Could you skip bronce and jump straight to iron?

>>53746747
*Bronze

>>53746747
Iron was known at the time bronze was popular.

>>53746747
The Japanese did.

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>>53746747
Africa didn't have a Bronze Age. In fact, they practically skipped right to carbon steel.

http://www.uh.edu/engines/epi385.htm
>But carbon steel had been made long before either Kelly or Bessemer. One of the oldest and most sophisticated methods was that of the Haya people. They're an African tribe in what is Tanzania today. The Hayas produced high-grade carbon steel for about 2000 years.

At the same time, under the right conditions you could pretty much stay in the bronze age much longer.

>>53746990
This link looks incredibly cheesy

>>53746747
There's nothing stopping you from skipping stone and going straight to iron, with the right knowledge. The thing is that bronze is generally better than pig iron, and the technology for making steel took a long time to get figured out properly.

Many cultures spent so long in the bronze age simply because they were around for a long time before steel was discovered. Once that was figured out news spread fast, and any new cultures started from iron (Celts, for example).

>>53746990
But anon, africa doesn't invent any technologies.

>>53747103
http://content.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,912179,00.html?iid=chix-sphere

http://www.jstor.org/stable/529465?seq=1#page_scan_tab_contents

http://portal.unesco.org/en/ev.php-URL_ID=3432&URL_DO=DO_TOPIC&URL_SECTION=201.html

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>>53747329
For some reason the all caps in that third url amuses me. I picture it like some kind of confused, shouting robot.

>URL ID
>URL DO
>DO TOPIC
>URL SECTION
>201
>BEEP BOOP

>>53747329
I read only the last one and nowhere it mentions Africans having steel 2000 years ago like the previous link

>>53746990
looks like reverse engineering of gladius

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Skipping the bronze age would seem trivial, people simply don't find enough tin ore to make it a thing, even though bronze has been invented.

Skipping the invention of bronze and going straight from copper to iron also seems easy, as I don't think smelting bronze is any greater technological challenge really than copper, once you figure out which two ores to use.

Inventing iron smelting without copper first may be a bit of a challenge. It's the same basic technology, but iron requires a bit higher temperature, so you need a slightly better furnace before payout. Still, doesn't seem impossible.

>>53747159
>The thing is that bronze is generally better than pig iron

These early bloomery furnaces would have been making plain iron, or possible mild steel. Pig iron comes a good deal later. In the case of Europe that'll take until the late middle ages, while the Chinese may have figured it out a millennia and a half earlier or some such.

Now around the bronze to iron age transition bronze would probably often have been better than iron. It isn't a bad metal by any stretch, and the working of it was a very mature technology, while they were still figuring out that iron was better off forged hot. However, even at that point iron had one distinct advantage. Iron ore was plentiful, copper ore wasn't, and tin was bloody scarce. So while the bornze may have been better, iron meant you could start using a lot more metal everywhere.

>>53747403
It was a sensationalist discovery a few years back If I remember.

If I'm remembering the answer was they didn't clean out their smelters properly and managed to get some crap steel by accident.

>>53746990
Did they invent it or was it spread to them, that's an important distinction.

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>>53746990
>http://www.uh.edu/engines/epi385.htm
>Before they loaded iron ore into the kiln, they roasted it to raise its carbon content.

They need a proof reader. Roasting increases the oxygen content. This may seem counter-productive, but Fe2O3 behaves better in the furnace. I think it may also help drive out any water trapped in the ore's crystalline structure.

>>53746747
Unless you know how to turn iron into steel, iron weapons weren't necessarily a straight upgrade from bronze.

While iron was harder than bronze (and thus held an edge slightly better), it was much more brittle and would rust without constant care. A bronze sword lasts literally forever and really doesn't ever break in battle. It may bend from heavy use, but you can just bend/hammer it back into shape.

The real advantage of iron was not relying on the importation of tin, which became unreliable during the Bronze Age Collapse.

>>53747636
How does that matter to OP's question?

>>53747666
Because bronze isn't something that a primitive civilization would want to "skip" in terms of technological advancement.

>>53747705
It's too scarce for widespread use, and only offers a small advantage at best for the few items that are made from it. It won't be any major loss.

>>53746747
...What would you hammer your iron with?

>>53747790
You can make a hammer easier than a sword.

Cast it in a cylinder.

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>>53747790
Iron, soon enough. Before that I guess you'd make do with wood, bone and stone, the usual staples of the at that point still stone age society. Maybe some native copper if we've completely skipped all pre-ferrous smelting inventions.

>>53747790
Whatever you hammered the hammer with

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Not >>53746990 but I can provide a link too https://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=1916&dat=19780914&id=MOogAAAAIBAJ&sjid=SG4FAAAAIBAJ&pg=1193,3647298
It's actually a bit interesting.

>>53747531
Invent. 2000 to 1500 years ago would have been before the muslims conquered their way to India, which was the only other real steel producer. There's a story of some archaeologist meeting a tribe, the Haya, and asking them what old school forging was like, so they put together a traditional forging furnace that made carbon steel like a blast forge from the 1800s.

Now here's a question I have: How would a carbon steel sword made in this blast furnace compare to the average medieval knight's sword? Assuming neither side is some memetic "master blacksmith" Just a normal Afrosword and a normal Eurosword

>>53747772
It was too scarce in our world, but if you're making a fantasy setting you could alter that as much as you want.

People use Iron because it's easier and more common. If OP makes his fantasy civilization in a place with only a little copper, no tin anywhere nearby, but a fuckton of Iron, they'll use Iron. If OP makes them perfectly situated on top of a mountain of copper and a mountain of tin, they'll use bronze and probably won't switch to Iron until steel becomes widespread

IIRC, the Philippines kind of went straight into iron because they had some very easy access iron deposits.

>>53749595
Iron deposits are usually easy accesable. Iron is abundant. It's just smelting it which is trickier than copper and tin, so they were developed first despite much bigger scarcity.

>>53749000
>How would a carbon steel sword made in this blast furnace compare to the average medieval knight's sword?
Depends on the quality of the medieval sword and when in the medieval period you want. The best steel from the last medieval period will be very similar to modern steel. Shit steel from whenever is going to be more likely to break.

The hardness of medieval steel was never the issue, it was making large amounts of it with any uniformity. The only real advantage modern steel would have over medieval steel is that it can make it thinner/longer for a given weight, since you need less safety margin when you can me more sure you don't have defects in the steel that might compromise the sword.

>>53746747
Yes you could.
In fact Scandinavia should have, but they picked up metallurgy from peoples who worked in bronze were iron ore was scarce so they just mimiced the bronze workers for a long time.

Not sure if there's any evidence of a culture spontaneously coming up with iron working before the copper based alloys.

Could you skip iron and jump straight to information age?

>>53754954
>WUZ

>>53746747

They did that in parts of Africa and Asia

So here's a related question I've been wondering about. Pretty much all my metallurgical knowledge comes from Dwarf Fortress, so it'd be nice to hear opinion from someone more knowledgeable.
Given the right mix of scarcity and abundancy of various minerals, are there any metals other than copper/bronze or iron that could take their place as the primary metal used in a society? Both for general usage or for weapons and armor.

>>53755008
>KANGS

>>53747394
It's probably singing Du Hast

>>53758514
Pretty much any abundant material that could be worked could be used. Obviously not metal, but obsidian, shark teeth, flint, bone, all been used for weapons. Currency materials are even more random, as scarcity is what drove demand in the first place. Purple was worth more than gold in rome.

>>53749595
That's what most scholars believe, yes. iirc there's still some debate. Lots of bronze in Palawan I think.
There aren't iron shields in the Philippines right? More focus on wielding two swords?

>>53758700
>>53758514
For odd currency, cowrie shells are my favourite.
With metals:
For bronze you need a decent trade network as copper and tin tend to deposit in different geographic areas.
Copper was more Med /Northafrica, tin was Western europe and Britain. I read a theory that the iron age was encouraged by the invasions of the "Sea Peoples" detroying the trade networks that had gropwn up for bronze manufacture.

Eygyptians had copper as their main tool metal.
South america used gold
Inuit had no metal beyond meteoric iron.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Late_Bronze_Age_collapse

>>53746990
I know this shatters your self esteem, but youwuznt, Tyrone.

>>53758598
oh FFS it even lines up

>>53746747
>Could you skip bronce and jump straight to iron?
Sure. Bronze requires tin and copper ores which are while not rare are very unevenly distributed, and in some regions one of them ore both are not available on the surface (or at all). Meanwhile bog Iron ore or iron sand is quite widespread so any civilization that figures out how to smelt would smelt iron, but some would skip copper and/or bronze.

>>53759612
The problem with that is that iron requires much higher temperatures to work with, making it difficult to get started on unless you already have a decent grasp of bronze and other metals.

>>53746747
Yeah. The hard thing about iron/steel is recognizing iron ore. Copper is easy to find and distinctive. Iron just looks like another rock.

>>53759630
You don't need a knowledge of creating alloys to start smelting steel - it'd be ebough to know how to smelt copper.

>>53759014
>More focus on wielding two swords?
Meme.
They used wooden shields help together by metallic bits just like everyone else. Some of the richest ones especially in the south had Lamellar.

They do love blades though.

>>53747179
i think they did before europe raped them

>>53760613
Only the Northeastern part where they are Mediterraneanboo's. They something to aspire to there, unlike the rest of the continent.

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>>53758514
Southeast Asia used their local expertise in brass for armor (kurab a kulang, moro armor) and cannons (lantakas). The latter were even family heirlooms and savings for hard times.

http://hariragat.blogspot.com.br/search?q=brass
>adopt their design to tropical usage, stripping away the long sleeves and leg pieces, which would’ve been too hot and heavy to use here. And they had turned to working almost exclusively in brass, with non-metallic plates on some pieces (horn, lacquered leather, etc), likely due to the scarcity of iron and its tendency to rust easily. Brass mail rings were common in India, but there they were mixed with iron rings to form Ganga-Jumna mail, with alternating yellow and gray patterns.

>Perhaps another factor in the use of brass was the local affinity for it; brassworking is a well-developed art all over the Malay lands, specially but not exclusively among the Muslim Malays. Among the non-Muslim Lumad tribes of Mindanao entire villages would specialize in brassworking, existing in intricate trade networks with other specialist villages that produced basketry, pottery, weapons and tools, and so on.

>Comparing the pretty good state of the brass items with the woeful rusting on the antique blades also on display, it looks like resistance to corrosion was a big factor in the choice of brass over steel for making armor. In this humid climate, you’d likely have to replace steel armor far more often than is economical.

However, it may be that the brass equipment simply lasted up to the present and this distorts the interpretation.

>>53746747
Let's look at it narratively.
You're skipping from the Age of Gods to the Age of Men without hitting the Age of Heroes.
As said already, for bronze you need long-distance trade. It's expensive, but can be good metal, PERFECT COMBO for heroes.
Iron is cheap, good to arm the masses.

So now you have armed masses without ever having a few nobles acting like bronzed gods of war, it changes the mythology and the societal structure towards... what? multiple Roman-like empires clashing? stronger theocracies? an abundance of banditry just about everywhere?

>>53746990
>>53749000
>niggers invented carbon steel forging

no one unironically believes this right?

>>53763341
/pol/ go. Why would it be wierd? Africa is literally stuffed full of resources.

>>53759014
>iron shields
There aren't that many fully metal shields anywhere, m8 (besides the Rodelaros), it's mostly wood-covered with canvas or rawhide and reinforced by metal, but wood nonetheless.

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>>53760662
I know it's hip to spout uneducated opinions on the net, but you could read about places like Mali or Ethiopia or Kongo and their history.

>>53763378
resources has nothing to do with it. although i dont know why you think that would make a good argument considering niggers track record with utilizing their resources. even right now, today, niggers are starving to death on some of the most fertile land in the world because they cant figure out how to farm on it

>>53763736
Oh ok you're /pol/ cool, that makes this easier

go home

>>53746747
Bronze is better than iron. The bronze age collapse destroyed the trade routes people were using for tin, so people switched to iron because there was no other choice (I mean I guess they could've just used copper but that's shit).

Eventually people figured out that iron with high carbon content, which is hard but brittle, could be mixed with iron with low carbon content, which is soft but tough, using pattern welding. This is stronger than bronze. The Indians figured it out first, but eventually everyone did it, and the Japanese figured it out independently (without ever having a bronze age).

Much later people figured out how to control the amount of carbon in their steel well enough that it didn't need to be pattern welded.

>>53763736
>How dare people go hungry during a catastrophic drought?

Fuck off, even Yemen is suffering

>>53763341
>Newspaper from the 1970s, back when there was no public """Agenda""" to push stuff like that
>Includes an explanation on how this conclusion was came to, including by an archaeological expert who was hanging out with the tribe and watched them make a proper ancient blast furnace based on no directions but their passed down traditions
>"N-No, that's lies!"

>>53764137
thats one of the weakest pieces of "evidence" iv ever seen in my life

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>>53763964
Pattern welding most likely isn't about mixing hard but brittle with soft but tough. These old iron and steel alloys will tend to be limited in toughness mroe by inclusion count than carbon content, so adding low carbon material won't really help you all that much. Instead the important thing is that the low carbon material is a lot cheaper than the high carbon material. [Alan Williams, The Sword and the Crucible]

This is also mirrored in many (most?) historical pattern welded blades, as for properly pattern welded blades it's often not the entire blade that has been made in such a way. Instead you have a pattern welded core or back combined with a pure steel edges, or some such (not that every setup sticks completely to this, took some time to figure things out I think). The edges is where the properties of the material matter the most, the centre the least, so you can stick cheap material there with little impact on the sword's overall properties. And of course later on they start making swords entirely out of higher carbon steel, despite the impact on toughness of the carbon content being the same. What changed was the price tag.

Now if you do harden your blade with a full-strength quench then you'll need to know the carbon content to a pretty high degree of precision. But that's in a much later period (say late middle ages in Europe). Earlier unhardened or slack quenched blades would be far less temperamental.

As for competing with bronze, well, bronzes too had widely varying composition and properties. But apart form the hardest, work hardened bronzes I'd say even a medium carbon steel will be in the same ballpark when completely unhardened. Add slack quenching (not the upper curve here, that's a proper quench) and bronze probably won't have much chance of competing any more. Also keep in mind that extensive work hardening was for the edges, the bulk of the blade would get less to none of that.

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>>53746747
I just skipped bronce and went to stanless steel.

>>53764391
There's also the .edu site, the archaeologist who led the team that watched them make the furnace, who's name is Schmidt by the way, and all the sources in >>53747329
Or you can stick your head in the ground and pretend they don't qualify for whatever reason you want.