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# Iron Smelting

## Overview
The development of iron smelting technology (~1200 BCE onward) ushered in the Iron Age, making metal tools and weapons accessible beyond elite classes and transforming agriculture, warfare, and society. @t[~1200 BCE]

## Key Facts
- Transition period: ~1200–800 BCE (varies by region) @t[1200 BCE..800 BCE] [^1]
- Earliest iron smelting: Anatolia (Hittites), ~1500 BCE (limited use) @t[~1500 BCE] [^1]
- Widespread adoption: After the Bronze Age Collapse (~1200 BCE) @t[~1200 BCE] [^1]
- Key innovation: Carburization (adding carbon to create steel) [^1]

## Development
- Earliest surviving iron artifacts (4th millennium BCE, Egypt) were made from meteoritic iron-nickel, not smelted ore @t[~3000 BCE] [^1]
- Hittites may have been early innovators of iron smelting, though evidence is debated [^1]
- Iron became widespread after the Bronze Age Collapse disrupted tin trade routes [^1]
- Chinese independently developed cast iron by ~500 BCE (bloomery iron in the West until medieval period) @t[~500 BCE] [^2]
- Sub-Saharan Africa: the Nok culture (present-day Nigeria) may have independently developed iron smelting ~800–1000 BCE; evidence from Termit (Niger) pushes possible dates to ~1500 BCE, though whether this was independent invention or diffusion remains debated @t[~1000 BCE..800 BCE] [^3]
- South India developed wootz steel (crucible steel) by the mid-1st millennium BCE (~500–300 BCE) and was exporting it to China, Africa, the Middle East, and Europe by the 4th century BCE @t[~500 BCE..300 BCE] [^4]

## Impact
- Democratized access to metal tools (iron ore is abundant, unlike tin) [^1]
- Improved agricultural productivity (iron plows) [^1]
- Transformed warfare (iron weapons, armor) [^1]
- Enabled deforestation and land clearing at scale [^1]

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[^1]: Waldbaum, J. *From Bronze to Iron* (1978)
[^2]: Wagner, D. *Iron and Steel in Ancient China* (Brill, 1993)
[^3]: Alpern, S.B. "Did They or Didn't They Invent It? Iron in Sub-Saharan Africa" *History in Africa* 32 (2005); Wikipedia, "Iron metallurgy in Africa"
[^4]: Srinivasan, S. & Ranganathan, S. *India's Legendary Wootz Steel* (National Institute of Advanced Studies, 2004); Wikipedia, "Wootz steel"