Like the act of iron smelting itself, this important book can be understood and used on many levels: as a technological reference on a vanished craft; as a reference tool for archaeologists to analyse and explain the evidence of ironworking; as a study of the role ritual and belief play in technological process of recent societies; and - more challenging, more problematic - the use of this to understand symbolism and cognition in the earlier societies of the African Iron Age.

• Remaking knowledge about African iron technology; historical and cultural contexts - excavating history, myth and ritual; ethnoarchaeology and experiment in iron technology; ethnoarchaeology and bricolage - engaging iron smelting; a technological model of the Haya process; comparative models - forging a history of Haya iron smelting; dynamic models for an archaeology of iron technology; models for the interpretation of space - smelting and forging; an archaeology of African iron symbolism; reading ideology in the archaeological record; a history of landscape transformation - bringing the past up to the present.