Fuel selection during long-term ancient iron production in Sudan

Abstract

The Royal City of Meroe, a capital of the ancient Kushite kingdom in modern Sudan, is renowned for its extensive remains of ancient iron production. The exploitation of wood to fuel Meroe’s metallurgical past has long been linked to environmental degradation. However, palaeoenvironmental studies involving archaeobotanical methods such as charcoal analysis, which might confirm or disprove the hypothesis of large-scale deforestation, have so far been missing for the area. Our investigations offer the first comprehensive anthracological data for the iron-smelting contexts at Meroe and its surroundings covering more than 1000 years. They provide unequivocal evidence for extreme selectivity for a single species, the Nile acacia Acacia nilotica (Syn. Vachellia nilotica), throughout the course of the currently known metallurgical history of the Meroe region. The charcoal data neither point to fuel shortage nor to environmental degradation at any point in time during the entire production period. Non-metallurgical contexts show that a wider array of taxa was used for fuel with low values of Acacia nilotica type charcoal. We thus conclude that Acacia nilotica wood was preferably used and mainly spared for the technical application of iron smelting. The probable source areas for Nile acacia wood and possible woody resource management strategies to maintain the fuel supply are discussed.