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The copper age only lasted about 1000 years. Then came the bronze age. But the iron has been going on for longer than the bronze age and copper age combined.
I suspect a large part of it was the collapse of civilization, at least, in that corner of the world.
“we’re in a late stage bronzist society, it’ll collapse any day now!”
so, caught an article on NPR where they were interviewing an archeologist who specialized in the Sea Peoples (and the bronze age collapse). In any case, there were some points he made that stuck with me. The most pointed being that, the collapse during the bronze age (for those that lived in it,) wouldn’t have known it was happening.
It was slow, happened across generations. while the climate change and other factors was inexorably moving to collapse… the changes weren’t fast enough for people to notice, it was just the way things were their entire life.
That, ladies and gentlemen, is what we call “foreshadowing”.
I believe bronze and iron weapons are equally powerful, but bronze is a mixture of copper and tin (requiring two types of input). Iron is more plentiful than tin, so militaries do not need large supplies of tin if they can manipulate iron. Steel, I believe, needs much higher temperatures and purified inputs.
Nope. Not at all. Steel weapons are superior to bronze in every way.
The comparison was iron and bronze. Not steel and bronze.
There was never a time when iron was used in a major way until they figured out how to make steel. So technically it was always the steel age, not the iron age.
Bronze is better at making musical instruments, and who doesn’t need a trumpet or a tuba nowadays?
Iron, like actual iron, is weaker than bronze. IIRC, tensile strength is copper<iron<bronze<steel, by roughly x2.
While iron is more plentiful than tin, it is harder to purify than tin or copper. The ‘iron age’ refers to the time when humans started smelting iron, and making tools using various steels and other iron-based alloys. These are generally much stronger than bronze.
