# Iron-Poor Lands



## Drakevarg (Mar 1, 2017)

Can't seem to Google this without getting articles on health and microbiology, so I'll broach the subject here.

It's fairly well-known that the chief reason for Japan's particular approach to swordsmithing is that the country is fairly poor in iron, requiring the elaborate process of folding the impurities out of the steel it produces. What's less clear, as far as I can find, is _why_ Japan's native supply of iron is so poor. What geological circumstances bring about such scarcity, and what other side effects are there of those circumstances? Doesn't necessarily need to be Japan's specific conditions, it was just the best example of an iron-scarce region that came to mind.

A further question, though one more of extrapolation and perhaps befitting the Worldbuilding board, is how do civilizations tend to adapt to developing in iron-poor regions?


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## CupofJoe (Mar 1, 2017)

The answer to why Japan is Iron ore poor might be , they just are...
The deposits are not spread evenly. And even if the deposits were there, for a long time, if they weren't within 50ft of the surface they really weren't a factor. 
My guess is that it has to do with the age of the rocks. Japan fairly new [geologically speaking] and is in places volcanic, so it may be constructed from newer lighter rock... 
Iron seem to come from older rocks and can be used where these are brought to the surface.
As for how civilisations deal with this? If they didn't have it how would they miss it? [Until an army wheeling iron weapons poured over the hill...]
 They would find things they do have to fill the need; Bamboo in China/SE Asia, Obsidian in the Americas, Bronze and Copper in Europe.


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## Drakevarg (Mar 1, 2017)

CupofJoe said:


> As for how civilisations deal with this? If the didn't have it how would they miss it? [Until an army wheeling iron weapons poured over the hill]



Right, I didn't mean to imply that it was a disadvantage they were actively aware of, more just broadly asking how cultures without iron develop compared to ones who have it.


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## CupofJoe (Mar 1, 2017)

Drakevarg said:


> Right, I didn't mean to imply that it was a disadvantage they were actively aware of, more just broadly asking how cultures without iron develop compared to ones who have it.


Point taken...
*Differently* is my easy/complex answer. They found alternative ways of doing the things they needed. As to the exact HOW, that depends on what was missing and what was needed.
It is sort of like the Incas not "discovering" the wheel. 
They almost certainly did but it wasn't of great use to them in such hilly terrain along the Andes. They used pack animals that could handle the narrow twisting trails better.
Elsewhere, another example might be Bamboo. 
It has been cited as a reason that ancient China doesn't seem to have the European transition/progression of technologies. They had Bamboo and lots of it. They could use it to make homes, weapons, armour, tools, even cooking vessels that might have been metal or clay in the Europe. Okay they didn't last as long but Bamboo grows very quickly so you could just go and make a new one if something broke. And once it was thrown away it rotted down quickly... No evidence it existed. 
I don't know why but they still use Bamboo for [multi-storey] scaffolding in places like Hong Kong today...
In the context of Japan I would look at their use of lacquer to make  leather and wood in to armour. They had the know-how to [and did] make  chain mail and probably plate armour too but lacquered leather and wood  [with bits of metal] was effective enough and they could make dozens  more sets of armour for the same use of metal.


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## psychotick (Mar 1, 2017)

Hi,

Not a metallurgist but my understanding is that iron replaced bronze because of availability. Copper is common enough, but the tin needed to alloy it into brass and bronze is harder to find. Having said that late bronze age wares / weapons were very superior to early iron age ones. It was scarcity that led to expensive bronze products that led to the rise of the iron age. So perhaps you could have a culture in an iron poor land but with copper and tin alloys available.

Cheers, Greg.


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## Alyssa (Mar 2, 2017)

I'm not entirely sure why Japan has so little native iron.

However, there's also another, not necessarily correct, angle to it. 

Iron in Japan was very dirty, it had lots of impurities, which necessitated the metal to be folded 10-12 times. Folding iron/steel is extremely labor intensive.

Iron in Japan, particularly for swords, was also sourced from iron sands, but it was separated based on quality, which would also be labor intensive.

Japan also has very little arable land, which can also limit population. If creating a labor intensive product requires a large labor force, then one of the easiest ways to limit production is to have a small labor force, not having enough food tends to do that.

The Japanese adapted by creating lacquered armors, padded armors and armour made out of wood. They worked well enough, and they were cheaper (i think) to produce than iron.

What little iron they did produce was used for more useful items. Such as hoes, pots, pans, swords, spearheads, arrowheads etc.

Plate armour weighs about 100 pounds, give or take (the japanese certainly had iron armour, but it wasn't like european armor). you could make 33 swords out of that (at 3 pounds each). You could make 100 8 inch spearheads (at 1 pound each). And if you weigh an arrowhead at 150 grains (0.02 pounds each), you can make literally thousands upon thousands or arrowheads, for a single set of plate armour.

I'm not sure what the breakdown of swordsmen-spearmen-archers was in Japan. But I suspect that archers and spearmen would be far more common.

Also, wood was required almost exclusively in production of steel at that time, in order to make charcoal (coke wasn't available back then). While this doesn't really apply as much in the case of Japan, if you have a low amount of native forests for a source of charcoal, then you have a bit of a problem.


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## TheKillerBs (Mar 2, 2017)

Plate armour weighs about half that and roughly the same as what samurai armour weighed. Also, swords in Japan were, like everywhere else, sidearms and practically every warrior had one.


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## Alyssa (Mar 2, 2017)

TheKillerBs said:


> Plate armour weighs about half that and roughly the same as what samurai armour weighed. Also, swords in Japan were, like everywhere else, sidearms and practically every warrior had one.



The numbers for armour were for the jousting plate, which actually gets even heavier than 100 lb. It's simply a nice round number that's easy to do calculations off of.

Primary footsoldiers were ashigaru. Essentially conscripted farmers, not all, but many. They had yumi, yari and rarely the naginata. Or simply their farming tools. Swords, were metal intensive, and thus expensive. A poor investment, wouldn't you say? Especially with relatively untrained footsoldies. Weapons and armor were often looted. And if they were actually issued with swords or naginata, which would probably be most likely to happen from the start in the Sengoku period, then they would be low quality blades indeed.

Swords between Warring States and Sengoku, became more common. But were generally reserved for those of higher social standing. Although, an ashigaru could certainly loot a sword and use it.

Even the favoured weapon of the samurai for a long time was the bow – yumi. Swordsmanship only became valued much later on.

Japanes armor during the medieval period was usually constructed with lames, resulting in them being lighter that chainmail or plate in europe.


Handbook to Life in Medieval and Early Modern Japan - William E. Deal - Google Books

Ashigaru 1467-1649 (Warrior): Stephen Turnbull, Howard Gerrard: 9781841761497: Amazon.com: Books


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## TheKillerBs (Mar 3, 2017)

Jousting armour is irrelevant. It's essentially a very expensive toy and it never saw use in the battlefield. Full-plate harnesses that were designed for battle weighed about 55 lbs which is half of the heaviest jousting armour. The contemporary of full-plate harnesses was the ouyoroi, which weighed from 35 lbs when it first started out in the 10th century to about 65 lbs when it was eventually replaced by the doumaru in the 15th-16th centuries. Incidentally, when the ouyoroi first began to be used in Japan, mail armour was the choice in Europe, and a mail coat of the time would weigh roughly 25 lbs. The assertion that Japanese armour was lighter is wrong. Also, if wood armour did exist in Japan, it way predates the samurai.

My statement of swords being sidearms, in Japan, as everywhere else, is a sweeping statement that includes pretty much any place and time where metal weapons were common. What I mean is that yes, the samurai did in fact use spears and other polearms, clubs, bows and later, the matchlock arquebus as their main battlefield weapon, _but they also had a sword as a backup_. Swordsmanship was never the most important battlefield skill. Guess what? That was the exact same in medieval Europe. The armoured gentry used spears, poleaxes, maces, sometimes bows, and the best armour, with an arming sword or a longsword as a sidearm. In Japan, it was yari, naginata/nagamaki, kanabou, very often yumi, and the best yoroi, with a wakizashi and a tachi as a sidearm (and later, the tachi would be replaced by the katana). In terms of the men-at-arms versus the ashigaru, men-at-arms would use spear and shield, sometimes bows and crossbows, and one-handed axes, arming swords, messers, or long knives as sidearms. The ashigaru used again, yari, yumi, and often, had short swords or long knives as sidearms, especially towards the later periods.

On rather unrelated note, the usage of 刀 (katana/tou/chi) to mean sword amuses me to no end, since it technically means "curved, single-edged sword", and a curved, single-edged sword is, of course, a sabre.


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## psychotick (Mar 4, 2017)

Hi,

I seem to recall a mythbusters epp, where they tested Japanese paper armour. It was actually quite effective if it didn't get wet.

Cheers, Greg.


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