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War_Hymn t1_j5zvvsu wrote

As far as I'm aware, there's written/archeological evidence of iron smelting was being practiced in Anatolia (modern-Turkey) by at least 1200 BCE, with suspected smelted-iron artifacts dating back to ~2000 BCE. It's relatively easy to tell smelted iron apart from meteoritic iron. Meteoritic iron will almost always contain a large portion of nickel or cobalt in it, while smelted iron usually contains embedded siliceous slag - both can be discerned through chemical or microscopic analysis.

Here's a good write up on the subject by Dr Nathaniel Erb-Satullo (specialist in Western/Near East archeology, Archeological Science - Cranfield University, Department of Anthropology - Harvard University): https://www.tf.uni-kiel.de/matwis/amat/iss/kap_b/articles/literature_evaluations_old_swords/general_2019_erb-satullo_iron_neareast_review.pdf

>one argument that was made, was that when iron smelting becomes possible... why wouldn't it rapidly replace bronze?

Smelting iron was a much more complicated process than smelting copper or tin. In the early days, iron was never fully melted - the furnaces they had at the time just weren't hot enough - which makes it harder to reduce the ore and remove impurities.

Instead, when pre-modern ironworkers smelted iron what they were actually doing was burning off the oxygen/sulfur/etc. locking the iron in the ore minerals, usually by heating them in a carbon-rich environment of a charcoal furnace (oxygen will rather bond with carbon instead of iron). The temperature of these reactions happen at a much lower temperature than the melting point of elemental iron (700-1200'C vs 1500'C). Certain "fluxes", like siliceous minerals or limestone, further lower or aid the ore reduction reaction or process.

Early iron smelters had to figure out several problems (all without the aid of modern chemistry knowledge), namely how run their furnace to optimize iron production. Too little draft air, the furnace doesn't get hot enough for reduction to happen. Too much draft air, excess air cools the furnace or re-oxidizes the iron. Furnace runs too hot, the iron starts sucking up carbon too fast and transforms into useless pig iron. Etc.

Being a complicated process, it was also easier to keep secret by those that did figure it out. Since early iron smelters had a vested interest in maintaining a monopoly on producing this very useful and valuable material (at one point in history, iron was worth as much as gold in weight), they didn't just share their knowledge and craft with anyone. Hence, most early iron production seem to have been conducted and exclusive to a small group related to the Hittites in Anatolia for most of the late bronze age. The Late Bronze Age collapse likely caused this small group of secretive iron smelters to migrate and proliferate the technology to the rest of the Old World, as we start seeing common use of iron by 900-800 BCE.

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Ok-Goose-6320 OP t1_j601jza wrote

Thanks for this great summary, War Hymn. Good to see you.

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Just as an aside to you, I've been pondering an idea for if the Hopewell culture developed bronze metallurgy, which is how I got into this subject. From what I understand, it's a similar issue for them, that they couldn't get the fires hot enough to make a proper bronze cast, despite having copper and tin, so their axes were used more as money than as weapons or tools (though they saw limited use in those roles, it seems).

Thought I'd mention, since you said you found worldbuilding interesting. Thanks again for clearing this up.

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War_Hymn t1_j618kz2 wrote

I mean, it would had been a boast for them technologically as copper/bronze tools would had been very useful for agriculture and craft tools, and they probably could had a good supply of it trading with nearby tribes in the Keweenaw Peninsula (Michigan) where immense deposits of native copper and copper ore are found.

But in the grand scheme of things, I don't think it would had matter. The Mayans, Incans, and other players down south had access to copper/bronze metalworking/smelting technology, but they used it mostly for ornamentation and jewelry. It didn't replace their dominant stone or non-metal tools/weapons. And even if it did, metal tools won't had stop them from falling victim to epidemic diseases like smallpox and tuberculosis introduced by European newcomers, which ultimately what weakened and compromised the stronger states and societies of the New World to a point where the Europeans could subjugate/replace them with ease. The Mississippian cultures fell apart from these diseases before Europeans could even wage war against them.

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Ok-Goose-6320 OP t1_j62s89y wrote

AFAIK, the Mexica peoples had the same issue, only making a limited number of axes a bit before European contact, never working out a good bronze industry. Presumably because their fires weren't hot enough to reliably cast high quality bronze. Probably similar to the iron industry during the bronze age, where they were more like rare, magical weapons. Developing a proper bronze industry would likely make a big difference, being a huge economical advantage.

With the Mississippi, current estimate is they collapsed before Columbus even set foot on Cuba, so European diseases don't seem to be the cause. A bronze industry at some point in their history could probably turn that around. It could even be an inciting incident, causing them to resort to war with a material advantage, creating a riverine empire.

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It may not change things much in the grand scheme of things, but they may also put up a much tougher fight against European incursion and lead to an interesting story. Especially since I'm thinking of incorporating other alternate history elements.

Wondered if you'd be interested in discussing it further.

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War_Hymn t1_j646hrz wrote

I don't see how having bronze tools or weapons would had protect them from germs that they had little immunity to. Before the Spanish even stepped foot in the Incan Empire, smallpox and other Old World diseases had already spread via regional trade network and killed millions of their subjects (including the Incan emperor himself). The reduction in population and the political turmoil it caused was enough to weaken this powerful state to a point where a couple hundred Spanish conquistadors was able to conquer it.

Even if they managed to kill every European they laid eyes on, these diseases would had eventually depleted their population and weaken their political/economic systems enough that the next wave of Europeans would eventually succeed in taking over.

>Presumably because their fires weren't hot enough to reliably cast high quality bronze.

Except they were casting copper or arsenic bronze (they never figured out tin-bronze) before the Europeans arrived. They just didn't have a lot of copper deposits, so stone tools were more economical and widespread.

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Ok-Goose-6320 OP t1_j65l8vw wrote

The Inca still had countless warriors, 80K of them directly with king Atahualpa (though he only had 5,000 unarmed men when he was captured). It took many years of fighting to subdue the Inca despite great providence. It certainly wasn't a boring war.

All the same, I do have some ideas for alternate history regarding disease.

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West Mexican art has been found with large amounts of tin in it, though as I said I'm not sure what the quality was like for a tool. If you make an art object, it's fine for it to have air-bubbles and defects you can smooth away at the surface level, but a tool is liable to break. I wouldn't expect availability to be the problem, since the Americas is one of the most abundant sources of copper on Earth. The Zapotec were well known for their copper deposits, and Mexico became one of the greatest producers of copper later on. Tin was also available.

Apparently, copper and bronze smelting was only coming into its own around the 15th century, just before Europeans arrived. If so, it may be that there just wasn't time to develop a bronze industry. It's also plausible the overly high tin, 23%, in that find may've been intentional, to reduce the necessary temperature.

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Apparently the Tarascan may've used bronze weapons, and even breastplates, against the Aztecs. Also, despite there being no iron forges, apparently some Aztec chiefs had daggers made of meteoric iron: https://www.jstor.org/stable/2844401

So I guess the Tarascan had gotten a healthy bronze age empire going, and were ahead of the others. Perhaps they had factors helping them get ahead.

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[deleted] t1_j606sh0 wrote

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War_Hymn t1_j614xq9 wrote

Yep, that's why I didn't directly say the Hittites had an iron monopoly (the development of iron smelting appears to have predate them), but some small group(s) related or associated with them seem to have had dominance in its production - as the majority of early smelted-iron archeological finds are located in Anatolia or nearby areas where the Hittite lived or had influence. Moreover, we don't see any evidence of iron smelting sites outside of Anatolia (usually hinted by the large presence of associated slag waste) until ~950 BCE, specifically a dated site in Jordan where large amounts of ferrous slag and furnace building material was found. 900-800 BCE we just see a huge jump in iron artifacts being made and used in the Eastern Mediterranean despite the technology existing for at least three centuries. So it seems those who did knew how to smelt iron at first did their best to restrict the spread of the technology.

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Ok-Goose-6320 OP t1_j62sb7h wrote

Honestly, it does sound close to a monopoly, at that rate.

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Ok-Goose-6320 OP t1_j60qzih wrote

Though the sources seem to feel Hatti had an advantage? Monopoly is going a bit far.

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woahwoahwoahthere t1_j6358gb wrote

Hmm, I thought west Africa had iron smelting further back than that but there’s still some debate about it. Link to Wikipedia and their articles

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War_Hymn t1_j64273l wrote

Earlier or not, I think there's good evidence that West Africans came up with iron smelting on their own.

Iron artifacts in WF appear earlier than in North or East Africa, which means they had figured out ironworking before the technology diffused to their neighbors from the Near East. Researchers have also noted that their processes and furnace design are quite different.

West African smiths also seemed unaware of the process of quench hardening until much later, despite having "steel" (iron with high enough carbon content to harden through quenching). Even up to the 19th century, many tribal smiths in West Africa were observed hardening the edges of iron/steel blades and tools by work hardening instead of quenching. In contrast, quenching and tempering techniques were widely used in the East Mediterranean by at least 800 BCE, and knowledge of the process seemed to have spread alongside general iron smelting when it diffused to other regions of Europe/Asia. Hence, the lack of quench hardening among the West African iron-working tradition is good evidence that iron smelting technology may not have diffused to them (at least not from the Near East), but independently developed.

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