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Many regions of Burkina Faso are the centers of the ancient iron production. Still nowadays some tangible witnesses of this activity can be seen in the local landscapes. The zone of our studies, commune Kongoussi, which is situated in the central north region of the country was a very important center of metallurgy. The identification of the number of traces related to paleometallurgy of iron has become possible thanks to our archaeological research. These traces were made up by ancient mines for the extraction of minerals and by workshops of reduction of iron some of which possessed furnaces. These furnaces are quiet well preserved now. Our ethnographic inquires allowed us to get the precise information concerning technical, economic and socio-cultural aspects of iron paleometallurgy. The ensemble of this data allowed us to apprehend to whole technical complex of ancient iron production. We reconstructed its technical aspects as well as its typical sociological involvements. In order to propose the way of adequate protection of archaeological witnesses of ancient metallurgy which represent technical and historical heritage of the region we’ve tried to identify the principal problems of their protection and to suggest some susceptible recommendations for giving a new rush to the archaeological heritage in the programs of local development and memory safeguard.
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