generally, the production of mono steel as such is a fairly high tech procedure, and AFAIK dates to only the 18th C in Europe. There is a legend that African iron has been of especial purity (thus never going thru the permutations that led to discovering steel). However, I have seen numbers of central African/Bantu blades with forging flaws and other signs of what looks like simple lineal laminate (folding for homogeneity/alloying).
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