Iron-working Yoruba settlement at Orun Oba Ado, Ife

Five radiocarbon dates covering the sixth to tenth centuries CE were obtained for charcoal from humanly-dug pits at Orun Oba Ado, indicating that before the mid-first millennium CE the Ife area held a Yoruba-speaking farming population manufacturing its own iron. Ife's early importance may have rested on being a centre of iron-working and craft specialisation.