decline of iron industries in West Africa and advocates a model in which ecological factors are emphasized. These centre on the enormous consumption of charcoal by the iron-smelting process, leading to partial de-forestation, in combination with a * desiccating climatic shift*, seriously endangering the future of fuel reserves. The increasing penetration of European trading institutions from the seventeenth century onwards helped to seal the fate of the industry. While as the outline of a general picture there is little to quarrel with in this model, it would be of little use when applied to a particular local situation. In order to produce a more comprehensive and flexible model of the transition from an industry based on local smelting technology to one dependent on recycled waste products or imported raw materials it is necessary to take a greater range of factors into account. I propose in this paper to discuss the more significant of these factors relating to the competitiveness of locally produced iron vis-a-vis the imported product at the point of contact. This involves consideration of labour input, price, the ritual value of local iron and the social organisation of iron-working groups.
