Metal-production technologies (metallurgy) have had a profound influence on the course of human history. Aside from gold, used for jewelry and ornamentation, the first metal to be widely used was copper, with smelting (the process of extracting metal from ore by heating) beginning by 5000 B.C.E. in modern-day Serbia. Production of bronze from copper and tin began by 2800 BCE in Anatolia, in what is modern-day Turkey. Next was iron, with smelting starting around 1500 B.C.E. in Anatolia and spreading to Europe by 1100 BCE. Although iron production was difficult and complex, this metal's greater hardness made tools and weapons far superior to those made from copper and bronze.

For a long time, scholars believed that iron production came to sub-Saharan Africa from Anatolia. One reason for this is that iron smelting requires considerable knowledge and experience, yet there was no evidence for previous metals technology in Africa. In particular, there seemed to have been no copper metallurgy, a likely precursor to iron production. Since Anatolia did possess the necessary knowledge and skill, it seemed to be a plausible source.

Some of the first evidence for African iron production was found in Meroe and dated to around 500 B.C.E: iron tools and weapons, the remains of furnaces, and a large number of heaps of slag (waste left behind after processing metallic ores). This was significant, because the kingdom of Meroe had close contact with Egypt to the north, where iron production had been imported from Anatolia and was known by 670 B.C.E. Therefore, it seemed logical that iron technology had diffused southward through Egypt to Meroe, and from Meroe to sub-Saharan Africa. Some archaeologists have proposed a different source: Carthage, a north African city on the Mediterranean coast founded around 800 B.C.E by the Phoenicians, whose homeland was close to Anatolia. However, no direct archaeological evidence for iron smelting has been found in Carthage, and it is not easy to explain how such knowledge and skill could have crossed the Sahara desert to reach the sub-Saharan regions, it appears that the earliest iron production in south of the desert predates Carthage's founding.

Although it seems clear that iron technology reached Meroe from Anatolia via Egypt, recent research shows that the rest of Africa developed the technology independently. There is evidence of iron working as early as 1000 B.C.E. in Central Africa, and iron smelters were in use in the Great Lakes region of East Africa around 900 BCE, both earlier than would have been possible if the technologies had diffused from Anatolia through Egypt. Iron production was widespread in West and East Africa as early as 600 BCE, and it reached southern Africa a few hundred years later. Not only do such dates precede those of Meroe's iron production, but the design of the smelters differs significantly from that of the smelters at Meroe. Also, there are recent indications that sub-Saharan Africa had copper technology in place as early as 2200 B.C.E., long before iron production began. Aside from the knowledge gained from copper technology, some experience may have come from pottery production, since around 4000 B.C.E crushed iron ore was used to coat pottery in Egypt, and the temperatures necessary for this were almost as high as those needed for iron smelting.

Diffusion of iron technology through Africa was relatively slow, possibly as a result of the scarcity of iron ore. It also did not have the immediate impact of other technologies (such as steam power in the modern era), but iron tools made hunting easier and facilitated tasks such as shaping wood, building houses, and digging wells. Iron technology certainly helped farmers and so accelerated the spread of agricultural communities in West Africa after 400 BCE, such as those of the upper Niger River, where farming settlements began to form clusters of villages that specialized in rice, cotton, or dried fish, and eventually developed into large market towns. However, the rarity of major iron deposits meant that iron tools, weapons, and other goods had to be transported over long distances. Along with the difficulty of iron production, this probably gave iron workers an honored place in the community.