Tanzania na sisi tumo kwenye sayansi

[Dubo]

The Haya people of Tanzania have been linked to one of the greatest scientific breakthroughs of all time: the advent of steel. Anthropologist Peter Schmidt discovered through the communication of oral tradition that the Haya have been forging steel for nearly 2000 years. This discovery was made accidentally while Schmidt was learning about the history of the Haya via their oral tradition. He was led to a tree which was said to rest on the spot of an ancestral furnace used to forge steel. A group of elders were later tasked with the challenge of recreating the forges. At this time they were the only ones to remember the practice, which had fallen into disuse due in part to the abundance of steel flowing into the country from foreign sources. In spite of the lack of practice the elders were able to create a furnace using mud and grass which when burnt provided the carbon needed to transform the iron into steel. Later investigation of the land yielded 13 other furnaces similar in design to the recreation set up by the elders. These furnaces were carbon dated and were found to be as old as 2000 years,whereas steel of this caliber did not appear in Europe until several centuries later. These findings may help alter the perception held by modern society that technological advancement occurred uniquely in Europe but not in Africa