Iron Age

(proper noun)

A level of culture in which man used iron and the technology of iron production.

Related Terms

Examples of Iron Age in the following topics:

  • The Norse

    • "Norse art" defines the artistic legacies of Scandinavia during the Germanic Iron Age, the Viking Age, and the Nordic Bronze Age.
    • "Norse art" is a blanket term for the artistic styles in Scandinavia during the Germanic Iron Age, the Viking Age, and the Nordic Bronze Age.

  • Ceramics and Bronze in the Yayoi Period

    • Artifacts brought to the Japanese islands by the Yayoi people bore Chinese and Korean influences and ushered Japan into the Iron Age.
    • The Yayoi period is an Iron Age era in the history of Japan traditionally dated 300 BCE to 300 CE.
    • Techniques in metallurgy based on the use of bronze and iron were also introduced to Japan in this period.
    • By the 1st century CE, Yayoi farmers began using iron agricultural tools and weapons.

  • Vedic and Upanishadic Periods

    • However, after 1000 BCE, the use of iron axes and ploughs enabled the clearing of jungles, and the Vedic kingdoms were able to expand along the Gangetic plains, ushering in the later Vedic age.
    • The black- and red-ware culture (BRW) is an early Iron Age archaeological culture associated with the post-Rigvedic Vedic civilization, dating roughly from the 12th – 9th centuries BCE.
    • It was succeeded by the painted grey-ware culture (PGW), an Iron Age culture corresponding to the later Vedic period and lasting from roughly 1200 BCE to 600 BCE.
    • This is the time of the early Iron Age in north-western India, corresponding to the black- and red-ware (BRW) culture.
    • An example of pottery work from the black- and red-ware culture (BRW), an early Iron Age archaeological culture associated with the post-Rigvedic Vedic civilization.

  • The Stone Age

    • Stone Age art illustrates early human creativity through small portable objects, cave paintings, and early sculpture and architecture.
    • The Stone Age is the first of the three-age system of archaeology, which divides human technological prehistory into three periods: the Stone Age, Bronze Age, and Iron Age.
    • The Stone Age lasted roughly 3.4 million years, from 30,000 BCE to about 3,000 BCE, and ended with the advent of metalworking.
    • The art of the Stone Age represents the first accomplishments in human creativity, preceding the invention of writing.
    • By the Iron Age, civilizations with writing had arisen from Ancient Egypt to Ancient China.

  • Art of the Bronze Age

    • The Bronze Age saw the birth of civilization and the development of advanced cultures in Europe, the Near East, and East Asia.
    • The Bronze Age is part of the three-age system of archaeology, which divides human technological prehistory into three periods: the Stone Age, Bronze Age, and Iron Age.
    • This period ended with further advancements in metallurgy, such as the ability to smelt iron ore.
    • Bronze Age cultures differed in their development of the first writing.
    • In Ancient Egypt, the Bronze Age begins in the Protodynastic period, circa 3,150 BC .

  • The Hittites

    • The Hittites were an ancient Anatolian people of the Bronze Age, who manufactured advanced iron goods, ruled through government officials with independent authority over various branches of government, and worshipped storm gods.
    • After c. 1180 BCE, the empire came to an end during the Bronze Age collapse, and splintered into several independent "Neo-Hittite" city-states, some of which survived until the 8th century BCE.
    • Although their civilization thrived during the Bronze Age, the Hittites were the forerunners of the Iron Age and were manufacturing iron artifacts from as early as the 14th century BCE.
    • Correspondence with rulers from other empires reveal a foreign demand for iron goods.

  • Greek Dark Ages

    • The Late Bronze Age collapse, or Age of Calamities, was a transition in the Aegean Region, Eastern Mediterranean, and Southwestern Asia that took place from the Late Bronze Age to the Early Iron Age.
    • The palace economy of the Aegean Region that had characterized the Late Bronze Age was replaced, after a hiatus, by the isolated village cultures of the Greek Dark Ages, a period that lasted for more than 400 years.
    • Historians also point to the widespread availability of edged iron weapons as an exasperating factor.
    • Excavations of Dark Age communities such as Nichoria in the Peloponnese have shown how a Bronze Age town was abandoned in 1150 BCE, but then reemerged as a small village cluster by 1075 BCE.
    • Iron tools and weapons also became better in quality, and communities began to develop that were governed by elite groups of aristocrats as opposed to singular kings or chieftains of earlier periods.

  • Occurrence of Metals

    • So while copper and iron were known well before the Copper Age and Iron Age, they would not have a large impact on humankind until the technology to smelt them from their ores, and thus mass-produce them, appeared.
    • Of all the metallic alloys in use today, the alloys of iron (steel, stainless steel, cast iron, tool steel, and alloy steel) make up the largest proportion both by quantity and commercial value.
    • Iron alloyed with various proportions of carbon gives low, mid and high carbon steels; the increased carbon levels reduce ductility and toughness.
    • Copper alloys have been known since prehistory—bronze gave the Bronze Age its name—and have many applications today, most importantly in electrical wiring.
    • Many common metals, such as iron, are smelted using carbon as a reducing agent.

  • The Iron Cycle

    • Iron (Fe) follows a geochemical cycle like many other nutrients.
    • The Terrestrial Iron Cycle: In terrestrial ecosystems, plants first absorb iron through their roots from the soil.
    • Iron is required to produce chlorophyl, and plants require sufficient iron to perform photosynthesis.
    • Animals acquire iron when they consume plants, and iron is utilized by vertebrates in hemoglobin, the oxygen-binding protein found in red blood cells.
    • The Marine Iron Cycle: The oceanic iron cycle is similar to the terrestrial iron cycle, except that the primary producers that absorb iron are typically phytoplankton or cyanobacteria.

  • The Age of Plastics

    • Historically, many eras were characterized by the materials that were then important to human society (e.g. stone age, bronze age and iron age).