• What is the Iron Age?
• Beginning of the Iron Age
• Characteristics of the Iron Age
• Social characteristics of the Iron Age
• End of the Iron Age

We explain what the Iron Age was like in prehistory, what its society was like and other characteristics. Also, how it started and ended.

The fortifications spread during the Iron Age.

What is the Iron Age?

The Iron Age is the last of the periods of the prehistory that make up the Age of metals, together with Copper Age and the Bronze Age. As its name implies, it is the stage in which the human being discovered how to use iron.

With this new and more resistant metal replaced many of its technologies based copper and bronze, or based on stones. Such a change is not an isolated event, but was accompanied by a set of profound changes cultural, technological and economic that redefined human antiquity from the year 1,200 BC. C.

As usually happens in prehistoric stages, and especially in those that focus on technological aspects, such as the metals most used to make tools, the Iron Age does not have a specific and universal starting and ending point, applicable by equal to all cultures of antiquity.

On the contrary, in some regions It began earlier, in others later, and some cultures did not even know the Bronze Age, but jumped from lithic tools to iron directly. It all depends on the availability of materials in the region and how connected a culture was to the trade routes of the moment.

Thus, the end of this stage is associated with different events in the Mediterranean (the beginning of the classical history of the Ancient Greece and the Roman Empire), the Indian subcontinent (the arrival of Buddhism and Jainism in the 7th century BC) or China (the beginning of Confucianism).

On the other hand, in the towns of northern Europe, the Alta Middle Ages. In America and Australasia there simply was no Iron Age, as this metal was introduced by European colonization centuries later.

Beginning of the Iron Age

The Iron Age began around the 12th century BC. C. (year 1,200 a. C.). It occurred more or less simultaneously in different places: the Middle East, India (with the Vedic civilization) and in the Mediterranean (with the Greek Dark Ages, until the 8th century BC).

In other regions of Europe The Iron Age was slow to arrive, developing only in the 6th century BC. C. For its part, in Africa the Nok culture, a native of Nigeria, made the leap from the Neolithic to the use of iron in the 11th century BC. C., through the discovery of fusion and forging.

Iron was already used in previous eras, but the handling of this metal required more complex iron and steel techniques for its alloy and casting, which required greater technological skills. Once discovered, these ways of working it made iron the most coveted metal in the world for the time.

Characteristics of the Iron Age

As in the Copper and Bronze Ages, the characteristic feature of the Iron Age is the discovery, handling and popularization of iron as the best material for making tools, weapons, armor and utensils, displacing other metals, although still it is not known exactly in what way.

There are theories that suggest its introduction from the East and its assimilation in the West. Others postulate that it was part of a revaluation of bronze, replacing it so as not to waste it, as happened in burials and other similar ceremonies.

There is evidence to suggest that humanity it was slow to understand that iron was a more convenient metal than bronze, given its greater complexity for forging.

However, the Iron Age brought with it important cultural and social changes, such as:

• The massive exploitation of iron allowed the massification of weapons, which allowed the emergence of armed insurgencies that took more than 2,000 years to resolve and that forever changed the face of Europe.
• The Celtic peoples invaded a good part of Europe, especially the Iberian Peninsula, giving rise to the Celtiberian people and laying the foundations for a good part of Spanish culture.
• The idea of ​​fortification began to spread, which later gave rise to the construction of castles and fortresses in the medieval style.
• The appearance of iron gave military power to formerly subject peoples, such as the African Bantu tribes, who were thus able to expand and dominate larger tracts of the region. bed sheet, thus becoming the richest indigenous people in South Africa.
• Writing was already part of many ancient peoples, through various systems of representation. For this reason, many of them lived through the Iron Age as part of their History (and not Prehistory).

Social characteristics of the Iron Age

In the Iron Age there were more resistant tools.

The Iron Age was similar to the Bronze Age in terms of the constitution of the societies. These only differed because they had tools of greater durability and complexity, thanks to the properties of iron.

Thus, a certain development was achieved in the techniques agricultural and artisanal. The idea of ​​fortifying villages also spread, which would eventually become cities and castles.

Let us remember that the Iron Age began in a deep crisis of the ancient empires, so it was a stage of violent reorganization. So making more durable iron-based weapons would seem to make a lot of sense.

In some cases, this coincides with important religious and cultural changes, the result of conquest by other peoples, social hybridization and new forms of technology born from metallurgy.

End of the Iron Age

Usually, the appearance of writing in Europe is considered as the event that marks the end of the Iron Age, thus giving rise to History (and closing Prehistory).

However, in many other latitudes There were already peoples endowed with writing, so the limits in that sense are uncertain. It is common to use the approximate date of the years 700-600 BC. C. to mark this point and start the Ancient Age of Human History.