WH-1 Prehistory Lecture 3: The Bronze and Iron Ages
Part 1: Essential Questions
A. How did human society transition from the age of stone to
the age of metal? Were these steps universal?
B. What kinds of new conflict did these steps bring about,
and what kinds of metals gave their societies advantages
over others in warfare?
C. Can the transition to the age of metals help us to place
myth in a different perspective?
Part II: Original Source Material and Classnotes
Following Christian Thomsen’s logic (c. 1819) the major divisions of prehistory are:
I. The Paleolithic Era (Lower, Middle, & Upper)
II. The Mesolithic Age
III. The Neolithic Age
IV. The Bronze Age
V. The Iron Age
Why not include specific date ranges for each respective division in this outline? In
fact, why are we perhaps less prone to error if we instead talk about these periods as
conceptual as opposed to absolute timeframes? What therefore should your
response be to someone who asks “When did the Mesolithic period begin and end? Is
there any circumstance under which defining a chronological range would be
useful?
Consider the following quote from Durant (Our Oriental Heritage, p. 104): Even the
terms “Old Stone Age” and “New Stone Age” are precariously relative, and describe
conditions rather than times; to this day many primitive peoples (e.g., the Eskimos and
the Polynesian Islanders) remain in the Age of Stone, knowing iron only as a luxury
brought to them by explorers. Captain Cooke bought several pigs for a sixpenny nail
when he landed in New Zealand in 1778; and another traveler described the
inhabitants of Dog Island as “covetous chiefly of iron, so as to want to take the nails
out of the ship.”
1) As with all dates in PREHISTORY, the precise time when
humanity began using METALS as tools and weapons
cannot be known with certainty. If pressed to provide a
date, an extremely general “guideline” for the beginning
of the “AGE OF METALS” in Europe and Asia would,
with much variability, be towards the end of the Neolithic
Age (circa 4000-5000 BCE). Even within specific societies,
the shift to metals was by no means exclusive across social
class; in cultures in which SOCIAL STRATIFICATION
was already present the use of metal IMPLEMENTS (i.e.,
tools) was typically restricted to the WARRIOR and
PRIESTLY classes, and so the vast majority of people
still used STONE tools despite the availability of metals.
2) The earliest metal adapted for human use was COPPER,
with known approximate dates ranging from 6000 BCE
in the lake-dwelling communities in contemporary
Switzerland to 4500-4000 BCE in MESOPOTAMIA and
EGYPT. The first instances of SMELTING (i.e.,
removing a metal from its ore) were probably
ACCIDENTAL, with COPPER being highly softened and
TIN being melted from ore randomly used to enclose
campfires. As an intentional INDUSTRY, evidence of
smelting emerges around 3500 BCE in the eastern
Mediterranean, which is very rich in copper. The richness
of this area—including MESOPOTAMIA and EGYPT, in
copper may account in part for why civilization arose
here so vigorously between 3000-4000 BCE.
3) Metal CASTING (i.e., pouring molten copper into a pot,
tool, or spearhead MOLD, letting it cool, and then
breaking or chipping away the mold around it) emerged
around 1500 BCE. Smelting and the use of molds were
then applied to other metals. However, while a generally
durable metal, copper was too SOFT for many needs
(e.g., spearheads, shields, tools, jewelry—see class
specimens! etc.). And so, another metal (i.e., TIN) was
needed to harden it; the combined ALLOY is known as
BRONZE.
4) Evidence demonstrates that this combination first
happened at least 5000 years ago. BRONZE is found in
CRETAN ruins dating to 3000 BCE, 2800 BCE in
EGYPT, and 2000 BCE in TROY. But there was no
“UNIVERSAL” Bronze Age—some cultures in Finland,
northern Russia, Polynesia, Central Africa, southern
India, North America, and Japan--seem to have bypassed
the Bronze Age completely and went directly from
STONE to IRON.
5) And so, bronze as an ALLOY had to be created from
metals (typically COPPER and TIN) that were not
readily available in convenient QUANTITIES or
LOCATIONS—certainly far less so than IRON. And so,
Durant notes that it is one of the great ANOMOLIES of
history that the use of iron came LATER than the use of
Bronze, since iron was typically available in far greater
quantity and with far greater convenience.
6) Yet, the science of METALLURGY helps us to
understand exactly why this was the case. Consider the
two ingredients typically used to make BRONZE. Copper
melts at about 2000 degrees Fahrenheit, while Tin melts
at about 450 degrees Fahrenheit. In contrast, the melting
point of IRON is 2800 degrees Fahrenheit, and so it is
easy to envision that the technology to MAINTAIN the
temperatures necessary to melt copper and tin was
attained long before the ability to do likewise with iron.
7) Given these facts, it is no wonder that the first iron tools
are in principle identical to the EOLITHS of our earlier
discussion, with sharp, angled fragments of iron
meteorites being picked up by early humans and used as
tools without further modification subsequent to
exploding in the upper atmosphere and falling to earth.
8) In addition to maintaining higher temperatures, since the
iron contained in iron ore is typically highly OXIDIZED,
the oxygen had to be removed from the iron so that the
iron would not be too SOFT. However, adding
CHARCOAL to the fire accomplishes both purposes; it
raises the temperature of the fire and bonds with the
oxygen in the iron to form CARBON DIOXIDE.
Additional treatment (i.e., pounding) produces pure
hardened iron which is far superior in strength to similar
bronze implements, thus giving a great advantage to early
Iron Age civilizations possessing weapons and armor
made of wrought (i.e., SHAPED) iron over their
CONTEMPORARIES whose weaponry and armor was
made of much softer BRONZE.
9) Later, we will learn that GREEK civilization most likely
began on the island of CRETE; possibly with the
MINOAN civilization. Crete was a very powerful
BRONZE AGE seafaring culture; so powerful that,
unlike MYCENAE and other mainland Greek cities of
the time, it had no WALLS built around it. However,
Cretan civilization fell apparently quite ABRUPTLY
around 1400-1450 BCE, which roughly corresponds to
the end of the Bronze Age in that region. Multiple
HYPOTHESES have been advanced to account for this
event, including a relatively close (70 miles away!)
massive volcanic eruption which took place 150 years
earlier and even an earth/comet collision!
10)
An alternative account recognizes that Crete, unlike
the mainland, is NOT particularly rich in IRON and also
relied heavily on TRADE to acquire the raw materials
required to make bronze. It may be that invaders from
the mainland, due in part to the relative abundance of
iron which they possessed, had already the entered the
iron age while Crete was still fighting with weapons and
armor made of far softer BRONZE. Further, while the
TRADITIONAL date given for the fall of Homer’s TROY
is 1184 BCE, had this siege actually occurred earlier it
would possibly resulted in a dramatic REDUCTION in
tin and copper imports from the east, since the iron age
forces of mainland Greece would have controlled ship
traffic through the Dardanelle straits. And so…Might the
fall of Crete actually be the first instance of a Bronze Age
civilization falling to an early Iron Age civilization (i.e.,
Mycenae)? This will likely remain one of histories most
intriguing ancient world mysteries!