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The Tree of Iron
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Filmmaker Name:
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Peter O'Neill, Frank Muhly, Jr. , Peter Schmidt
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Film Length:
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57 min
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Film Year:
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1988
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Duration:
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46-75 min
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Decade:
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1980s
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Secondary Creator:
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with Peter Schmidt
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Color:
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color
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Tree of Iron is one of the few films to document archaeological work on ancient civilizations in Africa. The film details the history and processes of African iron smelting and presents convincing evidence for early, complex indigenous technologies.
Tree of Iron is set in Tanzania, East Africa, on the western shores of Lake Victoria, where Haya people have lived for centuries. The film follows the work of Peter Schmidt, an archaeologist and historian who studies the ancient, 2000-year-old iron industrial sites of the region, as well as extensive oral traditions that illustrate the role of iron in agriculture, political power, and mythology.
The tree in the film's title refers to an enormous tree of great antiquity that is the symbolic center of Haya iron production. Linked to rich iron symbolism, a vibrant mythology, and to ancient iron forges and furnaces, the site of this iron tree produced the first evidence for ancient, sophisticated metalworking technology.
Schmidt works with African iron smelters who build and operate reconstructed versions of traditional furnaces to demonstrate the technological principles that ancient workers used to produce high carbon steel. It also illustrates the degradation of the environment caused by this ancient industry. The film's experimental and comparative approach takes the viewer through each of the technical steps involved in smelting, from charcoal production to furnace construction.
The 80 to 90-year-old Haya smelters are the primary actors in this remarkable process. Tree of Iron combines foci on archaeology, ethnography, and metallurgy to overturn faulty ideas about the history of technology in Africa and replace them with an emphasis on wonder and achievement.
"This important film deserves a wide audience...it is one of the very few films to document archaeological work in sub-Saharan Africa and the only one to examine ethnoarchaeological research and experimentation there.
Peter Schmidt has combined the talents of archaeologist, ethnologist and metallurgist in his quest to understand early African iron smelting. This entire project is an exemplary model of interdisciplinary archaeology, and we are fortunate not just to have a record of it on film, but to have a record of such high quality."
— Peter Allen, ARCHAEOLOGY
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