SeverinR
Vala
Unfortunately, the "age" systems aren't very good ones: they're overly broad, include a lot more than just the dominant metallurgy (for instance, the "Bronze Age" includes features such as city-states and organized distance trading), and are highly relative to each culture. "Iron Age" Europe and Near East extends back to the 1st millennium BC–during which time bronze was still in wide use throughout; the "Bronze Age" (which, it appears, has subsumed the "copper" age as a subdivision) extends back to the beginnings of recorded history. Basically. Allowing for regional variation. And considerable overlap, even in a single region.
For a very broad, simplistic date range:
- Neolithic (last part of Stone Age): begins c. 10,000 BCE; ends with transition to Bronze Age.
- Bronze Age: begins c. 3300 BCE; ends c. 1200 BCE (Near East, India)/c. 800-400 BCE (locations in Europe)
- Iron Age: begins anywhere between 1200 BCE and 100 BCE; ends… some time or other in the first five centuries CE. Not clear what, if any, "age" is supposed to succeed it.
Note that there is massive overlap in metals available: iron production has been dated to at least 2000 BCE, and the stray iron implement (possibly hammered out of meteoric sources, rather than mined and smelted) has been dated to well before that. The overlap goes both ways: there was iron available throughout much of the "Bronze" Age; conversely, even in many regions where iron production existed, bronze still saw widespread use–in many ways, it was superior to the iron of the day, as has been mentioned before–and continued to be used well into the "Iron" Age. In other regions, iron rapidly replaced bronze as the preferred metal. Some parts of Africa appear to have skipped bronze altogether.
So, basically, if you're trying to figure out the metallurgy of a particular setting, you're going to need to look at the historical record for that culture, rather than using what "age" it was in at the time. Sorry: no simple answer.
Exactly the answer I wanted.
(I knew they overlapped, the official "age" was when they were most common, not the mere introduction into society.)
Did American indians(Native Americans) even have a time line of metals? I believe some used metal, not sure if that was introduced from the invading cultures or if they actually evolved into them.
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