Quote:
Originally Posted by Dana Acker
Especially since the Iron Age proper, is thought to have begun in the 900's BC, in and around the time of King David, Biblically dating things. Historians now believe that the Iron Age began universally, and began from people picking it up off the ground, instead of mining it. They posit that there was a universal meteor shower that peppered the earth with chunks of iron and nickel. And...here we are today. We're in both the space age and the Information Age, and we're still making stuff from metal found in or on the earth...and loving it! Hammer on!
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Very interesting,... I'm curious who those historians are and if you have a reference to an article online? Is there any new historical evidence of earlier, true Iron Age technology?
It's true the first iron used by humans was picked up off the earth's surface in the form of iron meteorites. However, artifacts that were found date back to the Neolithic era and were formed into simple tools through stock removal, "Neolithic technology". It was fracturing them down and wearing them down on harder abrasive rocks. Raw meteorites are brittle and don't lend themselves to the forging process in pure form. There was no metallurgy or fire involved.
Smelting, alloying and the true "Iron Age" didn't come until much later.