The Bronze Age refers to a period in human cultural development when the most advanced metalworking, at least in systematic and widespread use, included techniques for smelting copper and tin from naturally-occurring outcroppings of copper ores, and then smelting those ores to cast bronze. These naturally-occurring ores typically included arsenic as a common impurity. Copper/tin ores are rare, as reflected in the fact that there were no tin bronzes in western Asia before 3,000 B.C. The Bronze Age forms part of the three-age system for prehistoric societies. In this system, it follows the Neolithic in some areas of the world. On the other hand, in many parts of sub-Saharan Africa, the Neolithic is directly followed by the Iron Age. In some parts of the world, a Copper Agefollows the Neolithic and precedes the Bronze Age.
The place and time of the invention of bronze are controversial and it is possible that bronzing was invented independently in multiple places. The earliest known tin bronzes are from what is now Iran and Iraq and date to the late 4th millennium BC. Arsenical bronzes were made in Anatolia and on both sides of the Caucasus by the early 3rd millennium BC. Some scholars date some arsenical bronze artifacts of the Maykop culture in the North Caucasus as far back as the mid 4th millennium BC, which would make them the oldest known bronzes, but others date the same Maykop artifacts to the mid 3rd millennium BC. Arsenic bronze however is a naturally occurring alloy, in contrary to the later used tin bronze. Tin had to be delved and smelted separately, mainly as the tin ore cassiterite, and added to the molten copper to make the alloy.
The Aegean Bronze Age begins around 3000 BC. civilizations established a far-ranging trade network. This network imported tin and charcoal to Cyprus, where copper was mined and alloyed with the tin to produce bronze. Bronze objects were then exported far and wide, and supported the trade. Isotopic analysis of the tin in some Mediterranean bronze objects indicates it came from as far away as Great Britain.
Knowledge of navigation was well developed at this time, and reached a peak of skill not exceeded until a method was discovered or perhaps rediscovered to determine longitude around 1750 AD, with the notable exception of the Polynesian sailors.
The Minoan civilization based from Knossos appears to have coordinated and defended its Bronze Age trade.
One crucial lack in this period was that modern methods of accounting were not available. Numerous authorities[citation needed] believe that ancient empires were prone to misvalue staples in favor of luxuries, and thereby perish by famines created by uneconomic trading.
The Bronze Age on the Indian subcontinent began around 3300 BCE with the beginning of the Indus Valley civilization. Inhabitants of the ancient Indus Valley, the Harappans, developed new techniques in metallurgy and produced copper, bronze, lead and tin. The Indian Bronze Age ends at the start of the Iron Age Vedic Period (1500 BCE - 500 BCE). This is during the Harappan culture, which dates from 1700 BCE to 1300 BCE, that overlaps the transition period between the Bronze Age, and the Iron Age period. As a result, it is difficult to pinpoint the true end of the Indian Bronze Age.
Historians disagree about the dates that should be attached to a Bronze Age in China. The difficulty lies in the term Bronze Age itself, as it has been applied to signify a period in European and Middle Eastern history when bronze tools replaced stone tools, and were later replaced by iron ones. In those places, the medium of the new Age made that of the old obsolete. In China, however, any attempt to establish a definite set of dates for a Bronze Age is complicated by two factors: the early arrival of iron smelting technology and the persistence of bronze in tools, weapons and sacred vessels.
Bronze metallurgy in China originated in what is referred to as the Erlitou, also Erh-li-t?ou, period, which some historians argue places it within the range of dates controlled by the Shang dynasty.[1] Others believe the Erlitou sites belong to the preceding Xia, also Hsia, dynasty.[2] The U.S. National Gallery of Art defines the Chinese Bronze Age as the period between about 2000 BC and 771 BC, a period which begins with Erlitou culture and ends abruptly with the disintegration of Western Zhou rule.[3] Though this provides a concise frame of reference, it overlooks the continued importance of bronze in Chinese metallurgy and culture. Since this is significantly later than the discovery of bronze in Mesopotamia, bronze technology could have been imported rather than discovered independently in China.
Iron is found in the Zhou period, but its use is minimal. Chinese literature dating to the 6th century BC attests a knowledge of iron smelting, possibly making iron a Chinese invention, yet bronze continues to occupy the seat of significance in the archaeological and historical record for some time after this.[4] Historian W. C. White argues that iron did not supplant bronze at any period before the end of the Zhou dynasty (481 BC) and that bronze vessels make up the majority of metal vessels all the way through the Later Han period, or through 221 AD.[5]
The Chinese bronze artifacts generally are either utilitarian, like spear points or adze heads, or ritualistic, like the numerous large sacrificial tripods. However, even some of the most utilitarian objects bear the markings of more sacred items. The Chinese inscribed all kinds of bronze items with three main motif types: demons, symbolic animals, and abstract symbols.[6] Some large bronzes also bear inscriptions that have helped historians and archaeologists piece together the history of China, especially during the Zhou period.
The bronzes of the Western Zhou period document large portions of history not found in the extant texts, and often were composed by persons of varying rank and possibly even social class. Further, the medium of cast bronze lends the record they preserve a permanence not enjoyed by manuscripts.[7] These inscriptions can commonly be subdivided into four parts: a reference to the date and place, the naming of the event commemorated, the list of gifts given to the artisan in exchange for the bronze, and a dedication.[8] The relative points of reference these vessels provide have enabled historians to place most of the vessels within a certain time frame of the Western Zhou period, allowing them to trace the evolution of the vessels and the events they record. [9]
The Middle Mumun pottery period culture of the southern Korean Peninsula gradually adopted bronze production (c. 700?600? BC) after a period when Liaoning-style bronze daggers and other bronze artifacts were exchanged as far as the interior part of the Southern Peninsula (c. 900?700 BC). The bronze daggers lent prestige and authority to the personages who wielded and were buried with them in high-status megalithic burials at south-coastal centres such as the Igeum-dong site [3]. Bronze was an important element in ceremonies and as for mortuary offerings until 100.
In Central Europe, the early Bronze Age Unetice culture (1800?1600 BC) includes numerous smaller groups like the Straubing, Adlerberg and Hatvan cultures. Some very rich burials, such as the one located at Leubingen with grave gifts crafted from gold, point to an increase of social stratification already present in the Unetice culture. All in all, cemeteries of this period are rare and of small size. The Unetice culture is followed by the middle Bronze Age (1600?1200 BC) Tumulus culture, which is characterised by inhumation burials in tumuli or barrows. In the eastern Hungarian Körös tributaries, the early Bronze Age first saw the introduction of the Mako culture, followed by the Ottomany and Gyulavarsand cultures.
The late Bronze Age Urnfield culture, (1300?700 BC) is characterized by cremation burials. It includes the Lusatian culture in eastern Germany and Poland (1300?500 BC) that continues into the Iron Age. The Central European Bronze Age is followed by the Iron Age Hallstatt culture (700?450 BC).
Some scholars date some arsenical bronze artifacts of the Maykop culture in the North Caucasus as far back as the mid 4th millennium BC.[10]
In Great Britain, the Bronze Age is considered to have been the period from around 2100 to 750 BC. Migration brought new people to the islands from the continent. Recent tooth enamel isotope research on bodies found in early Bronze Age graves around Stonehenge indicate that at least some of the migrants came from the area of modern Switzerland. The Beaker culture displayed different behaviours from the earlier Neolithic people and cultural change was significant. Integration is thought to have been peaceful as many of the early henge sites were seemingly adopted by the newcomers. The rich Wessex culture developed in southern Britain at this time. Additionally, the climate was deteriorating, where once the weather was warm and dry it became much wetter as the Bronze Age continued, forcing the population away from easily-defended sites in the hills and into the fertile valleys. Large livestock farms developed in the lowlands which appear to have contributed to economic growth and inspired increasing forest clearances. The Deverel-Rimbury culture began to emerge in the second half of the Middle Bronze Age (c. 1400?1100 BC) to exploit these conditions. Cornwall was a major source of tin for much of western Europe and copper was extracted from sites such as the Great Orme mine in northern Wales. Social groups appear to have been tribal but with growing complexity and hierarchies becoming apparent.
Also, the burial of dead, which until this period had usually been communal, became more individual. For example, whereas in the Neolithic a large chambered cairn or long barrow was used to house the dead, the Early Bronze Age saw people buried in individual barrows, also commonly known and marked on modern British Ordnance Survey maps as Tumuli, or sometimes in cists covered with cairns.
The greatest quantities of bronze objects found in England were discovered in East Cambridgeshire, where the most important finds were recovered in Isleham, more than 6500 pieces.[11]
The Bronze Age in Ireland commenced in the centuries around 2000 BC when copper was alloyed with tin and used to manufacture Ballybeg type flat axes and associated metalwork. The preceding period is known as the Copper Age and is characterised by the production of flat axes, daggers, halberds and awls in copper. The period is divided into three phases: Early Bronze Age (2000?1500 BC), Middle Bronze Age (1500?1200 BC), and Late Bronze Age (1200 ? c. 500 BC). Ireland is also known for a relatively large number of Early Bronze Age burials.
One of the characteristic type of artifact of the Early Bronze Age in Ireland is the flat axe. There are five main types of flat axes: Lough Ravel (c. 2200 BC), Ballybeg (c. 2000 BC), Killaha (c. 2000 BC), Ballyvalley (c. 2000?1600 BC), Derryniggin (c. 1600 BC), and a number of metal ingots in the shape of axes.[12]
In Ban Chiang, Thailand, Southeast Asia, bronze artifacts have been discovered dating to 2100 BC.[1] In Nyaunggan, Myanmar bronze tools have been excavated along with ceramics and stone artefacts. Dating is still currently broad (3500?500 BC). [2]
Mesopotamia
In Mesopotamia, the Bronze Age begins in the late Uruk period, spanning the Early Dynastic period of Sumer, the Akkadian Empire, the Old Babylonian and Old Assyrian periods and the period of Kassitehegemony.
Ancient Egypt
In Ancient
Egypt, the Bronze Age begins in the Protodynastic period.
Early Bronze Age
Early Dynastic Period of Egypt
First Intermediate Period of Egypt
Middle Bronze Age
Second Intermediate Period of Egypt (Hyksos)
Late Bronze Age
Levant
Pre-history of the Southern Levant
List of archaeological periods (Levant)
Early Bronze Age
Middle Bronze Age
Late Bronze Age
Anatolia
Persian Plateau
Indus valley
East Asia
Europe
Zug-Sumpf, Zug, Switzerland
Great Britain
Bronze Age boats
Divers unearth Bronze Age hoard off the coast of Devon
Aegean
The Bronze Age collapse
The Bronze Age collapse marks the end of the Bronze Age in this region. There is evidence that Mycenaean administration of the regional trade empire followed the decline of Minoan primacy. Evidence also exists that supports the assumption that several Minoan client states lost large portions of their respective populations to extreme famines and/or pestilence, which in turn would indicate that the trade network may have failed at some point, preventing the trade that would have previously relieved such famines and prevented some forms of illness by nutrition. It is also known that the breadbasket of the Minoan empire, the area north of the Black Sea, also suddenly lost significant portions of its population, and thus probably some degree of cultivation in this era.
Recent research has discredited the theory that exhaustion of the Cypriot forests caused the end of the bronze trade. The Cypriot forests are known to have existed into later times, and experiments have shown that charcoalproduction on the scale necessary for the bronze production of the late Bronze Age would have exhausted them in less than fifty years.
One theory says that as iron tools became more common, the main justification of the tin trade ended, and that trade network ceased to function as it once did. The individual colonies of the Minoan empire then suffered drought, famine, war, or some combination of these three factors, and thus they had no access to the far-flung resources of an empire by which they could easily recover.
Another family of theories looks to Knossos itself. The Thera eruption occurred at this time, 110 kilometers (70 mi) north of Crete. Some authorities speculate that a tsunami from Thera destroyed Cretan cities. Others say that perhaps a tsunami destroyed the Cretan navy in its home harbor, which then lost crucial naval battles; so that in the LMIB/LMII event (c. 1450 BC) the cities of Crete burned and the Mycenaean civilization took over Knossos. If the eruption occurred in the late 17th century BC, as most chronologists now think, then its immediate effects belong to the Middle Bronze to Late Bronze Age transition, and not to the end of the Late Bronze Age; but it could have triggered the instability which led to the collapse first of Knossos and then of Bronze Age society overall. One such theory looks to the role of Cretan expertise in administering the empire, post-Thera. If this expertise was concentrated in Crete, then the Mycenaeans may have made crucial political and commercial mistakes when administering the Cretans' empire.
More recent archaeological findings, including on the island of Thera, more commonly known today as Santorini, suggest that the center of Minoan Civilization at the time of the eruption was actually on this island rather than on Crete. Some think that this was the fabled Atlantis. A map drawn on a wall of a Minoan palace in Crete depicts an island similar to that described by Plato and similar too to the form Thera very likely had prior to its explosion. According to this theory, the catastrophic loss of the political, administrative and economic center by the eruption as well as the damage wrought by the tsunami to the coastal towns and villages of Crete precipitated the decline of the Minoans. A weakened political entity with a reduced economic and military capability and fabled riches would have then been more vulnerable to human predators. Indeed, the Santorini Eruption is usually dated to c. 1630 BC. And, the Mycenaean Greeks first enter the historical record a few decades later c. 1600 BC. Thus, the later Mycenaean assaults on Crete (c.1450 BC) and Troy (c.1250 BC) are revealed as but continuations of the steady encroachments of the Greeks upon the weakened Minoan world.
Each of these theories is persuasive, and aspects of all of them may have some validity in describing the end of the Bronze Age in this region.
In archaeology, the Iron Age was the stage in the development of any people in which tools and weapons whose main ingredient was iron were prominent. The adoption of this material coincided with other changes in some past societies often including differing agricultural practices, religious beliefs and artistic styles, although this was not always the case.
In history, the Iron Age is the last principal period in the three-age system for classifying pre-historic societies, preceded by the Bronze Age. Its date and context vary depending on the country or geographical region.
Classically, the Iron Age is taken to begin in the 12th century BC in the ancient Near East, ancient Persia, ancient India, with the post-Rigvedic Vedic civilization, and ancient Greece, with the Greek Dark Ages. In other regions of Europe, it started much later. The Iron Age began in the 8th century BC in Central Europe and the 6th century BC in Northern Europe. Iron use, in smelting and forging for tools, appears in West Africa by 1200 BC, making it one of the first places for the birth of the Iron Age.[1][2][3]
The Iron Age is divided into two subsections, Iron I and Iron II. Iron I (1200-1000) illustrates both continuity and discontinuity with the previous Late Bronze Age. There is no definitive cultural break between the thirteenth and twelfth century throughout the entire region, although certain new features in the hill country, Transjordan and coastal region may suggest the appearance of the Aramaean and Sea People groups. There is evidence, however, that shows strong continuity with Bronze Age culture, although as one moves later into Iron I the culture begins to diverge more significantly from that of the late second millennium.
Iron II (1000-550) witnessed the rise of the states of Judah and Israel in the tenth-ninth century. These small principalities exercise considerable control over their particular regions due in part to the decline of the great powers, Assyria and Egypt, from about 1200 to 900. Beginning in the eighth century and certainly in the seventh century, Assyria reestablishes its authority over the eastern Mediterranean area and exercises almost complete control. The northern state of Israel is obliterated in 722/721 by King Sargon and its inhabitants taken into exile. Judah, left alone, gradually accommodates to Assyrian control, but towards the end of the seventh century it does revolt as the Assyrian empire disintegrated. Judah's freedom was short-lived, however, and eventually snuffed out by the Chaldean kings who conquered Jerusalem and took some of the ruling class into exile to Babylon. During the period of exile in Babylon, the area, particularly from Jerusalem south, shows a mark decline. Other areas just north of Jerusalem are almost unaffected by the catastrophe that befell Judah. [1]
The Iron Age is usually said to end in the Mediterranean with the onset of historical tradition during Hellenism and the Roman Empire, in India with the onset of Buddhism and Jainism, in China with the onset of Confucianism, and in Northern Europe with the early Middle Ages.By the Middle Bronze Age, increasing numbers of smelted iron objects, distinguishable from meteoric iron by the lack of nickel in the product, appeared throughout Anatolia, Mesopotamia, the Indian subcontinent, the Levant, the Mediterranean, and Egypt. In some places, their use appears to have been ceremonial, and during the Bronze Age iron was an expensive metal, more expensive than gold. Some sources suggest that iron was being created in some places then as a by-product of copper refining, as sponge iron, and was not reproducible by the metallurgy of the time.
The earliest systematic production and use of iron implements originates in Anatolia. West African production of iron began at around the same time, and seems to have been clearly an independent invention. Recent archaeological research at Ganges Valley, India showed early iron working by 1800 BC.[4] By 1200 BC, iron was widely used in the Middle East but did not supplant the dominant use of bronze for some time.
Bronze was previously used to make tools because its melting point is lower than that of iron. The iron age began with the development of higher temperature smelting techniques.
During the Iron Age, the best tools and weapons were made from steel, an alloy consisting of iron with a carbon content between 0.02% and 1.7% by weight. Steel weapons and tools were nearly the same weight as those of bronze, but stronger. However, steel was difficult to produce with the methods available. Therefore, many Iron Age tools were fashioned of wrought iron.[5] Wrought iron is weaker than bronze, but because it was less expensive, and more easily sharpened, people used it anyway. Iron is by itself an adequately strong metal without additional alloys. Bronze, on the other hand, requires copper and tin which are less common than iron. Additionally, iron can be sharpened by grinding whereas bronze must be reforged.
Around 1800 BC, for reasons yet unknown to archaeologists, tin became scarce in the Levant, causing a decline in bronze production. Copper, also, came to be in short supply. As a result, pirate groups around the Mediterranean, from around 1800-1700 BC onward, began to attack fortified cities in search of bronze, to remelt into weaponry.
Bronze was much more abundant in the period before the 12th to 10th century and Snodgrass[6][7] suggests that a shortage of tin, as a result of the trade disruptions in the Mediterranean at this time, forced peoples to seek an alternative to bronze. That many bronze items were recycled and made from implements into weapons during this time, is evidence of this.
The Iron Age in the Ancient Near East is believed to have begun with the discovery of iron smelting and smithing techniques in Anatolia or the Caucasus in the late 2nd millennium BC (ca 1300 BC).[8]
The use of iron weapons instead of bronze weapons spread rapidly throughout the Near East by the beginning of the 1st millennium BC. Anatolians had begun forging weapons out of iron, which was a superior metal to bronze by 1500 BC at the latest.
The use of iron weapons by the Hittites was believed to have been a major factor in the rapid rise of the Hittite Empire.[citation needed] Because the area in which iron technology first developed was near the Aegean, the technology expanded into into both Asia and Europe simultaneously,[9] aided by Hittite expansion. The Sea Peoples and the related Philistines are often associated with the introduction of iron technology into Asia, as are the Dorians with respect to Greece.[10]
Archaeological sites in India, such as Malhar, Dadupur, Raja Nala Ka Tila and Lahuradewa in present day Uttar Pradesh show iron implements in the period between 1800 BC - 1200 BC.[4] Some scholars believe that by the early 13th century BC, iron smelting was practiced on a bigger scale in India, suggesting that the date the technology's inception may be placed earlier.[4]
The beginning of the 1st millennium BC saw extensive developments in iron metallurgy in India. Technological advancement and mastery of iron metallurgy was achieved during this period of peaceful settlements. An iron working centre in east India has been dated to the first millennium BC.[12]
In Southern India, present day Mysore, iron appeared as early as 11th to 12th centuries BC; these developments were too early for any significant close contact with the northwest of the country.[12] The Indian Upnishads have mentions of weaving, pottery, and metallurgy.[13] The Mauryan period in India saw advancements in technology; this technological change involved metallurgy.[14]
Perhaps as early as 300 BC, although certainly by AD 200, high quality steel was being produced in southern India also by what Europeans would later call the crucible technique. In this system, high-purity wrought iron, charcoal, and glass were mixed in crucible and heated until the iron melted and absorbed the carbon.[15]
In 1972, near the city of Gaocheng in Shijiazhuang, now Hebei province), an iron-bladed bronze tomahawk dating back to the 14th century BC was excavated. After a scientific examination, the iron was shown to be made from aerosiderite. The Iron Age in East Asia began in earnest, however, when cast-iron objects appeared in Yangzi Valley toward the end of the 6th century BC[16]. The few objects were found at Changsha and Nanjing. According to the mortuary evidence suggests that the initial use of iron in Lingnan belongs to the mid to late Warring States period from about 350 BC.
The techniques used in Lingnan is a combination of bivalve moulds of distinct southern tradition and the incorporation of piece mould technology from the Zhongyuan The products of the combination of these two periods are bells, vessels, weapons and ornaments and the sophisticated cast. An Iron Age culture of the Tibetan Plateau has tentatively been associated with the Zhang Zhung culture described in early Tibetan writings.
The Yayoi period, Yayoi-jidai, is an era in the history of Japan from about 500 BC to 300 AD.[17] Distinguishing characteristics of the Yayoi period include the appearance of new pottery styles and the start of an intensive rice agriculture in paddy fields. The Yayoi followed the Jōmon period (14,000 BC to 500 BC) and Yayoi culture flourished in a geographic area from southern Kyūshū to northern Honshū.
The succeeding Kofun period, Kofun-jidai, lasts from around 250 to 538. The word kofun is Japanese for the type of burial mounds dating from this era. The Kofun and the subsequent Asuka periods are sometimes referred to collectively as the Yamato period.
Iron objects were introduced to the Korean peninsula through trade with chiefdoms and state-level societies in the Yellow Sea area in the fourth century BC, just at the end of the Warring States Period but before the Western Han Dynasty began.[18][19] Yoon proposes that iron was first introduced to chiefdoms located along North Korean river valleys that flow into the Yellow Sea such as the Cheongcheon and Taedong Rivers.[20] Iron production quickly followed in the 2nd century BC, and iron implements came to be used by farmers by the 1st century AD in southern Korea.[18] The earliest known cast-iron axes in southern Korea are found in the Geum River basin. The time that iron production begins is the same time that complex chiefdoms of Proto-historic Korea emerged. The complex chiefdoms were the precursors of early states such as Silla, Baekje, Goguryeo, and Gaya [21][19] Iron ingots were an important mortuary item and indicated the wealth or prestige of the deceased in this period.[22]
Assyria
Levant
Anatolia
Aegean
Egypt
China
Japan
Korea
Europe
Iron working was introduced to Europe around 1000 BC, probably from Asia Minor and slowly spread northwards and westwards over the succeeding 500 years.
Eastern Europe
The early 1st millennium BC marks the Iron Age in Eastern Europe. In the Pontic steppe and the Caucasus region, the Iron Age begins with the Koban and the Chernogorovka and Novocherkassk cultures from ca. 900 BC. By 800 BC, it was spreading to Hallstatt C via the alleged Thraco-Cimmerian migrations.
Along with Chernogorovka and Novocherkassk cultures, on the territory of ancient Russia and Ukraine the Iron Age is to a significant extent associated with Scythians, who developed iron culture since the 7th century BC. The majority of remains of their iron producing and blacksmith's industries from 5th to 3rd century BC was found near Nikopol in Kamenskoe Gorodishche, which is believed to be the specialized metallurgic region of the ancient Scythia. [23][24]
From the Hallstatt culture, the Iron Age spreads west with the Celtic expansion from the 6th century BC. In Poland, the Iron Age reaches the late Lusatian culture in about the 6th century, followed in some areas by the Pomeranian culture.
The ethnic ascriptions of many Iron Age cultures has been bitterly contested, as the roots of Germanic, Baltic and Slavic peoples were sought in this area.
In Central Europe, the Iron Age is generally divided in the early Iron Age Hallstatt culture (HaC and D, 800-450) and the late Iron Age La Tène culture beginning in 450 BC. The Iron Age ends with the Roman Conquest.
In Italy, the Iron Age was probably introduced by the Villanovan culture but this culture is otherwise considered a Bronze Age culture, while the following Etruscan civilization is regarded as part of Iron Age proper. The Etruscan Iron Age was then ended with the rise and conquest of the Roman Republic, which conquered the last Etruscan city of Velzna in 265 BC.
In the British Isles, the Iron Age lasted from about the 5th century BC until the Roman conquest and until the 5th century AD in non-Romanised parts. Defensive structures dating from this time are often impressive, for example the brochs and duns of northern Scotland and the hill forts that dotted the rest of the islands.
The Iron Age is divided into the Pre-Roman Iron Age and the Roman Iron Age. This is followed by the migration period. Northern Germany and Denmark was dominated by the Jastorf culture, whereas the culture of the southern half of the Scandinavia was dominated by the very similar Gregan Iron Age.
Early Scandinavian iron production typically involved the harvesting of bog iron. Scandinavian peninsula, Finland and Estonia show sophisticated iron production very early, but further dating is currently impossible. The range varies from 3000 BP - 2000 BP. This knowledge is associated with the non-Germanic part of Scandinavia. Metalworking and Asbestos-Ceramic pottery are somewhat synonymous in Scandinavia due to the latter's capacity to resist and retain heat. The iron ore used is believed to have been iron sand, such as red soil, because its high phosphorus content can be identified in slag. They are sometimes found together with asbestos ware axes belonging to the Ananjino Culture. The Asbestos-Ceramic ware remains a mystery, because there are other adiabaticvessels with unknown usage.
Inhabitants at Termit, in easternNiger became the first iron smelting people in West Africa and among the first in the world around 1500 BC.[25] Iron and copper working then continued to spread southward through the continent, reaching the Cape around AD 200.[1] The widespread use of iron revolutionized the Bantu-speaking farming communities who adopted it, driving out and absorbing the rock tool using hunter-gatherer societies they encountered as they expanded to farm wider areas of savannah. The technologically superior Bantu-speakers spread across southern Africa and became wealthy and powerful, producing iron for tools and weapons in large, industrial quantities.[1]
British Isles