If bronze manufacture is more complex than iron manufacture, how come the "bronze age" happened before the "iron age"?
>>837028
Because iron is more difficult to smelt due to its higher melting point and large degree of impurities. Also, shit rusts.
>If bronze manufacture is more complex than iron manufacture
because it's not. true, you need more ingredients, but all you have to with them is to put them on fireplace and wait.
>>837038
>all you have to with them is to put them on fireplace and wait
Don't forget extensive trading networks to get the tin from far away places like Britain.
>>837028
I smell tin foil...
>>837045
I'm sorry to tell you this, but what you smell is critical thinking, something that you lack, apparently.
>>837041
that's a matter of level of civilization, not level of metallurgy.
>>837028
Iron takes more work to pound into shape, that means you need more labor.
Can't spell age without energy rate density
>>837065
Exactly. The collapse of which lead to the iron age.
>>837079
You have other to consider, though. More advanced furnaces and smithing practices were required before iron became an easily workable material.
>>837028
Some civilizations created iron without having made bronze, such as the Nok civilization in Nigeria
>>837099
And your point is?
>>837137
the bronze age wasn't always before the iron age. I don't understand why you don't think my post was relevant
>>837162
Improve your reading comprehension, buddyO
>>837079
You've got to consider its probability x the time that melting energy was available for each element. I'm guessing, because in point of fact bronze came first, that the product is lower for bronze than iron.
>>837168
What does reading comprehension have to do with this? I posted something relevant to OP's discussion and now you're sperging out about what my "point" is
>>837189
I think he's suggesting that the topic is about the Bronze Age in the fertile crescent and China. I doubt there was ever a "Bronze Age" in Africa. Iron making developed in the near east and spread to the people you're talking about. They never relied solely on bronze in the first place.
>>837201
>ever a "Bronze Age" in Africa
To clarify, i mean Sub-Saharan Africa, not North Africa.
>>837028
Both copper and tin have low melting points(when compared to iron) and the ores are easier to find.
>>837203
>nd the ores are easier to find.
as in - prospect
>>837201
Iron was developed independtly in Africa.
You have to remember that until 1300, all of Africa south of Nigeria was uninhabited.
>>837225
>You have to remember that until 1300, all of Africa south of Nigeria was uninhabited
Wat. What are the Khoi-San peoples?
>>837230
They're not people since bantu exterminated them an proto-african-americans can't be seen as somebody who committed genocide otherwise it'll raise their systemic oppression in the US.
Iron makes better weapons than bronze. The Greeks started out with bronze but later on made the transition to iron. Harder and longer weapons.
Because humankind has been in a steady decline since it's Gold and Silver Ages.
>>837225
>>837233
Uh Pygmy groups, Khoi and San (because they aren't the same you retard) are still around today. There is no evidence of them being violent or forced exterminated either and we see genetically, linguistically and culturally the absorption of non-Bantu peoples into Bantu populations.
Please stop talking out of your ass.
>>837242
Each group had their home territories they migrated in, they weren't wanderers they had seasonal camps and areas within their territories
>>837079
perhaps the process by which to construct the materials or a furnace strong enough to burn hot enough to melt iron was harder than the processes by which to construct a bronze forge
>>837563
Greeks switched to iron because the bronze age collapse ruined all the kingdoms, aristocracy and their trade networks and thus nobody could produce bronze. Greeks got rekt so hard they forgot how to read and write their own script and had to adopt a Phoenician one. The spread of iron working in Greece was largely due to necessity.
>>837652
No the reason bronze fell out of use for swords was because iron was better for swords and spear heads, being stronger and able to be made longer. As well as being easier to produce in large quantities so hoplites could more easily arm themselves
>>837671
The circumstances became such that rich kings and nobles became unable to control the lands and it fell to city-states instead. This gave rise to more egalitarian citizen army which couldn't maintain horses or such lavish equipment nobles could. Iron is better and the transition to it did naturally happen but the spread of iron was because of the bronze age collapse and its consequences.
>>837028
Bronze is more complex to manufacture but easier to produce good bronze. Iron is harder to produce well and consistently.
>>837671
Iron isn't always better than bronze bud
In short, because copper was the first widely exploited metal. It's a shorter jump to try alloying it with another metal than to find another, harder to smelt and work, metal.
>>837041
>Don't forget extensive trading networks to get the tin from far away places like Britain.
'Bronze Age' is something of a misnomer, in this context it means copper alloys in general rather than true bronze. Many early bronze age artefacts are actually alloys of copper with other metals than tin.
>>837036
So what you're saying is... ancient fuel can't melt iron ore?
>>837225
>You have to remember that until 1300, all of Africa south of Nigeria was uninhabited.
>>837225
So what you're saying is that blacks literally are Nigers?
>>837671
This isnt true. The iron used was in most ways inferior and cheaper than bronze. It was only when the availability of bronze dropped and became too expensive for the average person that (poor quality) iron became the standard.
Cause when you are working with cooper, is easier to discover bronze than iron.
Good post over at /r/askhistorians
I think the explanation is much more prosaic. No need to invoke the sea peoples or climate change or attachment to the magical properties of bronze. It’s a matter of technology.
Contrary to what many people think, iron is a very poor substitute for bronze. It’s much more difficult to produce, requiring an order of magnitude more labor. It requires much more fuel because of its higher melting point, which also makes it impossible to cast until you first invent higher temperature furnaces. And if you manage to do all that, then what? You end up with a metal that is softer than bronze, won’t hold an edge as well as bronze, and will rust and become useless in a few years anyway.
In short, there was absolutely no advantage to iron. It was worse than bronze in every way that mattered to ancient people. People have known about iron since prehistoric times, and in fact long before they learned iron metallurgy they were already making stuff out of meteoric iron. But all these items were expensive curiosities, they were of no practical use.
In terms of the practical use of iron, the “iron age” is really the “steel age”. It was not until steel was invented that iron became practical. This is when iron (in the form of steel) actually became better than bronze. This happened during the period 1300 BC – 1200 BC, which is when iron took off in a big way all across a belt from the near east to India.
The theories of economic and demographic collapse and climate change and the scarcity of tin due to disrupted trade routes don’t make much sense to me. As a matter of fact, I have never seen any evidence that tin was actually scarce in the near east after these catastrophes. There are lots of bronze objects from this period still found in the near east, they remain abundant throughout, and none of them show any diminution in the amount of tin to reflect any scarcity.
cont.
>>837754
What we do have from this period is strong evidence of the invention of carburization to produce steel. There is the knife from Tomb 562 at Tell el-Farah, bracelets from a burial in the Baqa Valley of Jordan. There is a steel pick from Har Addir in Galilee. In fact, there are a whole bunch of artifacts from the 12th to 10th centuries BC that indicate that humans learned how to carburize iron to produce steel. And steel is far superior to bronze in making tools and weapons.
Some references:
Waldbaum, JC and Hauptmann, A. (1989): Copper, Iron, Tin, Wood: The Start of the Iron Age in the Eastern Mediterranean. Archeomaterials 3:111-22.
Zaccagnini, C. (1990): The Transition from Bronze to Iron in the Ancient Near East and in the Levant: Marginal Notes. Journal of the American Oriental Society. 110:493-502.
Muhly, JD, Maddin, R and Stech, T. (1990): The Metal Artifacts. Kinneret: Ergebuisse der Ausgrabungen auf dem Tell el ‘Oreme am See Gennesaret. Ed. V. Fritz. Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz. Pp: 159-75.
Additionally, this book contains a lot of information about the history of iron metallurgy: Near Eastern Archaeology: A Reader, edited by Suzzane Richards. Specially the chapter “Matalworking/Mining in the Levant” by James D. Mulhy.
>>837079
nope. you have to know exactly what you're doing if you want to make usable iron out of ore, but you can have bronze literally accidentally just by making your fireplace from right stones.
>>837028
For a lot of places the only known sources of iron were meteoric or bog iron. Mining is hard, especially if your water table doesn't allow you to go very deep.
