Iron Age, period in the development of industry that begins with the general use of iron and continues into modern times. In Asia, Egypt, and Europe it was preceded by the Bronze Age Bronze Age, period in the development of technology when metals were first used regularly in the manufacture of tools and weapons. Pure copper and bronze, an alloy of copper and tin, were used indiscriminately at first; this early period is sometimes called the
..... Click the link for more information. . It did not begin in the Americas until the coming of the Europeans. Iron beads were worn in Egypt as early as 4000 B.C., but these were of meteoric iron, evidently shaped by the rubbing process used in shaping implements of stone. The oldest known article of iron shaped by hammering is a dagger found in Egypt that was made before 1350 B.C. This dagger is believed not to have been made in Egypt but to be of Hittite Hittites (hĭt`īts), ancient people of Asia Minor and Syria, who flourished from 1600 to 1200 B.C.
..... Click the link for more information. workmanship. The use of smelted iron ornaments and ceremonial weapons became common during the period extending from 1900 to 1400 B.C. About this time, the invention of tempering (see forging forging, shaping metal by heating it and then hammering or rolling it. Forging is the method by which metal was first worked when it came into use about 4000 B.C. in Egypt and Asia. Modern forging is done with a power-driven hammer; Dies are usually used.
..... Click the link for more information. ) was made by the Chalybes of the Hittite empire. It is possible that the Hittite kings kept ironworking techniques secret and restricted export of iron weapons. After the downfall of the Hittite empire in 1200 B.C., the great waves of migrants spreading through S Europe and the Middle East insured the rapid transmission of iron technology. In Europe knowledge of iron smelting was acquired in Greece and the Balkans, and somewhat later in N Italy (see Etruscan civilization Etruscan civilization, highest civilization in Italy before the rise of Rome. The core of the territory of the Etruscans, known as Etruria to the Latins, was northwest of the Tiber River, now in modern Tuscany and part of Umbria .
..... Click the link for more information. ; Villanovan culture Villanovan culture, the culture of a people of N Italy in the early Iron Age (c.1100–700 B.C.). The term is derived from the town of Villanova, near Bologna, where the first excavations of a Villanovan cemetery were conducted (1853–55).
..... Click the link for more information. ) and central Europe. The Early Iron Age in central Europe, dating from c.800 B.C. to c.500 B.C., is known as the Hallstatt Hallstatt (häl`shtät), village, Upper Austria prov., W central Austria, in the Salzkammergut , on the Lake of Hallstatt.
..... Click the link for more information. period. Celtic migrations, beginning in the 5th cent. B.C., spread the use of iron into W Europe and to the British Isles. The Late Iron Age in Europe, which is dated from this period, is called La Tène La Tène (lä tĕn)
..... Click the link for more information. . The casting of iron did not become technically useful until the Industrial Revolution. The people of the Iron Age developed the basic economic innovations of the Bronze Age and laid the foundations for feudal organization. They utilized the crops and domesticated animals introduced earlier from the Middle East. Ox-drawn plows and wheeled vehicles acquired a new importance and changed the agricultural patterns. For the first time humans were able to exploit efficiently the temperate forests. Villages were fortified, warfare was conducted on horseback and in horse-drawn chariots, and alphabetic writing based on the Phoenician script became widespread. Distinctive art styles in metal, pottery, and stone characterized many Iron Age cultures.

Iron Age

Final technological and cultural stage in the Stone–Bronze–Iron-Age sequence (or Three-Age System) in which iron largely replaced bronze in implements and weapons. The start of the Iron Age varied geographically, beginning in the Middle East and southeastern Europe c. 1200 BC but in China not until c. 600 BC. Though the large-scale production of iron implements brought new patterns of more permanent settlement, use of iron for weapons put arms in the hands of the masses for the first time and set off a series of large-scale movements and conquests that did not end for 2,000 years and that changed the face of Europe and Asia. See also Bronze Age.

(history)

Iron Age - In the history of computing, 1961-1971 - the formative era of commercial mainframe technology, when ferrite core memory dinosaurs ruled the earth. The Iron Age began, ironically enough, with the delivery of the first minicomputer (the PDP-1) and ended with the introduction of the first commercial microprocessor (the Intel 4004) in 1971.

See also Stone Age; compare elder days.