Event

Iron Age

The period in which ironworking displaced bronze as the principal metal technology.

The Iron Age follows the Bronze Age wherever ironworking became widespread, from around 1200 BCE in the eastern Mediterranean and later elsewhere. Iron is harder to work than bronze and requires higher temperatures, so its adoption was not a straightforward technical improvement.

The decisive advantage was supply. Iron ore is common nearly everywhere; tin is not. A society that could smelt iron did not need a trade route to make tools, which mattered enormously once the Late Bronze Age trade networks failed.

Medium confidence Weak evidence checked recently · only one source, so there is nothing to cross-check it against · stated directly by the source

How this connects

Where a connection has been confirmed by an outside reference, that reference is named beside it.

involved

Steel — alloy · produced in small quantities long before it could be made reliably
Iron — element · the metal whose working defines the period
Cast iron — alloy · the material of the later industrial expansion rather than of the period itself
Wootz steel — alloy · and it is the point at which the Iron Age produced something the rest of the world could not reproduce for two thousand years

Sources

Material World
Our own writing

Where it comes from, and what it becomes

Follow Iron Age back to what it starts as, and forward into what it becomes. Each step is a documented one — a real route material takes, not a chain of inference.

Upstream — what it comes from

Iron Age → involved (the metal whose working defines the period) → Iron → is produced by (as pig iron, high in carbon and brittle until refined) → Smelting → takes as input (as the element removed, not added) → Oxygen → is produced by (the largest output by tonnage, and the reason air separation units sit beside steelworks) → Air separation → takes as input (the feedstock, and an unusual one in being free, unlimited and available anywhere — the cost is entirely the energy to liquefy it) → Air
Iron Age → involved (produced in small quantities long before it could be made reliably) → Steel → is composed of → Iron → is produced by (as pig iron, high in carbon and brittle until refined) → Smelting → takes as input (as the element removed, not added) → Oxygen → is produced by (the largest output by tonnage, and the reason air separation units sit beside steelworks) → Air separation
Iron Age → involved (the material of the later industrial expansion rather than of the period itself) → Cast iron → is composed of (the balance) → Iron → is produced by (as pig iron, high in carbon and brittle until refined) → Smelting → takes as input (as the element removed, not added) → Oxygen → is produced by (the largest output by tonnage, and the reason air separation units sit beside steelworks) → Air separation
Iron Age → involved (and it is the point at which the Iron Age produced something the rest of the world could not reproduce for two thousand years) → Wootz steel → is produced by (in a sealed crucible, iron and a carbon source held for hours — which is what made it a cast steel a thousand years before anyone else had one) → Alloying and melting → takes as input (the base metal of both brass and bronze) → Copper → is produced by (as blister copper, refined electrolytically afterwards) → Smelting → takes as input (roasted to drive off sulfur, then reduced to copper) → Chalcopyrite
Iron Age → involved (the metal whose working defines the period) → Iron → is extracted from (the most-used iron ore, though magnetite is richer) → Hematite
Iron Age → involved (the metal whose working defines the period) → Iron → is produced by (as pig iron, high in carbon and brittle until refined) → Smelting → takes as input (roasted to drive off sulfur, then reduced to copper) → Chalcopyrite

These are the most distinct paths back. Iron Age can be traced through others besides.