Europeans Were Creating Steel Tools 2,900 Years Ago
upstart writes:
Iberians were using heavy metal on hard rock way before it was cool:
It's time to update the history books again. A group of researchers in Germany have shown that steel tools were being used in the Iberian peninsula at least as long ago as 900 BCE - far earlier than it was believed knowledge of the metal had made its way to the region.
The team, led by University of Freiburg archaeologist Ralph Araque Gonzalez, base their claims on geochemical and metallographic analyses - and some good old fashioned experimental archaeology. They demonstrated that a series of engravings on stone pillars found in the region from the late Bronze Age could only have been made with tools made from proper steel, and it was most likely developed locally.
According to the team's paper on the research, the final bronze age (FBA) in the Iberian peninsula lasted from around 1200-800 BCE, and the early iron age (EIA) lasted roughly 200 years after that. Despite that commonly accepted timeline, the team said a series of engraved steles identified as from the FBA/EIA and examined as part of the study were mostly made of extremely hard rock - similar to quartzite.
[...] According to the University of Freiburg, up until recently it was believed the ability to create steel - an alloy of iron and carbon - only became widespread in Europe with the expansion of the Roman Empire.
[...] But evidence of steel tools in Iberia hundreds of years earlier raises a question: how did they get there? Based on where the tool was found, and the context in which it was discovered, Araque Gonzalez concluded that the Romans probably had nothing to do with it.
[...] "Iron metallurgy including the production and tempering of steel were probably indigenous developments of decentralized small communities in Iberia, and not due to the influence of later colonization processes," Araque Gonzalez hypothesized.
Journal Reference:
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jas.2023.105742
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