General characteristics of the Iron Age. Early Iron Age

The Iron Age is a period of time in human history when iron metallurgy arose and began to actively develop. The Iron Age came immediately after and lasted from 1200 BC. to 340 AD

Processing for ancient people became the first type of metallurgy after. It is believed that the discovery of the properties of copper occurred by accident when people mistook it for a stone, tried to process it and got an incredible result. After the Copper Age came the Bronze Age, when copper began to be mixed with tin and thus obtain a new material for the manufacture of tools, hunting, jewelry, and so on. After the Bronze Age came the Iron Age, when people learned to mine and process materials such as iron. During this period, there was a noticeable increase in the production of iron tools. Independent iron smelting is spreading among the tribes of Europe and Asia.

Iron products are found much earlier than the Iron Age, but previously they were used very rarely. The first finds date back to the VI-IV millennium BC. e. Found in Iran, Iraq and Egypt. Iron products that date back to the 3rd millennium BC were found in Mesopotamia, the Southern Urals, and Southern Siberia. At this time, iron was predominantly meteorite, but it was in very small quantities, and it was intended mainly for the creation of luxury goods and ritual objects. The use of products made from meteorite iron or by mining from ore was noticed in many regions in the territories where ancient people settled, but before the beginning of the Iron Age (1200 BC) the distribution of this material was very scarce.

Why did ancient people use iron instead of bronze in the Iron Age? Bronze is a harder and more durable metal, but is inferior to iron in that it is brittle. In terms of fragility, iron clearly wins, but people had great difficulty processing iron. The fact is that iron melts at much higher temperatures than copper, tin and bronze. Because of this, special furnaces were needed where suitable conditions for melting could be created. Moreover, iron in its pure form is quite rare, and to obtain it requires preliminary smelting from ore, which is a rather labor-intensive task that requires certain knowledge. Because of this, iron was not popular for a long time. Historians believe that iron processing became a necessity for ancient man, and people began to use it instead of bronze due to the depletion of tin reserves. Due to the fact that active mining of copper and tin began during the Bronze Age, deposits of the latter material were simply depleted. Therefore, the mining of iron ores and the development of iron metallurgy began to develop.

Even with the development of iron metallurgy, bronze metallurgy continued to be very popular due to the fact that this material is easier to process and its products are harder. Bronze began to be replaced when man came up with the idea of ​​creating steel (alloys of iron and carbon), which is much harder than iron and bronze and has elasticity.

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The archaeological era from which the use of objects made from iron ore begins. The earliest iron-making furnaces, dating back to the 1st half. II millennium BC discovered in Western Georgia. In Eastern Europe and the Eurasian steppe and forest-steppe, the beginning of the era coincides with the time of the formation of early nomadic formations of the Scythian and Saka types (approximately VIII-VII centuries BC). In Africa it came immediately after the Stone Age (there is no Bronze Age). In America, the beginning of the Iron Age is associated with European colonization. It began in Asia and Europe almost simultaneously. Often, only the first stage of the Iron Age is called the Early Iron Age, the boundary of which is the final stages of the era of the Great Migration of Peoples (IV-VI centuries AD). In general, the Iron Age includes the entire Middle Ages, and based on the definition, this era continues to this day.

The discovery of iron and the invention of the metallurgical process was quite complex. If copper and tin are found in nature in their pure form, then iron is found only in chemical compounds, mainly with oxygen, as well as with other elements. No matter how long you keep iron ore in the fire, it will not melt, and this path of “accidental” discovery, possible for copper, tin and some other metals, is excluded for iron. Brown, loose stone, such as iron ore, was not suitable for making tools by beating. Finally, even reduced iron melts at a very high temperature - more than 1500 degrees. All this is an almost insurmountable obstacle to a more or less satisfactory hypothesis of the history of the discovery of iron.

There is no doubt that the discovery of iron was prepared by several millennia of development of copper metallurgy. Particularly important was the invention of bellows for blowing air into smelting furnaces. Such bellows were used in non-ferrous metallurgy, increasing the flow of oxygen into the forge, which not only increased its temperature, but also created conditions for a successful chemical reaction of metal reduction. A metallurgical furnace, even a primitive one, is a kind of chemical retort in which not so much physical as chemical processes occur. Such a stove was made of stone and coated with clay (or it was made of clay alone) on a massive clay or stone base. The thickness of the furnace walls reached 20 cm. The height of the furnace shaft was about 1 m. Its diameter was the same. In the front wall of the furnace at the bottom level there was a hole through which the coal loaded into the shaft was set on fire, and through it the kritsa was taken out. Archaeologists use the Old Russian name for a furnace for “cooking” iron - “domnitsa”. The process itself is called cheese making. This term emphasizes the importance of blowing air into a furnace filled with iron ore and coal.

At cheese-making process more than half of the iron was lost in slag, which led to the abandonment of this method at the end of the Middle Ages. However, for almost three thousand years this method was the only way to obtain iron.

Unlike bronze objects, iron objects could not be made by casting; they were forged. By the time iron metallurgy was discovered, the forging process had a thousand-year history. They forged on a metal stand - an anvil. A piece of iron was first heated in a forge, and then the blacksmith, holding it with tongs on an anvil, hit the place with a small hammer-handle, where his assistant then struck the iron, hitting the iron with a heavy hammer-sledgehammer.

Iron was first mentioned in the correspondence of the Egyptian pharaoh with the Hittite king, preserved in the archives of the 14th century. BC e. in Amarna (Egypt). From this time, small iron products have reached us in Mesopotamia, Egypt and the Aegean world.

For some time, iron was a very expensive material, used to make jewelry and ceremonial weapons. In particular, a gold bracelet with iron inlay and a whole series of iron objects were found in the tomb of Pharaoh Tutankhamun. Iron inlays are also known in other places.

On the territory of the USSR, iron first appeared in Transcaucasia.

Iron things began to quickly replace bronze ones, since iron, unlike copper and tin, is found almost everywhere. Iron ores occur both in mountainous regions and in swamps, not only deep underground, but also on its surface. Nowadays bog ore is of no industrial interest, but in ancient times it was important. Thus, countries that held a monopoly position in the production of bronze lost their monopoly on the production of metal. With the discovery of iron, countries poor in copper ores quickly overtook the countries that were advanced in the Bronze Age.

Scythians

Scythians is an exoethnonym of Greek origin, applied to a group of peoples who lived in Eastern Europe, Central Asia and Siberia in antiquity. The ancient Greeks called the country where the Scythians lived Scythia.

Nowadays, Scythians in the narrow sense are usually understood as Iranian-speaking nomads who in the past occupied the territories of Ukraine, Moldova, Southern Russia, Kazakhstan and parts of Siberia. This does not exclude a different ethnicity of some of the tribes, which ancient authors also called Scythians.

Information about the Scythians comes mainly from the writings of ancient authors (especially Herodotus’s “History”) and archaeological excavations in the lands from the lower Danube to Siberia and Altai. The Scythian-Sarmatian language, as well as the Alan language derived from it, were part of the northeastern branch of the Iranian languages ​​and were probably the ancestor of the modern Ossetian language, as indicated by hundreds of Scythian personal names, names of tribes, and rivers preserved in Greek records.

Later, starting from the era of the Great Migration of Peoples, the word “Scythians” was used in Greek (Byzantine) sources to name all the peoples of completely different origins who inhabited the Eurasian steppes and the northern Black Sea region: in sources of the 3rd-4th centuries AD “Scythians” are often called and German-speaking Goths, in later Byzantine sources the Scythians called the Eastern Slavs - Rus', the Turkic-speaking Khazars and Pechenegs, as well as the Alans related to the ancient Iranian-speaking Scythians.

Emergence. The underlying basis of early Indo-European, including Scythian, culture is being actively studied by supporters of the Kurgan hypothesis. Archaeologists date the formation of the relatively generally recognized Scythian culture to the 7th century BC. e. (Arzhan burial mounds). At the same time, there are two main approaches to interpreting its occurrence. According to one, based on the so-called “third legend” of Herodotus, the Scythians came from the east, expelling what can archaeologically be interpreted as coming from the lower reaches of the Syr Darya, from Tuva or some other areas of Central Asia (see Pazyryk culture).

Another approach, which can also be based on the legends recorded by Herodotus, suggests that the Scythians had by that time lived in the Northern Black Sea region for at least several centuries, having separated from the successors of the Timber-frame culture.

Maria Gimbutas and the scientists of her circle attribute the appearance of the Scythian ancestors (horse domestication cultures) to 5 - 4 thousand BC. e. According to other versions, these ancestors are associated with other cultures. They also appear to be the descendants of the bearers of the Timber Frame culture of the Bronze Age, who advanced from the 14th century. BC e. from the Volga region to the west. Others believe that the main core of the Scythians emerged thousands of years ago from Central Asia or Siberia and mixed with the population of the Northern Black Sea region (including the territory of Ukraine). The ideas of Marija Gimbutas extend in the direction of further research into the origins of the Scythians.

Grain farming was of considerable importance. The Scythians produced grain for export, in particular to Greek cities, and through them to the Greek metropolis. Grain production required the use of slave labor. The bones of murdered slaves often accompany the burials of Scythian slave owners. The custom of killing people during the burial of masters is known in all countries and is characteristic of the era of the emergence of the slave economy. There are known cases of slaves being blinded, which does not agree with the assumption of patriarchal slavery among the Scythians. Agricultural tools, in particular sickles, are found at Scythian settlements, but arable tools are extremely rare; they were probably all wooden and did not have iron parts. The fact that the Scythians had arable farming is judged not so much by the finds of these tools, but by the amount of grain produced by the Scythians, which would have been many times less if the land had been cultivated with a hoe.

Fortified settlements appeared relatively late, at the turn of the 5th and 4th centuries. BC e., when the Scythians had sufficiently developed crafts and trade.

According to Herodotus, the royal Scythians were dominant - the easternmost of the Scythian tribes, bordering the Don with the Sauromatians, also occupied the steppe Crimea. To the west of them lived the Scythian nomads, and even further west, on the left bank of the Dnieper, the Scythian farmers. On the right bank of the Dnieper, in the basin of the Southern Bug, near the city of Olbia, lived the Callipids, or Hellenic-Scythians, to the north of them - the Alazons, and even further to the north - the Scythian ploughmen, and Herodotus points to agriculture as differences from the Scythians the last three tribes and clarifies that if the Callipids and Alazons grow and eat bread, then the Scythian plowmen grow bread for sale.

The Scythians already fully owned the production of ferrous metal. Other types of production are also represented: bone carving, pottery, weaving. But only metallurgy has so far reached the level of craftsmanship.

There are two lines of fortifications on the Kamensky settlement: external and internal. Archaeologists call the inner part the acropolis by analogy with the corresponding division of Greek cities. The remains of stone dwellings of the Scythian nobility have been traced on the acropolis. Row dwellings were mainly above-ground houses. Their walls sometimes consisted of pillars, the bases of which were dug into specially dug grooves along the contour of the dwelling. There are also semi-dugout dwellings.

The oldest Scythian arrows are flat, often with a spike on the sleeve. They are all socketed, that is, they have a special tube into which the arrow shaft is inserted. Classic Scythian arrows are also socketed, they resemble a trihedral pyramid, or three-bladed - the ribs of the pyramid seem to have developed into blades. The arrows are made of bronze, which has finally won its place in the production of arrows.

Scythian ceramics were made without the help of a potter's wheel, although in the Greek colonies neighboring the Scythians the wheel was widely used. Scythian vessels are flat-bottomed and varied in shape. Scythian bronze cauldrons up to a meter high, which had a long and thin leg and two vertical handles, became widespread.

Scythian art is well known mainly from objects from burials. It is characterized by the depiction of animals in certain poses and with exaggeratedly noticeable paws, eyes, claws, horns, ears, etc. Ungulates (deer, goat) were depicted with bent legs, cat predators - curled up in a ring. Scythian art presents strong or fast and sensitive animals, which corresponds to the Scythian’s desire to overtake, hit, and be always ready. It is noted that some images are associated with certain Scythian deities. The figures of these animals seemed to protect their owner from harm. But the style was not only sacred, but also decorative. The claws, tails and shoulder blades of predators were often shaped like the head of a bird of prey; sometimes full images of animals were placed in these places. This artistic style was called animal style in archeology. In early times in the Volga region, animal ornaments were evenly distributed between representatives of the nobility and ordinary people. In the IV-III centuries. BC e. the animal style is degenerating, and objects with similar ornaments are presented mainly in graves. The Scythian burials are the most famous and best studied. The Scythians buried their dead in pits or catacombs, under mounds. lah nobles. In the area of ​​the Dnieper rapids there are the famous Scythian burial mounds. In the royal burial mounds of the Scythians, gold vessels, artistic items made of gold, and expensive weapons are found. Thus, a new phenomenon is observed in the Scythian mounds - a strong property stratification. There are small and huge mounds, some burials without things, others with huge amounts of gold.

a period in the development of mankind that began in connection with the manufacture and use of iron tools and weapons. Replaced by the Bronze Age at the beginning of the 1st millennium BC. The use of iron contributed to a significant increase in production and the collapse of the primitive communal system.

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IRON AGE

an era in the primitive and early class history of mankind, characterized by the spread of iron metallurgy and the production of iron. guns The idea of ​​three centuries: stone, bronze and iron - arose in the ancient world (Titus Lucretius Carus). The term "J.v." was put into use ca. ser. 19th century Danish archaeologist K. J. Thomsen. The most important research, original. classification and dating of monuments of the late century. in the West Europe produced by M. Gernes, O. Montelius, O. Tischler, M. Reinecke, J. Dechelet, N. Oberg, J. L. Pietsch and J. Kostrzewski; in East Europe - V. A. Gorodtsov, A. A. Spitsyn, Yu. V. Gauthier, P. N. Tretyakov, A. P. Smirnov, Kh. A. Moora, M. I. Artamonov, B. N. Grakov and etc.; in Siberia - S. A. Teploukhov, S. V. Kiselev, S. I. Rudenko and others; in the Caucasus - B. A. Kuftin, B. B. Piotrovsky, E. I. Krupnov and others. The initial period. spread of gas industries survived all countries at different times, however, by the century. Usually only the cultures of primitive tribes that lived outside the territories of the ancient slave owners are included. civilizations that arose back in the Chalcolithic and Bronze Ages (Mesopotamia, Egypt, Greece, India, China). J.v. compared with previous archaeological eras (Cam. and Bronze Ages) is very short. His chronological borders: from 9-7 centuries. BC e., when many primitive tribes of Europe and Asia developed their own iron metallurgy, and until the time of the emergence of a class society and state among these tribes. Some modern foreign scientists who consider the time of the appearance of letters to be the end of primitive history. sources attribute the end of the Zh. century. Zap. Europe by the 1st century. BC e., when Rome appears. letters sources containing information about Western European. tribes Since to this day iron remains the most important material from which tools are made, modern ones. the era is included in the Life Century, therefore for archaeological. For the periodization of primitive history, the term “early life history” is also used. On the territory Zap. Europe in early life. only its beginning is called (the so-called Hallstatt culture). Despite the fact that iron is the most common metal in the world, it was developed late by man, since it is almost never found in nature in its pure form, is difficult to process, and its ores are difficult to distinguish from various minerals. Initially, meteorite iron became known to mankind. Small objects made of iron (primarily ornaments) are found in the 1st half. 3rd millennium BC e. in Egypt, Mesopotamia and Asia. The method of obtaining iron from ore was discovered in the 2nd millennium BC. e. According to one of the most likely assumptions, the cheese-making process (see below) was first used by tribes subordinate to the Hittites living in the mountains of Armenia (Antitaurus) in the 15th century. BC e. However, it still lasts. For a time, iron remained a rare and very valuable metal. Only after the 11th century. BC e. fairly widespread production of railway began. weapons and tools in Palestine, Syria, Asia, and India. At the same time, iron became famous in southern Europe. In the 11th-10th centuries. BC e. dept. zhel. objects penetrate into the region lying north of the Alps and are found in the steppes of southern Europe. parts of the USSR, but guns began to dominate in these areas only in the 8th-7th centuries. BC e. In the 8th century. BC e. zhel. products are widely distributed in Mesopotamia, Iran and somewhat later in Wed. Asia. The first news of iron in China dates back to the 8th century. BC e., but it spread only in the 5th century. BC e. Iron spread to Indochina and Indonesia at the turn of our era. Apparently, since ancient times, iron metallurgy was known to various tribes of Africa. Undoubtedly, already in the 6th century. BC e. iron was produced in Nubia, Sudan, and Libya. In the 2nd century. BC e. J.v. stepped into the center. region Africa. Some African tribes moved from Kam. century to the Iron Age, bypassing the Bronze Age. In America, Australia and most of the Pacific Islands approx. iron (except meteorite) became known only in the 2nd millennium AD. e. along with the arrival of Europeans in these areas. In contrast to the relatively rare sources of copper and especially tin, iron. ores, however, most often low-grade (brown iron ores, lake, swamp, meadow, etc.), are found almost everywhere. But it is much more difficult to obtain iron from ores than copper. Melting iron, that is, obtaining it in a liquid state, was always inaccessible to ancient metallurgists, since this required a very high temperature (1528°). Iron was obtained in a dough-like state using the cheese-blowing process, which consisted of the restoration of iron. ore with carbon at a temperature of 1100-1350° in special. furnaces with air injection by forging bellows through a nozzle. A kritsa formed at the bottom of the furnace - a lump of porous dough-like iron weighing 1-8 kg, which had to be hammered repeatedly to compact and partially remove (squeeze out) slag from it. Hot iron is soft, but in ancient times (c. 12th century BC) a method of hardening iron was discovered. products (by immersing them in cold water) and their cementation (carburization). Ready for blacksmith crafts and intended for trading. iron bars were usually exchanged in Western Asia and Western Asia. Europe bipyramidal shape. Higher mechanical quality of iron, as well as the general availability of iron. ores and the cheapness of the new metal ensured the displacement of bronze by iron, as well as stone, which remained an important material for the production of tools and bronze. century. This did not happen right away. In Europe only in the 2nd half. 1st millennium BC e. iron began to play truly creatures. role as a material for making tools. Technical The revolution caused by the spread of iron greatly expanded man's power over nature. It made it possible to clear large forest areas for crops and to expand and improve irrigation systems. and reclamation structures and overall improvement of land cultivation. The development of crafts, especially blacksmithing and weapons, is accelerating. Wood processing is being improved for the purposes of house construction, the production of vehicles (ships, chariots, etc.), and the manufacture of various utensils. Craftsmen, from shoemakers and masons to miners, also received more advanced tools. By the beginning of our era, everything was basic. types of crafts. and agricultural hand tools (except for screws and articulated scissors), used in Wed. centuries, and partly in modern times, were already in use. The construction of roads has become easier and the military has been improved. technology, exchange expanded, spread as a means of circulating metal. coin. Development produces. The forces associated with the spread of iron over time led to the transformation of entire societies. life. As a result of growth it produces. labor, the surplus product increased, which, in turn, served as an economic a prerequisite for the emergence of exploitation of man by man, the collapse of the tribal system. One of the sources of accumulation of values ​​and growth of property. inequality was expanding during the era of housing. exchange. The possibility of enrichment through exploitation gave rise to wars for the purpose of plunder and enslavement. For the beginning J.v. characterized by a wide distribution of fortifications. During the era of housing. The tribes of Europe and Asia were experiencing the stage of disintegration of the primitive communal system and were on the eve of the emergence of classes. society and state. The transition of part of the means of production into the private property of the ruling minority, the emergence of slavery, the increased stratification of society and the separation of the tribal aristocracy from the main ones. the masses of the population are already features typical of the early classes. society In many tribal societies. the structure of this transition period took on a political so-called form military democracy. J.v. on the territory of the USSR. On the territory USSR iron first appeared in the end. 2nd millennium BC e. In Transcaucasia (Samtavrsky burial ground) and in Southern Europe. parts of the USSR (monuments of the Timber-frame culture). The development of iron in Racha (Western Georgia) dates back to ancient times. The Mossinoiks and Khalibs, who lived in the neighborhood of the Colchians, were famous as metallurgists. However, the widespread use of iron metallurgy in the region. The USSR dates back to the 1st millennium BC. e. A number of archaeological sites are known in Transcaucasia. cultures of the end of the Bronze Age, the flowering of which dates back to the early Zh. century: Central-Transcaucasian. culture with local centers in Georgia, Armenia and Azerbaijan, Kyzyl-Vank culture (see Kyzyl-Vank), Colchis culture, Urartian culture. To the North Caucasus: Koban culture, Kayakent-Khorochoev culture and Kuban culture. In the Northern steppes. Black Sea region in the 7th century. BC e. - first centuries AD e. lived by Scythian tribes, who created the most developed culture of the early Western century. on the territory THE USSR. Zhel. products were found in abundance in settlements and burial mounds of the Scythian period. Signs of metallurgical products were discovered during excavations of a number of Scythian settlements. The largest amount of iron residues. and blacksmith crafts were found at the Kamensky settlement (5-3 centuries BC) near Nikopol, which was apparently a center of specialists. metallurgical district of ancient Scythia. Zhel. The tools contributed to the widespread development of all kinds of crafts and the spread of arable farming among the local tribes of the Scythian period. The next period after the Scythian period was the early Zh. century. in the steppes of the Black Sea region it is represented by the Sarmatian culture, which dominated here from the 2nd century. BC e. up to 4 c. n. e. In previous times, from the 6th century. BC e. Sarmatians (or Sauromatians) lived between the Don and the Urals. By the 3rd century. n. e. One of the Sarmatian tribes - the Alans - began to play. historical the role and gradually the very name of the Sarmatians was supplanted by the name Alans. By the same time, when the Sarmatian tribes dominated the North. Black Sea region, include those that have spread to the west. regions of the North Black Sea region, Verkh. and Wed. The Dnieper and Transnistria cultures of the “burial fields” (Milograd culture, Zarubinets culture, Chernyakhov culture, etc.). These crops belonged to farmers. tribes, among which, according to some scientists, were the ancestors of the Slavs. Those who lived in the center. and sowing forest areas of Europe. parts of the USSR, tribes were familiar with iron metallurgy from the 6th-5th centuries. BC e. In the 8th-3rd centuries. BC e. In the Kama region, the Ananino culture was widespread, which was characterized by the coexistence of bronzes. and zhel. guns, with the undoubted superiority of the latter at the end of it. The Ananino culture on the Kama was replaced by the Pyanobor culture, which dates back to the 3rd century. BC e. - 5th century n. e. In Top. The Volga region and in the regions of the Volga-Oka interfluve towards the Zh. century. include the settlements of the Dyakovo culture (mid 1st millennium BC - mid 1st millennium AD), and in the territory. to the south from the middle reaches of the Oka and to the west from the Volga, in the basin. pp. Tsny and Moksha, settlements of the Gorodets culture (7th century BC - 5th century AD), belonging to the ancient Finno-Ugric tribes. In the Upper area There are numerous known areas of the Dnieper region. 6th century fortifications BC e. - 7th century n. e., belonging to the ancient Eastern Baltic tribes, later absorbed by the Slavs. The settlements of these same tribes are known in the southeast. The Baltic states, where along with them there are remnants of culture that belonged to the ancestors of the ancient Est. (Chud) tribes. In South In Siberia and Altai, due to the abundance of copper and tin, bronze developed strongly. an industry that has long successfully competed with iron. Although products apparently appeared already in the early Mayemirian time (Altai; 7th century BC), iron became widespread only in the middle. 1st millennium BC e. (Tagar culture on the Yenisei, Pazyryk culture (see Pazyryk) in Altai, etc.). Cultures Zh. v. are also represented in other parts of Siberia (in Western Siberia, research by V.N. Chernetsov and others, in the Far East, research by A.P. Okladnikov and others). On the territory Wed. Asia and Kazakhstan until the 8th-7th centuries. BC e. tools and weapons were also made of bronze. The appearance of iron products in agriculture. oases, and in the pastoral steppe can be dated back to the 7th-6th centuries. BC e. Throughout the 1st millennium BC. e. and 1st floor 1st millennium AD e. steppes Wed. Asia and Kazakhstan were populated by numerous people. Sako-Massaget tribes, in whose culture iron became widespread from the Middle Ages. 1st millennium BC e., although bronze products continued to be used among them for a long time. In agricultural In the oases, the time of the appearance of iron coincides with the emergence of the first slave owners. state (Bactria, Khorezm). On the territory North Europe. parts of the USSR, in the taiga and tundra regions of Siberia, iron appears in the first centuries AD. e. J.v. on the territory of the West. Europe is usually divided into 2 periods - Hallstatt (900-400 BC), which is also called. early, or first, Zh. century, and La Tène (400 BC - early AD), which is called. late, or second. The Hallstatt culture was widespread in modern territory. Austria, Yugoslavia, partly Czechoslovakia, where it was created by the ancient Illyrians, and in the territory. South Germany and the Rhine departments of France, where the Celtic tribes lived. The era of the Hallstatt culture includes the closely related cultures of the Thracian tribes in the east. parts of the Balkan Peninsula, the culture of the Etruscan, Ligurian, Italic and other tribes on the Apennine Peninsula, the culture of the beginning of the Jewish century. Iberian Peninsula (Iberians, Turdetanians, Lusitaniians, etc.) and the late Lusatian culture in the basins of pp. Oder and Vistula. The early Hallstatt era is characterized by the coexistence of bronzes. and zhel. tools and weapons and the gradual displacement of bronze. In household In respect, this era is characterized by the growth of agriculture, in social terms - by the collapse of clan relations. All in. Germany, Scandinavia, West. France and England were still in the Bronze Age at this time. From the beginning 4th century The La Tène culture is spreading, characterized by a genuine flowering of yellow. industry. La Tène culture existed until the Roman conquest of Gaul (1st century BC). The area of ​​distribution of the La Tène culture is the land to the west from the Rhine to the Atlantic. ocean, along the middle course of the Danube and to the north of it. The La Tène culture is associated with the Celtic tribes, which had large fortifications. cities that were centers of tribes and places of concentration of various crafts. During this era, a class was gradually created among the Celts. slave owner society. Bronze tools are no longer found, but iron became most widespread in Europe during the Roman period. conquests At the beginning of our era, in the areas conquered by Rome, the La Tène culture was replaced by the so-called. provincial rome culture. Iron spread to northern Europe almost 300 years later than to the south. By the end of the European century. belongs to the german culture. tribes living in the territory between Northern M. and pp. Rhine, Danube and Elbe, as well as in the south of the Scandinavian Peninsula, and the culture of the west. Slavs, called the Przeworsk culture (3-2 centuries BC - 4-5 centuries AD). It is believed that the Przeworsk tribes were known to ancient authors under the name of the Wends. All in. countries, the complete dominance of iron came only at the beginning of our era. 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Don, "MIA", 1958, No. 62; his, Dnieper forest-steppe left bank in the Iron Age, "MIA", 1961, No. 104; Mongait A.L., Archeology in the USSR, M., 1955; Niederle L., Slavic antiquities, trans. from Czech., M., 1956; Okladnikov A.P., The distant past of Primorye, Vladivostok, 1959; Essays on the history of the USSR. The primitive communal system and the most ancient states on the territory of the USSR, M., 1956; Monuments of Zarubintsy culture, "MIA", 1959, No. 70; Piotrovsky B.V., Archeology of Transcaucasia from ancient times to 1 thousand BC. e., L., 1949; his, Van Kingdom, M., 1959; Rudenko S.I., Culture of the population of Central Altai in Scythian times, M.-L., 1960; Smirnov A.P., Iron Age of the Chuvash Volga Region, M., 1961; Tretyakov P.N., East Slavic tribes, 2nd ed., M., 1953; Chernetsov V.N., Lower Ob region in 1 thousand AD. e., "MIA", 1957, No. 58; D?chelette J., Manuel d'arch?ologie prehistorique celtique et gallo-romaine, 2 ed., t. 3-4, P., 1927; Johannsen O., Geschichte des Eisens, Dösseldorf, 1953; Moora H., Die Eisenzeit in Lettland bis etwa 500 n. Chr., (t.) 1-2, Tartu (Dorpat), 1929-38; Redlich A., Die Minerale im Dienste der Menschheit, Bd 3 - Das Eisen, Prag, 1925; Rickard T. A., Man and metals, v. 1-2, N. Y.-L., 1932. A. L. Mongait. Moscow.

The Iron Age, or Iron Age, is the third of the technological macro-epochs in human history (following the Stone Age and the Eneolithic and Bronze Ages). The term “Early Iron Age” is usually used to designate the first stage of the Iron Age, approximately dating from the turn of the 2nd-1st millennium BC. - mid-1st millennium AD (with certain chronological variations for different regions).

The use of the term “Iron Age” has a long history. For the first time, the idea of ​​​​the existence of the Iron Age in human history was clearly formulated at the end of the 8th - beginning of the 7th century. BC. ancient Greek poet Hesiod. According to his periodization of the historical process (see Introduction), the Iron Age contemporary to Hesiod turns out to be the last and worst stage of human history, at which people have “no respite either night or day from labor and grief” and “only the most severe, grave troubles will remain for people in life" ("Works and Days", pp. 175-201. Translated by V.V. Veresaev). Ovid at the beginning of the 1st century. AD the ethical imperfection of the Iron Age is even more emphasized. The ancient Roman poet calls iron “the worst ore,” during the era of whose dominance “shame fled, and truth, and fidelity; and in their place deceptions and deceit immediately appeared; intrigues, violence and a damned thirst for profit came.” The moral degeneration of people is punished by a worldwide flood that destroys everyone, with the exception of Deucalion and Pyrrha, who revive humanity (“Metamorphoses”, Chapter I, pp. 127-150, 163-415. Translated by S.V. Shervinsky).

As we see, in the assessment of the Iron Age by these ancient authors, the relationship between the cultural and technological aspect and the philosophical and ethical aspect, in particular the eschatological aspect, was especially strong. The Iron Age was thought of as a kind of eve of the end of the world. This is quite natural, since the primary concepts of historical periodization finally took shape and were imprinted in written sources precisely at the beginning of the real Iron Age. Consequently, for the first authors who created the periodization of history, the cultural and technological eras preceding the Iron Age (whether mythical, like the Age of Gold and the Age of Heroes, or real, like the Age of Copper) were the ancient or recent past, while the Iron Age itself was modernity, disadvantages which are always visible more clearly and more perceptibly. Therefore, the beginning of the Iron Age was perceived as a certain crisis point in human history. In addition, iron, which defeated bronze primarily in weapons, inevitably became for witnesses of this process a symbol of weapons, violence, and destruction. It is no coincidence that in the same Hesiod, Gaia-Earth, wanting to punish Uranus-Heaven for his atrocities, specially creates a “breed of gray iron”, from which he makes a punishing sickle (“Theogony”, pp. 154-166. Translated by V.V. Veresaev).

Thus, in ancient times, the term “Iron Age” was initially accompanied by an eschatological-tragic interpretation, and this ancient tradition was continued in modern fiction (see, for example, A. Blok’s poem “Retribution”).

However, Ovid’s compatriot Lucretius in the first half of the 1st century. BC. substantiated in the poem “On the Nature of Things” a qualitatively new, exclusively production and technological characteristic of historical eras, including the Iron Age. This idea ultimately formed the basis of the first scientific concept of K.Yu. Thomsen (1836). Following this, the problem of the chronological framework of the Iron Age and its internal division arose, which was discussed in the 19th century. There were long discussions. The final point in this dispute was put by the founder of the typological method, O. Montelius. He noted that it is impossible to indicate a single absolute date for the change from the Bronze Age to the Iron Age throughout the entire territory of the ecumene; The beginning of the Iron Age for each region should be counted from the moment of the predominance of iron and alloys based on it (primarily steel) over other materials as raw materials for weapons and tools.

Montelius's position was confirmed in subsequent archaeological developments, which showed that iron was first used as a rare raw material for jewelry (sometimes in combination with gold), then increasingly for the production of tools and weapons, gradually displacing copper and bronze into the background. Thus, in modern science, an indicator of the onset of the Iron Age in the history of each specific region is the use of iron of ore nature for the manufacture of basic forms of tools and weapons and the widespread spread of iron metallurgy and blacksmithing.

The onset of the Iron Age was preceded by a long preparatory period dating back to previous technological eras.

Even in the Chalcolithic and Bronze Ages, people sometimes used iron to produce some jewelry and simple tools. However, it was originally meteorite iron, constantly coming from space. Humanity came to the production of iron from ores much later.

Products made from meteoritic iron differ from products made from metallurgical iron (i.e., obtained from ores) primarily in that the former do not contain any slag inclusions, whereas in metallurgical iron such inclusions, at least in small proportions, are inevitable are present as a consequence of the operation of reducing iron from ores. In addition, meteoritic iron usually has a much higher nickel content, which makes such iron much harder. However, this indicator in itself is not absolute, and in modern science there is a serious and as yet unsolved problem of distinguishing between ancient objects made of meteorite and ore iron. On the one hand, this is due to the fact that the nickel content in products made from meteorite raw materials could significantly decrease over time as a result of prolonged corrosion. On the other hand, iron ores with a high nickel content are found on our planet.

Theoretically, it was also possible to use terrestrial native iron - the so-called telluric iron (its appearance, mainly in basalt rocks, is explained by the interaction of iron oxides with organic minerals). However, it is found only in minute grains and veins (except in Greenland, where large accumulations are known), so that the practical use of telluric iron in ancient times was impossible.

Due to the high nickel content (from 5 to 20%, on average 8%), which increases fragility, meteorite raw materials were processed mainly by cold forging - by analogy with stone. However, some items made from meteorite iron were obtained through the use of hot forging.

The earliest iron products date back to the 6th millennium BC. and come from a burial of the Chalcolithic Samarra culture in Northern Iraq. These are 14 small beads or balls, undoubtedly made of meteoric iron, as well as a tetrahedral tool that could be made of ore iron (this is, of course, an exceptional case).

A significantly larger number of objects of meteorite nature (mainly for ritual and ceremonial purposes) date back to the Bronze Age.

The most famous products are ancient Egyptian beads from the late 4th - early 3rd millennium BC. from Hertz and Meduma (pre-dynastic monuments); a dagger with a hilt overlaid with gold, from the royal burial ground of Ur in Sumer (the tomb of Meskalamdug, dating back to the mid-3rd millennium BC); mace from Troy I (2600-2400 BC); pins with gold heads, pendants and some other items from the Aladzha-Heyuk burial ground (2400-2100 BC); the handle of a dagger made in the middle of the 2nd millennium BC. in Asia Minor and brought to the area of ​​​​present-day Slovakia (Hanovce) - finally, things from the tomb of Tutankhamun (about 1375 BC), including: a dagger with an iron blade and a golden handle, an iron “Eye of Horus” attached to a gold bracelet, an amulet in the form of a head stand and 16 thin magico-surgical iron instruments (lancets, incisors, chisels) inserted into a wooden base. In the territory of the former USSR, the first products made from meteorite iron appear first of all in the Southern Urals and on the Sayan-Altai Plateau. These date back to the end of the 4th-3rd millennium BC. all-iron and bimetallic (bronze-iron) tools and decorations made by metallurgists of the Yamnaya (see Section II, Chapter 4) and Afanasyevskaya cultures using cold and hot forging.

Obviously, previous experience with the use of meteorite iron did not in any way influence the discovery of the effect of obtaining iron from ores. Meanwhile, it was the last discovery, i.e. the actual emergence of ferrous metallurgy, which took place back in the Bronze Age, predetermined the change of technological eras, although it did not mean the immediate end of the Bronze Age and the transition to the Iron Age.

The oldest iron products, dating back to 111-11 thousand BC:
1.3- iron daggers with hilts lined with gold (from the tomb of Meskalamdug in Ur and from the Aladzha-Heyuk burial ground in Asia Minor); 2, 4 - an iron adze with a copper grip for the handle and an iron chisel from the burial of the ancient Yamnaya culture (Southern Urals); 5, 6 - a dagger with an iron blade and a gold handle and iron blades inserted into a wooden base (Tutankhamun’s tomb), 7 - a knife with a copper handle and an iron blade from a Catacomb culture burial (Russia, Belgorod region, Gerasimovka village); 8 - iron dagger handle (Slovakia)

Reconstruction of the cheese-making process in the Early Iron Age:
the initial and final phases of the cheese-making process; 2 - obtaining iron from ore in an open, semi-dugout ancient workshop (Mšecké Žehrovice, Czech Republic); 3 - main types of ancients
cheese furnaces (sectional view)

There are two most important stages in the development of iron ore:
Stage 1 - discovery and improvement of a method for recovering iron from ores - the so-called cheese-blowing process.
Stage 2 - the discovery of methods for the deliberate production of steel (carburization technology), and subsequently methods for its heat treatment in order to increase the hardness and strength of products.

The cheese-blowing process was carried out in special furnaces into which iron ore and charcoal were loaded, ignited by supplying unheated, “raw” air (hence the name of the process). The coal itself could be produced by first burning firewood stacked in pyramids and covered with turf. First, coal was lit, poured at the bottom of the forge or furnace, then alternate layers of ore and the same coal were loaded on top. As a result of coal combustion, gas was released - carbon monoxide, which, passing through the ore, reduced iron oxides. The cheese-making process, as a rule, did not ensure that the melting temperature of iron was reached (1528-1535 degrees Celsius), but reached a maximum of 1200 degrees, which was quite sufficient for the recovery of iron from ores. It was a kind of “melting” of iron.

Initially, the cheese-making process was carried out in pits lined with refractory clay or stones, then small ovens began to be built from stone or brick, sometimes using clay. Cheese furnaces could operate on natural draft (especially if they were built on hillsides), but with the development of metallurgy, pumping air with bellows through ceramic nozzles was increasingly used. This air entered the open pit from above, and into the furnace through a hole in the lower part of the structure.

The reduced iron was concentrated in a dough-like form at the very bottom of the furnace, forming the so-called forge crust - an iron spongy mass with inclusions of unburned charcoal and an admixture of slag. In more advanced versions of cheese-blowing furnaces, liquid slag was discharged from the hearth through a chute.

It was possible to make products from the furnace, which was removed from the furnace in a hot state, only after the preliminary removal of this slag impurity and the elimination of porosity. Therefore, a direct continuation of the cheese-making process was the hot forging of the forge, which consisted of periodically heating it to “bright white heat” (1400-1450 degrees) and forging it with a percussion tool. The result was a denser mass of metal - the kritsa itself, from which semi-finished products and blanks for the corresponding forge products were made through further forging. Even before processing into a semi-finished product, the kritsa could become a unit of exchange, for which it was given a standard size, weight and a shape convenient for storage and transportation - flat-cake, spindle-shaped, bipyramidal, banded. For the same purposes, the semi-finished products themselves could be shaped into tools and weapons.

The discovery of the cheese-blowing process could have occurred as a result of the fact that during the smelting of copper or lead from ores, in addition to copper ore and charcoal, iron-containing rocks, primarily hematite, were loaded into the smelting furnace (as materials for removing “waste rock”). In this regard, already in As a result of the copper smelting process, the first particles of iron could accidentally appear.It is possible that the corresponding furnaces could serve as a prototype for cheese-making furnaces.

Tools and products of the cheese-blowing and forging process:
1-9 - kritsy 10-13 - semi-finished products in the form of an adze, axes and a knife; 14 - stone pestle for crushing ore; 15 - ceramic nozzle for supplying air to the cheese-blowing oven.

The finds of the earliest cheese-making ovens are associated with the territories of Asia Minor and the Eastern Mediterranean. It is no coincidence that the most ancient products made of ore iron originate from these regions.

This is the blade of a dagger from Tell Ashmar (2800 BC) and a dagger with a gold-lined hilt from the above-mentioned tomb of the Aladzha Heyuk burial ground (2400-2100 BC), the iron blade of which, for a long time believed meteorite, spectrographic analysis revealed an extremely low nickel content, which speaks in favor of its ore or mixed nature (a combination of meteorite and ore raw materials).

On the territory of the former USSR, experiments on the production of cryogenic iron took place most intensively in Transcaucasia, the North Caucasus and the Northern Black Sea region.

Such early ore-based iron products as a knife from the first quarter of the 2nd millennium BC have reached us. from a burial of the catacomb culture near the village. Gerasimovka (Belgorod region), knife and awl from the third quarter of the 2nd millennium BC. from the Srubna culture settlements Lyubovka (Kharkov region) and Tatshgyk (Nikolaev region). The discovery of the cheese-blowing process is the most important step in the development of iron by mankind, because while meteorite iron is relatively rare, iron ores are much more widespread than copper and tin ores. At the same time, iron ores often lie very shallow; In some areas, such as the Forest of Dean in the UK or Krivoy Rog in the Ukraine, iron ore could be mined by surface mining. Swamp iron ores are widespread, especially in the northern regions of the temperate climate zone, as well as turf ores, meadow ores, etc.

The cheese-blowing process was constantly developing: the volume of furnaces increased, the blowing improved, etc. However, objects made of cryonic iron were not hard enough until a method for producing steel (an alloy of iron and carbon) was discovered and until they achieved an increase in the hardness and strength of steel products through special heat treatment.

Initially, cementation was mastered - the deliberate carburization of iron. As such, carburization, but accidental, unintentional, leading to the appearance of so-called raw steel, could have occurred earlier during the cheese-blowing process. But then this process became regulated and was carried out separately from the cheese-making process. At first, cementation was carried out by heating an iron product or workpiece for many hours to “red heat” (750-900 degrees) in a wood or bone environment; then they began to use other organic substances containing carbon. In this case, the depth of carburization was directly proportional to the temperature height and duration of heating of the iron. With increasing carbon content, the hardness of the metal increased.

The hardening method was also aimed at increasing hardness, which consisted of sharply cooling a steel object preheated to “red heat” in water, snow, olive oil or some other liquid.

Most likely, the process of hardening, like carburization, was discovered by chance, and its physical essence, naturally, remained a mystery to the ancient blacksmiths, which is why we often encounter in written sources very fantastic explanations of the reasons for the increase in the hardness of iron products during hardening. For example, the chronicle of the 9th century. BC. from the temple of Balgala in Asia Minor prescribes the following method of hardening: “It is necessary to heat the dagger until it glows like the sun rising in the desert, then cool it to the color of royal purple, immersing it in the body of a muscular slave... The strength of the slave, passing into the dagger... imparts to the metal hardness". The famous fragment from the Odyssey, probably created in the 8th century, dates back to an equally ancient time. BC: here the burning out of the Cyclops’ eye with the “hot point” of an olive stake (“Odyssey”, Canto IX, pp. 375-395. Translated by V.A. Zhukovsky) is compared to a blacksmith immersing a red-hot steel ax or poleaxe in cold water , and it is no coincidence that Homer uses the same verb to describe the hardening process that denoted medical and magical actions - obviously, the mechanisms of these phenomena were equally mysterious for the Greeks of that time

However, hardened steel had a certain brittleness. In this regard, ancient craftsmen, trying to increase the strength of a steel product, improved heat treatment; in a number of cases they used an operation opposite to hardening - thermal tempering, i.e. heating the product only to the lower threshold of “red heat”, at which the structure is transformed - to a temperature not exceeding 727 degrees. As a result, the hardness decreased somewhat, but the strength of the product increased.

In general, mastering the operations of carburization and heat treatment is a long and very complex process. Most researchers believe that the area where the earliest discovery of these operations (as well as the cheese-making process itself) and where their improvement was most rapid was Asia Minor, and above all the area inhabited by the Hittites and the tribes associated with them, especially the Antitaurus Mountains, where already in the last quarter of the 2nd millennium BC. made high-quality steel products.

It was the improvement of the technology of processing critical iron and the production of steel that finally solved the problem of competition between iron and bronze. Along with this, the widespread occurrence and relative ease of mining of iron ores played a significant role in the change from the Bronze Age to the Iron Age.

In addition, for some regions of the ecumene, devoid of deposits of non-ferrous metal ores, an additional factor in the development of ferrous metallurgy was the fact that, for various reasons, the traditional connections of these regions with ore sources that provided non-ferrous metallurgy were broken.

THE ADVANCE OF THE IRON AGE: CHRONOLOGY AND GEOGRAPHY OF THE PROCESS, MAIN CULTURAL AND HISTORICAL CONSEQUENCES

The advanced region in the development of iron, where the Iron Age began in the last quarter of the 2nd millennium BC, was, as already mentioned, Asia Minor (the region of the Hittite kingdom), as well as the Eastern Mediterranean and Transcaucasia, closely connected with it.

It is no coincidence that the first indisputable written evidence of the production and use of red iron and steel came to us precisely from texts that were in one way or another connected with the Hittites.

From the texts of their predecessors, the Hutts, translated by the Hittites, it follows that the Hutts already knew iron well, which had more of a cult-ritual value for them than an everyday value. However, in these Hattian and ancient Hittite texts (“Anitta’s text” of the 18th century BC) we can talk about products made of meteorite rather than ore iron.

The earliest undoubted written references to products made of ore (“brick”) iron appear in Hittite cuneiform tablets of the 15th-13th centuries. BC, in particular in the message of the Hittite king to Pharaoh Ramses II (late XIV - early XIII centuries BC) with a message about sending the latter a ship loaded with iron. These are also cuneiform tablets from the kingdom of Mitanni, neighboring the Hittites, addressed to the Egyptians and therefore included in the famous “Amarna Archives” of the second half of the 15th - early 14th centuries. BC. - correspondence between the pharaohs of the 18th dynasty and the rulers of the countries of Western Asia. It is noteworthy that in the Hittite message to the Assyrian king of the 13th century. BC. the term “good iron” appears, meaning steel. All this is confirmed by the finds of a significant amount of ore-based iron products at the monuments of the New Hittite kingdom of the 14th-12th centuries. BC, as well as steel products in Palestine already in the 12th century. BC. and in Cyprus in the 10th century. BC.

Under the influence of Asia Minor and the Eastern Mediterranean at the end of the 2nd - beginning of the 1st millennium BC. The Iron Age begins in Mesopotamia and Iran.

Thus, during excavations of the palace of the Assyrian king Sargon II in Khorsabad (the last quarter of the 8th century BC), about 160 tons of iron were discovered, mainly in the form of bipyramidal and spindle-shaped commodity krits, probably offerings from subject territories.

From Iran, ferrous metallurgy spread to India, where the Iron Age dates back to the beginning of the 1st millennium BC. There is a sufficient amount of written evidence about the development of iron in India (both Indian, starting with the Rig Veda, and later non-Indian, in particular ancient Greek).

Under the influence of Iran and India in the 8th century. BC. The Iron Age begins in Central Asia. To the north, in the steppes of Asia, the Iron Age begins no earlier than the 6th-5th centuries. BC.
In China, the development of ferrous metallurgy proceeded rather separately. Due to the highest level of local bronze foundry production, which provided China with high-quality metal products, the era
iron begins here no earlier than the middle of the 1st millennium BC. At the same time, written sources (“Shijing” of the 8th century BC, comments on Confucius of the 6th century BC) record an earlier acquaintance of the Chinese with iron. And yet for the first half of the 1st millennium BC. Excavations have revealed only a small number of iron ore objects of Chinese origin. A significant increase in the quantity, range and area of ​​local iron and steel products began here precisely from the middle of the 1st millennium BC. Moreover, already in the second half of the 1st millennium BC. Chinese craftsmen became the first in the world to purposefully produce cast iron (an alloy based on iron with a higher carbon content than steel) and, using its fusibility, to produce most products not by forging, but by casting.

Researchers admit that cast iron, like iron, could initially have been formed accidentally when copper was smelted from ores in a smelting furnace under certain conditions. And although this phenomenon probably did not occur only in China, only this ancient civilization, based on relevant observations, came to the deliberate production of cast iron. Following this, according to some scholars, the practice of producing malleable iron and steel first arose in ancient China by reducing the carbon content of cast iron by heating it and leaving it in the open air. At the same time, steel in China was also produced by carburizing iron.

In Korea, the Iron Age began in the second half of the 1st millennium BC, and in Japan - in the 3rd-2nd centuries. BC. In Indochina and Indonesia, the Iron Age begins at the turn of the era.

Turning to Europe, we note that ironmaking skills spread through the Greek cities of Asia Minor at the end of the 2nd millennium BC. to the Aegean Islands and European Greece, where the Iron Age begins around the 10th century. BC. Since this time, commercial krits - spindle-shaped and in the form of rods - have been spreading in Greece, and the dead are buried, as a rule, with iron swords. By the end of the 6th century. BC. Ancient Greek craftsmen already used such important iron tools as articulated tongs, a bow saw, and by the end of the 4th century. BC. - iron spring scissors and a hinged compass. The development of iron is also clearly reflected in ancient Greek texts: for example, in the Iliad and Odyssey, Homer mentions various iron products and the operation of hardening steel; Hesiod in his Theogony metaphorically characterizes the simplest method of extracting iron from ores in a pit; Aristotle in Meteorology briefly describes the cheese-blowing process and the deliberate production of steel.

In the rest of Europe outside the Greek civilization, the Iron Age begins later: in Western and Central Europe - in the 8th-7th centuries. BC, in Southwestern Europe - in the 7th-6th centuries. BC, in Britain - in the V-IV centuries. BC, in Northern Europe - at the turn of the era.

Moving on to Eastern Europe, it should be noted that in those regions that were leaders in metallurgical terms - in the Northern Black Sea region, the Northern Caucasus and the Volga-Kama region - the period of primary development of iron ended in the 9th-8th centuries. BC, which manifested itself in the spread of bimetallic objects, in particular daggers and swords, the handles of which were cast from bronze according to individual models, and the blades were made of iron. They became the prototypes for subsequent all-iron daggers and swords. During the same period, along with the Eastern European tradition based on the use of iron and raw steel, products produced within the framework of the Transcaucasian tradition, which involved the deliberate production of steel (cementation of an iron product or workpiece), penetrated into these regions.

And yet, a significant quantitative increase in iron products in Eastern Europe is associated with the 8th-7th centuries. BC, when the Iron Age actually begins here. The technology for manufacturing the first ore-based iron products, previously limited to the operations of primitive hot forging and simple forge welding, was now enriched with the skills of form forging (using special crimpers and dies) and forge welding of several plates overlapping or folded together.

The leading areas of iron processing during this period in the territory of the former USSR were the Ciscaucasia and Transcaucasia, the forest-steppe Dnieper region and the Volga-Kama region. The gradual beginning of the Iron Age in the forest-steppe and forest zones of Eastern Europe, excluding deep taiga and tundra territories, can also be attributed to this time.

On the territory of the Urals and Siberia, the Iron Age begins first in the steppe, forest-steppe and mountain-forest regions - within the so-called Scythian-Siberian cultural-historical region and in the zone of the Itkul culture. In the taiga regions of Siberia and the Far East in the middle - second half of the 1st millennium BC. The Bronze Age is actually still ongoing, but the corresponding monuments are closely interconnected with the cultures of the early Iron Age (excluding the northern part of the taiga and tundra).

In Africa, the Iron Age was first established in the area of ​​the Mediterranean coast (in the 6th century BC), and primarily in Egypt - during the 26th dynasty (663-525 BC); however, there is an opinion that the Iron Age in Egypt began in the 9th century. BC. In addition, in the middle of the 1st millennium BC. The Iron Age begins in Nubia and Sudan (Meroitic, or Kushite, kingdom), as well as in a number of areas of Western and Central Africa (in particular, in the zone of the so-called Nok culture in Nigeria), at the turn of eras - in East Africa, closer to the middle 1st millennium AD - in South Africa.

Finally, no earlier than the middle of the 2nd millennium AD, with the arrival of Europeans, the Iron Age began in most of the rest of Africa, as well as in America, Australia and the Pacific Islands.

This is the approximate chronology of the onset of the Iron Age in various parts of the ecumene. The final boundary of the Early Iron Age and, accordingly, the beginning of the Late Iron Age are usually conventionally associated with the collapse of ancient civilization and the onset of the Middle Ages.

There are other versions on this matter. Thus, in Western European and domestic archeology back in the 19th and early 20th centuries. there was a concept of the Middle Iron Age as a transitional period from early to late, and the line between the early and middle Iron Ages was synchronized with the turn of eras and was largely determined by the spread of provincial Roman culture in Western Europe. Although the concept of the "Middle Iron Age" has since fallen into disuse, there is still a tradition in Western European scholarship of leaving the Early Iron Age outside the Common Era.

There are different opinions regarding the end of the Iron Age. It is assumed that this era lasted until the industrial revolution or even continues to this day, because even now iron-based alloys - steel and cast iron - are one of the main structural materials.

With the advent of the Iron Age, agriculture improved, because the use of iron tools made it easier to cultivate the land, made it possible to clear large forest areas for crops, and develop an irrigation system. The processing of wood and stone is improving, as a result of which the construction industry is developing; The extraction of copper ore is also easier. The use of iron leads to the improvement of offensive and defensive weapons, horse equipment, and wheeled vehicles. The development of production and transport leads to the expansion of trade relations, as a result of which coinage appears. In many pre-class societies, social inequality is increasing, and as a result, new centers of statehood are emerging. These are the most significant changes in the world historical and cultural situation associated with the development of iron.

The Iron Age is a new stage in the development of mankind.
Iron Age, an era in the primitive and early class history of mankind, characterized by the spread of iron metallurgy and the manufacture of iron tools. Replaced by the Bronze Age mainly at the beginning of the 1st millennium BC. e. The use of iron gave a powerful stimulus to the development of production and accelerated social development. In the Iron Age, the majority of the peoples of Eurasia experienced the decomposition of the primitive communal system and the transition to a class society. The idea of ​​three centuries: stone, bronze and iron - arose in the ancient world (Titus Lucretius Carus). The term "Iron Age" was introduced into science around the mid-19th century. Danish archaeologist K. J. Thomsen. The most important studies, the initial classification and dating of Iron Age monuments in Western Europe were made by the Austrian scientist M. Görnes, the Swedish - O. Montelius and O. Oberg, the German - O. Tischler and P. Reinecke, the French - J. Dechelet, the Czech - I. Pich and Polish - J. Kostrzewski; in Eastern Europe - Russian and Soviet scientists V. A. Gorodtsov, A. A. Spitsyn, Yu. V. Gauthier, P. N. Tretyakov, A. P. Smirnov, H. A. Moora, M. I. Artamonov, B. N. Grakov and others; in Siberia - S. A. Teploukhov, S. V. Kiselev, S. I. Rudenko and others; in the Caucasus - B. A. Kuftin, A. A. Jessen, B. B. Piotrovsky, E. I. Krupnov and others; in Central Asia - S.P. Tolstov, A.N. Bernshtam, A.I. Terenozhkin and others.
The period of the initial spread of the iron industry was experienced by all countries at different times, but the Iron Age usually includes only the cultures of primitive tribes that lived outside the territories of ancient slave-owning civilizations that arose in the Chalcolithic and Bronze Ages (Mesopotamia, Egypt, Greece, India, China, etc. ). The Iron Age is very short compared to previous archaeological eras (Stone and Bronze Ages). Its chronological boundaries: from 9-7 centuries. BC e., when many primitive tribes of Europe and Asia developed their own iron metallurgy, and before the time when class society and the state emerged among these tribes.
Some modern foreign scientists, who consider the end of primitive history to be the time of the appearance of written sources, attribute the end of the Jewish century. Western Europe by the 1st century. BC e., when Roman written sources appear containing information about Western European tribes. Since to this day iron remains the most important metal from whose alloys tools are made, the term “early Iron Age” is also used for the archaeological periodization of primitive history. In Western Europe, only its beginning is called the Early Iron Age (the so-called Hallstatt culture).
Initially, meteorite iron became known to mankind. Individual objects made of iron (mainly jewelry) from the 1st half of the 3rd millennium BC. e. found in Egypt, Mesopotamia and Asia Minor. The method of obtaining iron from ore was discovered in the 2nd millennium BC. e. According to one of the most likely assumptions, the cheese-making process (see below) was first used by tribes subordinate to the Hittites living in the mountains of Armenia (Antitaurus) in the 15th century. BC e. However, for a long time iron remained a rare and very valuable metal. Only after the 11th century. BC e. A fairly widespread production of iron weapons and tools began in Palestine, Syria, Asia Minor, Transcaucasia, and India. At the same time, iron became famous in southern Europe.
In the 11th-10th centuries. BC e. individual iron objects penetrate into the region north of the Alps and are found in the steppes of the south of the European part of the modern territory of the USSR, but iron tools begin to predominate in these areas only from the 8th-7th centuries. BC e. In the 8th century. BC e. iron products are widely distributed in Mesopotamia, Iran and somewhat later in Central Asia. The first news of iron in China dates back to the 8th century. BC e., but it spreads only from the 5th century. BC e. In Indochina and Indonesia, iron predominates at the turn of the Common Era. Apparently, since ancient times, iron metallurgy was known to various tribes of Africa. Undoubtedly, already in the 6th century. BC e. iron was produced in Nubia, Sudan, and Libya. In the 2nd century. BC e. The Iron Age began in central Africa. Some African tribes moved from the Stone Age to the Iron Age, bypassing the Bronze Age. In America, Australia and most of the Pacific Islands, iron (except meteorite) became known only in the 16th and 17th centuries. n. e. with the arrival of Europeans in these areas.
In contrast to the relatively rare deposits of copper and especially tin, iron ores, although most often low-grade (brown iron ores), are found almost everywhere. But it is much more difficult to obtain iron from ores than copper. Melting iron was inaccessible to ancient metallurgists. Iron was obtained in a dough-like state using the cheese-blowing process, which consisted of the reduction of iron ore at a temperature of about 900-1350 ° C in special furnaces - forges with air blown by forge bellows through a nozzle. A kritsa formed at the bottom of the furnace - a lump of porous iron weighing 1-5 kg, which had to be forged to compact it and also remove slag from it.
Raw iron is a very soft metal; tools and weapons made of pure iron had low mechanical qualities. Only with the discovery in the 9-7 centuries. BC e. With the development of methods for making steel from iron and its heat treatment, the new material began to become widespread. The higher mechanical qualities of iron and steel, as well as the general availability of iron ores and the low cost of the new metal, ensured that they replaced bronze, as well as stone, which remained an important material for the production of tools in the Bronze Age. This did not happen right away. In Europe, only in the 2nd half of the 1st millennium BC. e. iron and steel began to play a truly significant role as materials for the manufacture of tools and weapons.
The technical revolution caused by the spread of iron and steel greatly expanded man's power over nature: it became possible to clear large forest areas for crops, expand and improve irrigation and reclamation structures, and generally improve land cultivation. The development of crafts, especially blacksmithing and weapons, is accelerating. Wood processing is being improved for the purposes of house construction, the production of vehicles (ships, chariots, etc.), and the manufacture of various utensils. Craftsmen, from shoemakers and masons to miners, also received more advanced tools. By the beginning of our era, all the main types of craft and agricultural hand tools (except for screws and hinged scissors), used in the Middle Ages, and partly in modern times, were already in use. The construction of roads became easier, military equipment improved, exchange expanded, and metal coins became widespread as a means of circulation.
The development of productive forces associated with the spread of iron, over time, led to the transformation of all social life. As a result of the growth in labor productivity, the surplus product increased, which, in turn, served as an economic prerequisite for the emergence of exploitation of man by man and the collapse of the tribal primitive communal system. One of the sources of accumulation of values ​​and growth of property inequality was the expansion of exchange during the Iron Age. The possibility of enrichment through exploitation gave rise to wars for the purpose of robbery and enslavement. At the beginning of the Iron Age, fortifications became widespread. During the Iron Age, the tribes of Europe and Asia experienced the stage of collapse of the primitive communal system, and were on the eve of the emergence of class society and the state. The transition of some means of production into the private ownership of the ruling minority, the emergence of slavery, the increased stratification of society and the separation of the tribal aristocracy from the bulk of the population are already features typical of early class societies. For many tribes, the social structure of this transition period took the political form of the so-called. military democracy.
Iron Age on the territory of the USSR. On the modern territory of the USSR, iron first appeared at the end of the 2nd millennium BC. e. in Transcaucasia (Samtavrsky burial ground) and in the southern European part of the USSR. The development of iron in Racha (Western Georgia) dates back to ancient times. The Mossinoiks and Khalibs, who lived in the neighborhood of the Colchians, were famous as metallurgists. However, the widespread use of iron metallurgy in the USSR dates back to the 1st millennium BC. e. In Transcaucasia, a number of archaeological cultures of the late Bronze Age are known, the flourishing of which dates back to the early Iron Age: the Central Transcaucasian culture with local centers in Georgia, Armenia and Azerbaijan, the Kyzyl-Vank culture, the Colchis culture, the Urartian culture. In the North Caucasus: Koban culture, Kayakent-Khorochoev culture and Kuban culture.
In the steppes of the Northern Black Sea region in the 7th century. BC e. - first centuries AD e. Scythian tribes lived, creating the most developed culture of the early Iron Age on the territory of the USSR. Iron products were found in abundance in settlements and burial mounds of the Scythian period. Signs of metallurgical production were discovered during excavations of a number of Scythian settlements. The largest number of remains of ironworking and blacksmithing were found at the Kamensky settlement (5-3 centuries BC) near Nikopol, which was apparently the center of a specialized metallurgical region of ancient Scythia. Iron tools contributed to the widespread development of all kinds of crafts and the spread of arable farming among the local tribes of the Scythian period.
The next period after the Scythian period of the Early Iron Age in the steppes of the Black Sea region is represented by the Sarmatian culture, which dominated here from the 2nd century. BC e. up to 4 c. n. e. In previous times, from the 7th century. BC e. Sarmatians (or Sauromatians) lived between the Don and the Urals. In the first centuries A.D. e. one of the Sarmatian tribes - the Alans - began to play a significant historical role and gradually the very name of the Sarmatians was supplanted by the name of the Alans. At the same time, when the Sarmatian tribes dominated the Northern Black Sea region, the cultures of “burial fields” (Zarubinets culture, Chernyakhov culture, etc.) spread in the western regions of the Northern Black Sea region, the Upper and Middle Dnieper and Transnistria. These cultures belonged to agricultural tribes who knew iron metallurgy, among which, according to some scientists, were the ancestors of the Slavs. The tribes living in the central and northern forest regions of the European part of the USSR were familiar with iron metallurgy from the 6th to 5th centuries. BC e. In the 8th-3rd centuries. BC e. In the Kama region, the Ananyin culture was widespread, which was characterized by the coexistence of bronze and iron tools, with the undoubted superiority of the latter at the end of it. The Ananino culture on the Kama was replaced by the Pyanobor culture (end of the 1st millennium BC - 1st half of the 1st millennium AD).
In the Upper Volga region and in the regions of the Volga-Oka interfluve, the settlements of the Dyakovo culture date back to the Iron Age (mid-1st millennium BC - mid-1st millennium AD), and in the territory south of the middle currents of the Oka, west of the Volga, in the river basin. Tsna and Moksha are settlements of the Gorodets culture (7th century BC - 5th century AD), which belonged to the ancient Finno-Ugric tribes. Numerous 6th century settlements are known in the Upper Dnieper region. BC e. - 7th century n. e., belonging to the ancient Eastern Baltic tribes, later absorbed by the Slavs. The settlements of these same tribes are known in the south-eastern Baltic, where, along with them, there are also cultural remains that belonged to the ancestors of the ancient Estonian (Chud) tribes.
In Southern Siberia and Altai, due to the abundance of copper and tin, the bronze industry developed strongly, successfully competing with iron for a long time. Although iron products apparently appeared already in the early Mayemirian time (Altai; 7th century BC), iron became widespread only in the middle of the 1st millennium BC. e. (Tagar culture on the Yenisei, Pazyryk mounds in Altai, etc.). Iron Age cultures are also represented in other parts of Siberia and the Far East. On the territory of Central Asia and Kazakhstan until the 8th-7th centuries. BC e. tools and weapons were also made of bronze. The appearance of iron products both in agricultural oases and in the pastoral steppe can be dated back to the 7th-6th centuries. BC e. Throughout the 1st millennium BC. e. and in the 1st half of the 1st millennium AD. e. The steppes of Central Asia and Kazakhstan were inhabited by numerous Sak-Usun tribes, in whose culture iron became widespread from the middle of the 1st millennium BC. e. In agricultural oases, the time of the appearance of iron coincides with the emergence of the first slave states (Bactria, Sogd, Khorezm).
The Iron Age in Western Europe is usually divided into 2 periods - Hallstatt (900-400 BC), which was also called the early, or first Iron Age, and La Tène (400 BC - beginning of AD) , which is called late, or second. The Hallstatt culture was widespread in the territory of modern Austria, Yugoslavia, Northern Italy, partly Czechoslovakia, where it was created by the ancient Illyrians, and in the territory of modern Germany and the Rhine departments of France, where Celtic tribes lived. The cultures close to the Hallstatt belong to this time: the Thracian tribes in the eastern part of the Balkan Peninsula, the Etruscan, Ligurian, Italic and other tribes on the Apennine Peninsula, the early Iron Age cultures of the Iberian Peninsula (Iberians, Turdetans, Lusitanians, etc.) and the late Lusatian culture in river basins Oder and Vistula. The early Hallstatt period was characterized by the coexistence of bronze and iron tools and weapons and the gradual displacement of bronze. Economically, this era is characterized by the growth of agriculture, and socially, by the collapse of clan relations. In the north of modern Germany, Scandinavia, Western France and England, the Bronze Age still existed at this time. From the beginning of the 5th century. The La Tène culture spreads, characterized by a genuine flourishing of the iron industry. The La Tène culture existed before the Roman conquest of Gaul (1st century BC), the area of ​​distribution of the La Tène culture is the land west of the Rhine to the Atlantic Ocean along the middle course of the Danube and north of it. La Tène culture is associated with the Celtic tribes, who had large fortified cities that were centers of tribes and places of concentration of various crafts. During this era, the Celts gradually created a class slave-owning society. Bronze tools are no longer found, but iron became most widespread in Europe during the period of the Roman conquests. At the beginning of our era, in the areas conquered by Rome, the La Tène culture was replaced by the so-called. provincial Roman culture. In northern Europe, iron spread almost 300 years later than in the south. The culture of the Germanic tribes that lived in the territory between the North Sea and the river dates back to the end of the Iron Age. Rhine, Danube and Elbe, as well as in the south of the Scandinavian Peninsula, and archaeological cultures, the bearers of which are considered the ancestors of the Slavs. In the northern countries, the complete dominance of iron came only at the beginning of our era.