Great ZimbabweIts iron furnaces needed no bellows.
Bantu-speaking migrants carried metalworking across southern Africa, and 350 million Africans speak their languages today.
Fused clay tuyeres drew air in and out through a chimney, feeding the 1,150°C that iron smelting needs.
Linguists, archaeologists and geneticists still debate the migration’s route and timing.
How each outlet framed it
- Phys.org
- argues the furnaces drew air by chimney draft, inferred from fused tuyeres, rather than bellows, and that slag plant impressions suggest plant fuel
Sources: Phys.org