Metal age 1. With this advanced knowledge he proceeded for metalworking. Because this period had witnessed great discoveries and inventions which brought the people together and made a larger co-operate group. The cultural record of man’s existence is divided into two great periods – the ‘Age of Stone’ and the ‘Age of Metal’. In contrast to copper, the malleable soft metal, bronze possesses a superior quality of hardness. When it is put to fire, the wax melts by the heat and eventually the clay wrapped on the model gets hard. On one hand, wealth began to be controlled by the officials of the temples as trustee of god and on the other hand, for the sake of keeping records, systems of writing began to develop. It was preceded by the Bronze Age and the Stone Age (Paleolithic, Mesolithic, Neolithic, and Chalcolithic). Therefore, in contrast to Neolithic Age, towns and cities were found to be grown in Copper Age. However, the copper producing zones can be distinguished into two groups. Rather it produced a dirty spongy mass with slag in it, which can then be beaten into a desired shape. – 3000 B.C. Large masses were of limited occurrence. As iron was easily available at a cheap price, any peasant could afford iron implements necessary for his agricultural work. When the metallurgy became established in the mining countries, the commercial relations started. Why the general use of iron was delayed for about 1500 to 2000 years? It started to change the established order of the things but very slowly. (ii) Smelting, the extraction of pure metal from ore or from impurities. From the very early times fire was used for the disaggregation of rocks containing metals. Time periods before that are called Ancient, so 400 years before the first Age would be -400 Ancient. application of the method of cold hammering drew the shapes. The Metal Ages began about 6,000 years ago. Since the material was metal, so constant hammering did not produce any chips as like the flint of Chalcedonv. However, bronze predominated between the Copper Age and the Iron Age and therefore this particular period has been referred as Bronze Age. The cultural record of man’s existence is divided into two great periods – the ‘Age of Stone’ and the ‘Age of Metal’. For successful casting 10 per cent to 12 per cent tin was mixed with 90 per cent to 88 per cent copper. Some Bronze implements also stood unquestionable for the domestic uses. all developed at a time. Europe witnessed a brief and fleeting era of copper. Both can be dated as 4000BC. Marked by significant technological and social advances, the Bronze Age was an important step in the evolution of European societies. The ‘Age of metal’ is sub-divided into two principal ages—Copper Age and the Iron Age. 2000 BC - AD 300) refers to the Bronze Age and Early Iron Age in Fennoscandia. In the closed moulds, not only the bronze, but any alloy was found suitable. During the Metal Ages people started using metals, like copper, tin, bronze and iron, to make tools and weapons. The ‘Age of Stone’ preceded the ‘Age of metal’. Bronze Age 3. … and ended when the first written texts began to be used (that happened depending on the area) In Europe, the first written texts appeared during the first millenium BC In Mesopotamia, on the agriculturally rich Tigris-Euphrates valley, Sumerian cities grew up in the place of Copper Age settlements like Sumer, Ur, Layash, Erech and Eridu. Copper occurs in a native state as pure metal in many parts of the world. Thus, Bronze Age spread eastern, western and central Europe and from those areas to Gaul and Britain, and finally to Germany and Scandinavia. Various sequences of culture submitted by the archaeologists in different parts of the world were gathered to draw an over-all picture of the Metal Age in the world. In the ancient centers like Chaldea and Egypt it existed towards the end of the fifth millennium before the present era; in the Eastern Mediterranean it would be about third millennium before the present era. However, the people who lived in town had various occupations. At first, the desired shape has to be carved out of wax. Naturally it took a long time to reach British Isles and Scandinavia. It took several centuries for this new metal to diffuse from the upper classes to farmers and carpenters. Here presence of any metal or the occasional appearance of a metal in precious ornaments is never considered. Primitive metal workers never went in search of great, concentrated deposits, not even in the period of Bronze Age when industrial use of the copper reached to the peak. The Altai and the Pamirs are equally rich in copper but the antiquity of metallurgy in both the regions does not seem to go very far. On the other hand, the issues of conflict increased a lot. But unfortunately no archaeological or historical evidence justifies the fact that iron has been in India from before the beginning of Christian era Iron Age reached its peak in the great classical civilizations of Greece, Rome, China and India. This has traditionally been defined as the Metal Ages, which may be further divided into stages, of approximate dates as shown: the Bronze Age (2300–700 bce) and the Iron Age (700–1 bce), which followed a less distinctly defined Copper Age (c. 3200–2300 bce). This is the reason for which the Italian archaeologists liked to designate this phase as Aeneolithic. Extraction of metal from the ore is the hallmark of metallurgy. The duration of these two periods was not equal. Copper-tin mixtures were found most widespread. Since iron ores were more abundant than that of copper and infinitely greater than the tin ores, a natural question came to the mind that why Iron Age appeared so late! A good number of copper implements and ornaments were obtained from different sites. It demands an advanced mode of knowledge as well as technical specialization. In between, the process of carburizing (steeling) was invented around 1500BC in the vicinity of the Caucasus Mountain, not far from the area where first invention of bronze had taken place. The finest casting technique was the ‘lost wax’ casting. In the early Bronze Age these swords were very simple in type but in the late Bronze Age they were converted into broad-bladed double-edged sword. A timeline created with Timetoast's interactive timeline maker. The discovery of iron opened a new horizon xo man. Not only this, many other industries came into existence with the rise of mining and metallurgy. Influences passed forward and backward in the adjacent areas but the main trend went outward from the Near East and the Eastern Mediterranean. these tools are called bifaces 45,000 BCE. This saved the tremendous labour of hammering the ingots. So, it is assumed that the essentially required apparatus e.g. Tying up with the written records, wherever possible, the final history of Metal Age was reconstructed. Some scholars argue that the people of Near East region knew the working of iron by 3000BC, i.e. Thereafter the knowledge, in a rudimentary state, would have gone down into Chaldea with the men who first went there to establish their settlements. Metal enhanced man’s mastery with stone, wood, bone and other substances. (a) The manufactured object if contains arsenic with copper becomes harder than pure copper and provide a more durable cutting edge. Some other scholars regard the phase as chalcolithic (Greek word chalkos means copper and lithos means stone). (b) When metals with a lower melting point remain mixed with copper ore, the melting point for the whole alloy automatically comes down. Foundation of our modern science was also laid down during this period. However, the first iron objects made by man were of meteoric origin. Prof. Childe termed the period between 4000BC to 3000BC as the period of urban revolution. LOWER PALAEOLITHIC This was the longest of the three periods. Chiefs or kings were in the habit of using the precious bronze armours. In the early stage tools and weapons were scarce because of the rarity of copper. The oldest artifacts date from around 2000 BC. However, the small lumps of copper, scattered on the surface of the ground used to be picked up for making implements. Bronze Age cities of Egypt are better known than their Copper Age predecessors. Mode of transaction improved. Home dwelling… There are currently 86 known metals but before the 19th century only 24 had been discovered and, of these 24 metals, 12 were discovered in the 18th century. (iii) If the percentage of carbon is excessively high, the iron becomes hard but brittle. Stone age (2,198,000 BC-3000 BC). Objects of Iron Age comprises of long, slender daggers and swords made of iron which occur along with lance and bow-arrow. Harder. Copyright 10. Gradually they understood that copper as a metal is rarely available in the natural state but abundantly found in various ores being mixed with rocks and other metals as copper sulphides, copper oxides, copper carbonates, etc. Because they found some copper ores produced a metal that cast better and naturally that particular kind of metal made better and harder implements than others. Iron is the other metal, which gained supreme industrial importance in history. He parts his bangs in the middle so that they frame his face on either side as they fall and, in the center of the … Those people knew carts and the potter’s wheel and also the bronze making techniques. Iron presumably reached to Negro Africa after this event. Some monumental temples were built to house the kings and priests, and all their works and wealth including the images of Gods and Goddesses. With the increased scope of leisure and wealth, man’s intelligence flourished in different directions; art, architecture, commerce, craft, script etc. In forging a bar of wrought iron, constant reheating was required. The heating and beating of the spongy lump is called forging. (a) When the metal was used for making weapons and ornaments only. Privacy Policy 8. Although a little use of gold and silver were noted in Neolithic period, but the Metal Age is actually counted from the particular time when metal (copper) came into use in a massive scale. This has traditionally been defined as the Metal Ages, which may be further divided into stages, of approximate dates as shown: the… Another name, cyprolithic is also found for the Copper Age as most of the raw copper used in antiquity came from the Isle of Cyprus. By a coincidence of most unusual kind, some intellectual brain noticed the strange change from solid to liquid. Disclaimer 9. This is equivalent to 800 TE by the Imperialreckoning or about 1,300 years before the present. The floor of this valley at the head of the Persian Gulf had just risen above sea level when the first people came down from the Persian highlands, about 4000 BC with the culture known as Ubaid. By the term Aeneolithrc they wanted to mean a phase of culture at the dawn of Metal Age (instead of Copper Age). This property provided a great convenience to the early metal workers who worked on primitive furnaces. Besides, there are two forms of copper oxide—cuprite and melacouite and many sulpides of copper. Finally the clay cast has to be broken to remove the metal in cold state. Neolithic culture of respective region influenced them, although the principal characters were retained. To begin with, the two Americas were ruled out. Recent radio-carbon dating suggests that an independent metallurgy in the Balkan started prior to 4000BC. It requires not only a higher temperature about 1200° C, also involves complicated procedure. These tools are called bifaces. Moreover, as cassiterite looks like a heavy dark sand, it does not seem to be a metallic substance and so very difficult to be identified. The smelting technology of iron was much complex than copper. It is held that man discovered the alloy of these two metals by chance of favoring circumstances, which played an important role in the history of mankind. Copper Age, Bronze Age and Iron Age are the parts of the whole. The need of powerful ruler was felt to prevent the situation and therefore kingship made its appearance. Old barter systems was no more found suitable for active and complicated trading, so money economy was invented and great wealth was accumulated within the cities. Some of their techniques were found identical with the Mesopotamian techniques. So their successors came forward to experiment their craftsmanship on the pieces of copper. Those who believe bronze ted in South Russia around 3000BC, advocated a rapid spread to East Europe, Near East and North India by 2500BC. In Bronze Age we further find the sea-going boats which replaced the dugout canoe in order to carry a large number of passengers. Weapons made of bronze altered the warfare strategy. Among them, Egypt can be expelled from the group of copper-producing countries because this country probably got the knowledge of copper from Asia. But there were communal undertakings large structures, and presence of chiefs resembling the Megalithic period of late Neolithic. All weapons and tools were made with this percentage. But the history of iron began with the Hittites of Anatolia in the Near East. So in the next step people learned mould casting. 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