Metal Age: characteristics and phases of this stage

The human being has always used metals, although it may not seem like it. Long before the beginning of the Metal Age, the men and women of the Prehistory They already used iron oxides to make pigmentation with which to decorate the walls of caves, as shown by the remains of Terra Amata, in Nice, France; remains that date back no less than 350,000 years.

However, the use of metal as a casting material for the manufacture of objects is much more recent. The first object made of metal (copper, in this case) was found in the Shanidar cave, in present-day Iran. It was a pendant made with this material, the dating of which established its production at 9,500 years ago.

The Shanidar bracelet is, however, an isolated case, since the production of metal objects did not begin to proliferate until much later, when Eurasia entered the so-called Metal Age, a very extensive period that covers approximately from the VII to the II millennium BC. c. Let's see what it is and what its characteristics are.

Stages of the Metal Age

Traditional historiography places the birth of metallurgy in the Near East, with the first evidence of copper smelting in the areas of Anatolia (present-day Turkey) and the Zagros Mountains (Iran and Iraq) in the 6th millennium to. c. In the case of Europe, the first traces date back to more recent times, since the first evidence is found in the Balkans in the V millennium BC. c. From there, Copper production spread to the rest of the continent in the 2nd millennium BC. c.

Experts distinguish 3 specific phases in the Metal Age, which we detail below.

1. The Copper Age

The first stage is characterized by the smelting of copper (along with other metals such as gold and silver), whose oldest object we have already mentioned is the oval pendant from the Shanidar cave, in Iran. The antiquity of this ornament makes it difficult to date the beginning of the first phase of the Metal Age, since it dates back to no less than the 10th millennium BC. C., in clear contradiction with the rest of the vestiges, much more recent.

However, as the first usual evidence of manufacturing with copper dates from the VII millennium BC. C., this date is taken as the starting point of the Metal Age and, specifically, of the Copper Age.

The most abundant deposits are those of Çatal Huyuk, in Turkey, and those of Ali Kosh, in southern Iran.. These deposits are made up of pieces of daily use (ornaments and pins), made by hammering in cold of the natural copper nuggets existing in nature, the first method of manufacturing objects of metal.

Copper is a very abundant material and easy to shape. These are probably the main reasons why this was the first metal to be handled by humans. Much later it was discovered that this material was present in elements such as malachite, so it was no longer necessary to go to natural copper formations. The appearance of the casting technique revolutionized the panorama of the production with this metal. Thus, the first known object made of cast copper was found, again, in the Zagros Mountains, and its production has been dated to the 5th millennium BC. c.

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2. the bronze age

The next period in which the Metal Age has traditionally been classified is the bronze age, that It begins approximately in the IV millennium BC. c. with the alloy of copper and tin, which resulted in a new material.

The first manifestations of bronze objects occurred in the Near East, in the area of ​​Mesopotamia. And, although this stage is included in Prehistory, in these regions the Bronze Age fully corresponds to the period historical, since, in parallel, the Mesopotamian civilizations developed, whose cuneiform writing is their main manifestation.

Bronze was not used in Europe until very late; In central Europe, for example, this material did not arrive until the second millennium BC. c. On the other hand, in the Aegean islands (especially, in the Minoan civilization, especially famous for its sophistication), ornaments and everyday objects made of bronze begin to be predominant around the III and II millennium BC c.

This makes evident the great limitations that these classifications entail, imposed by European experts in the 19th century. At that time, a Eurocentric notion of history prevailed, as well as a highly diffusionist vision that promulgated that "everything" had born in the Orient and, from there, had spread to the rest of the world (as stated in the famous Latin maxim: Ex Oriente lux, from Oriente the light).

Currently, the nineteenth-century classification that divides the stages of the Metal Age into three is still used, but most experts categorically reject this “linear” evolution. As we will see in another section, the case of Africa is especially interesting, since it offers many sources of iron metallurgy that, in all probability, appeared autochthonously, without mediating any contact with East.

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3. the iron age

This is the last of the three stages into which the Metal Age is divided, characterized by the use of iron as a basic material for the manufacture of all kinds of elements, especially those related to the production of food (knives), clothing (needles and pins) and the war (swords, arrowheads…).

The immediately preceding stage is the last period of the Bronze Age, the so-called "Final Bronze Age", which would correspond to the Mycenaean civilization in mainland Greece and (if we consider the source of the Iliad as historical) with the legendary war of Troy. The collapse of the Mycenaean civilization, which according to many experts was caused by the arrival of the mysterious "peoples of the sea", meant the end of this stage.

Despite the fact that iron is the fourth most abundant element on earth, its daily use did not take hold until the second millennium BC. c. As often happens, the expansion of iron metallurgy is very uneven; while the evidence from Çatal Huyuk, in Turkey, dates from the 3rd millennium BC. C., the Iron Age does not reach Europe until the I millennium BC. c.; specifically, around the year 800 a. c.

The curious case of the Metal Age in Africa

According to the diffusionist theory, in force since the 19th century, iron would have appeared in Africa under the influence of Carthage, which, in turn, would have learned the technique from the East. However, recent research casts doubt on this claim.

In the area of ​​Nigeria it existed between the I and II millennium BC. c. a civilization that has been given the name "Nuk civilization", in reference to one of the Nigerian cities where more remains have been found. Curiously, this culture knew the technique of iron at very early dates, while, in the rest of the continent, the populations were still anchored in the Neolithic and in the production of objects of stone.

This singularity has brought the experts upside down and has generated various and heated debates. Is iron production perhaps indigenous to Nuk? Would its inhabitants have discovered the method of smelting iron in parallel to the Orient? Of course, there is no shortage of those who attribute the mystery to an error in the dating of the remains found in these sub-Saharan areas. According to this theory, the iron objects found would correspond to a more recent era, and would therefore have a clear Carthaginian and Egyptian influence. But the fact is that no evidence of contact between these peoples and the inhabitants of Nuk has been found, nor with other areas of central Africa.

In light of so much evidence, it is necessary to reconsider the theory that "everything" came from the East. In the case of Africa, the main problem is the chronic lack of interest that traditional archeology has experienced towards this continent, with the exception, of course, of Egypt. Therefore, much more research is needed in this regard.