Iron furnaces and future kings: Craft specialization and the emergence of political power in central Madagascar.

Abstract

The correlation between craft production and political development is not simply between the existence of a craft and political development, but between certain variables of the specialization and organization of the craft and their relationship to increasingly centralized control at the economic, religious, political, and social level. Iron slag, bloom, and other metallurgical debris from one of the earliest documented iron working sites in Madagascar (Ampasina, circa AD 1000), are analyzed in order to address questions of craft organization and socio-political transformation. This study evaluates, in particular, the role that the social <italic> context</italic> and <italic>intensity</italic> of production play in the organization and specialization of iron working from two areas in central Madagascar. By comparing two neighboring and contemporaneous cultures from central Madagascar which, in spite of their proximity, underwent strikingly different socio-political transformations over time, it is hypothesized that, of all the variables that come together to create distinct types of iron working specialization (context, intensity, concentration, scale, efficiency and standardization), changes in <italic>context</italic> and <italic>intensity</italic> are the ones most closely associated with increasing centralization of decision making and political complexity. <italic>Context</italic> is an evaluation of the degree to which the iron producers are independent or attached to the political regime. <italic> Intensity</italic> measures the amount of time iron workers are engaged in the craft---the range is from part time to full time production. Historical, archaeological and metallurgical analyses will show that the organization of early iron working in Ankay and Imerina were subtly different, marking perhaps the earliest point at which the two regions diverged in their political histories. While evaluating the <italic>context</italic> of production proves to be critically important in evaluating the types of craft specialization practiced, <italic>intensity</italic> of production is problematic with iron working cultures because of those aspects of the craft that set it apart in many ways from other crafts. With a firmly established archaeological record of early iron working in two areas of central Madagascar, future studies concerning issues of deforestation and technological adaptations are possible.