Almost All Bronze Age Artifacts Were Made From Meteorite Iron (sciencealert.com)

dryriver shares a report from Science Alert: According to a new study, it's possible that all iron-based weapons and tools of the Bronze Age were forged using metal salvaged from meteorites. The finding has given experts a better insight into how these tools were created before humans worked out how to produce iron from its ore. While previous studies had found specific Bronze Age objects to be made from meteoric metal -- like one of the daggers buried with King Tutankhamun -- this latest research answers the question of just how widespread the practice was. Albert Jambon, from the National Centre for Scientific Research (CNRS) in France, studied museum artifacts from Egypt, Turkey, Syria, and China, analyzing them using an X-Ray Fluorescence Spectrometer to discover they all shared the same off-world origins. "The present results complementing high quality analyses from the literature suggest that most or all irons from the Bronze Age are derived from meteoritic iron," writes Jambon in his published paper. "The next step will be to determine where and when terrestrial iron smelting appeared for the first time."

Comments

Why is any of this notable?

[zifn4b]

All of the "important" elements that humans are usually concerned about including the ones we are composed of were projected forth into the universe as the result of stars exploding. Just look up old Cosmos shows on youtube. Carl Sagan did a fantastic job of explaining this to us. Neil DeGrasse Tyson also does a great job as well. Those of us that have been curious about this learned about it decades ago.

Re:Why is any of this notable?

[pr0t0]

I think the point being made is not where iron comes from. The interesting thing is that humans had iron tools and weapons in the Bronze Age before we knew how to get it out of the ground. Apparently, it wasn't really clear how that happened. The Bronze Age is so named because we knew how to cast bronze, the Iron Age came after. So where did we get the iron? Meteorites.

Pretty cool.

Re:Why is any of this notable?

[zifn4b]

The title of the article and summary are terrible then. Whether a meteorite fell to Earth and we extracted it from the rock itself or it worked its way into the soil, it all came from the same place.

Re:Why is any of this notable?

[jellomizer]

I would expect this would be also cause the root myths behind many religions are lore.
Tell me if this story sounds familiar.
Nobody peasant or at best low level nobility, wandering the wilderness, then out of the sky came the indestructible weapon, or from a magical rock a wonderful weapon is found.

Compared to bronze a weapon made from Iron would seem nearly magical, combine that they had found it from a rock that had flew from the sky.

Re:Why is any of this notable?

[coofercat]

Indeed - summary is a bit light on critical thinking (I didn't RTFA, maybe that's better?). The important take-away here is: (Bronze age) Mankind a bit cleverer than we thought it was. It also highlights how far the knowledge of how to do this spread, and to some extent at what speed.

Re:Why is any of this notable?

[sgage]

You are very confused and not understanding the issue at all. Meteoric iron is elemental iron, already smelted as it were. Mined iron is ore, terrestrial deposits of oxidized iron, not from meteors that worked their way into the eartch.

This ore needs to be mined, then heated very hot (relative to making bronze) to extract the elemental iron from the ore to a usable elemental metal. So this finding explains how humans could have a limited quantity of iron weapons/tools before the discovery/invention of mining and smelting iron ore. The latter is what gave us the Iron Age.

Two very different processes, two very different technologies. Yes, it all ultimately came from the same place. So did every f-ing thing. Why do we bother to talk about anything?

Re:Why is any of this notable?

[Carewolf]

I would expect this would be also cause the root myths behind many religions are lore.
Tell me if this story sounds familiar.
Nobody peasant or at best low level nobility, wandering the wilderness, then out of the sky came the indestructible weapon, or from a magical rock a wonderful weapon is found.

Compared to bronze a weapon made from Iron would seem nearly magical, combine that they had found it from a rock that had flew from the sky.

Depends on the iron. The earliest iron age weapon were inferior to bronze weapons, but were just much much cheaper as iron is significantly more abundant. Not until practices were establish to get some accidental consistency in carbon levels did the quality improve, but when the carbon levels are consistent in iron tools we tend to call it steel (though all ancient iron tools and weapons are "technically" steel of varying quality).

Re:Why is any of this notable?

[MBGMorden]

Possibly, but my guess is that most of the time they didn't actually see the meteor fall or know it came from space. They just found metal "rocks" on the ground that looked a certain way and they knew they could make tools and weapons out of them.

Re:Why is any of this notable?

[Anonymous Coward]

Two very different processes, two very different technologies.

And two different energy budgets. That's the history of mankind: progress correlates with an ever increasing amount of available energy

And it's going on to the day.

Re:Why is any of this notable?

[Anonymous Coward]

I would expect this would be also cause the root myths behind many religions are lore.
Tell me if this story sounds familiar.
Nobody peasant or at best low level nobility, wandering the wilderness, then out of the sky came the indestructible weapon, or from a magical rock a wonderful weapon is found.

Compared to bronze a weapon made from Iron would seem nearly magical, combine that they had found it from a rock that had flew from the sky.

That's the idea behind some theories about the origin of the legend of Excalibur: it was a steel sword existing in a time when they were extremely rare and everyone else had bronze weapons so it would seem magically strong and being made of meteoritic iron could have morphed into "the sword in the stone" and such as the King Arthur myth took shape.

Re:Why is any of this notable?

[Kjella]

Depends on the iron. The earliest iron age weapon were inferior to bronze weapons, but were just much much cheaper as iron is significantly more abundant.

But meteoritic iron isn't exactly pig iron. It's mostly quite strong nickel alloys, stronger than iron or unhardened steel. Combined with its extreme rarity it would be the stuff of legends.

Re:Why is any of this notable?

[zifn4b]

And two different energy budgets

Budgets are human concepts that are irrelevant to nature

That's the history of mankind: progress correlates with an ever increasing amount of available energy

And it's going on to the day.

Heard of the Law of Conservation of Energy? Without a basic knowledge of science it's hard to engage in a scientific discussion.

Re:Why is any of this notable?

[zifn4b]

Yes, it all ultimately came from the same place. So did every f-ing thing. Why do we bother to talk about anything?

Because humans like to talk about how awesome they are and celebrate themselves. On occasion we even make statues of ourselves to admire. ;)

Re:Why is any of this notable?

[zifn4b]

The important take-away here is: (Bronze age) Mankind a bit cleverer than we thought it was

Oh we already knew how clever Bronze Age man was. They invented very sophisticated superstition to brain-wash and enslave massive groups of people. Making Bronze Age weapons from iron ore meteorites is nothing... well I suppose it helped them fight tribal wars based on said superstition.

Re:Why is any of this notable?

[dasunt]

This ore needs to be mined, then heated very hot (relative to making bronze) to extract the elemental iron from the ore to a usable elemental metal. So this finding explains how humans could have a limited quantity of iron weapons/tools before the discovery/invention of mining and smelting iron ore. The latter is what gave us the Iron Age.

Bronze is a harder metal than pure iron. That means that it keeps a better edge and is less likely to bend. (Both written and archaeological shows that iron swords bending in battle was an actual problem - one of the Roman historians even wrote about how their enemies had to stop mid-battle and straighten their swords!)

The thinking is that the bronze age didn't end because iron was better for weapons, but the bronze age ended because tin and copper were relatively rare compared to iron and frequently needed to be traded long distance. When the bronze age saw the collapse of its trading networks, people turned to local resources, which meant iron.

It was only much later, when we developed better metallurgy, that we could consistently make iron alloys that were better than bronze.

So were these iron weapons more ceremonial? Prized because they are rare? Or indicative of regional trade issues?

Re:Why is any of this notable?

[Chris Mattern]

Budgets are human concepts that are irrelevant to nature

On the contrary, budgets are very relevant to nature. All life has to maintain a nitrogen budget, for example. And while humans have had a severe effect on the carbon budget in the atmosphere, it existed long before humans did.

Heard of the Law of Conservation of Energy? Without a basic knowledge of science it's hard to engage in a scientific discussion.

Yes, I've heard of it. It isn't relevant. The Earth is not a closed system (as it is constantly receiving massive amounts of energy from the Sun) .And as the OP said, "increasing amount of available energy". There is no Law of Conservation of Available Energy, particularly in a system that is not closed.

Re:Why is any of this notable?

[Anonymous Coward]

Budgets are human concepts that are irrelevant to nature

Heard of the Law of Conservation of Energy?

Am I the only one that sees the contradiction here?

Re:Why is any of this notable?

[swb]

If you buy into any of the bicameral mind concept, it wasn't even much of an idea to form religions. They just didn't know any better because their assumed their voice of consciousness was a religious deity.

Re:Why is any of this notable?

[zifn4b]

On the contrary, budgets are very relevant to nature. All life has to maintain a nitrogen budget, for example. And while humans have had a severe effect on the carbon budget in the atmosphere, it existed long before humans did.

We have a null hypothesis here. Some living creatures regulate nitrogen usage. You are claiming that there is a connection between that natural process and the anthropmorphic concept of a "budget" yet you haven't demonstrated any evidence to establish the connection. Surely you are familiar with the Null Hypothesis correct? It would be more correct to say that these are natural processes that aren't really all the orderly compared the order that human beings strive for and imagine in their minds.

This is a common mistake and it's because by default humans want to project themselves onto other natural processes. We are a very small part of things and the majority of the universe is not anything like us. This is the nature of man's anthropomorphic arrogance.

Yes, I've heard of it. It isn't relevant. The Earth is not a closed system (as it is constantly receiving massive amounts of energy from the Sun) .And as the OP said, "increasing amount of available energy". There is no Law of Conservation of Available Energy, particularly in a system that is not closed.

The fact that you didn't mention the universe itself in this comment seems to indicate a lack of science education. I fear it would not be productive for me to pose to you a question about available energy in the context of the universe for fear that you would respond with another nonsense proposition that seems to owe to a lack of science education. If you want a better understanding of the universe and physics, watch Cosmos especially the old episodes with Carl Sagan. He can educate you much better than I can. It's a shame he is no longer with us.

Re:Why is any of this notable?

[zifn4b]

If you buy into any of the bicameral mind concept, it wasn't even much of an idea to form religions. They just didn't know any better because their assumed their voice of consciousness was a religious deity.

For people like me that have a fairly high degree of mental discipline with regard to regulating thoughts and emotions to direct them purposefully, it is hard for me to imagine people who may have thought like that or possibly still do. But I can see that may have played a factor and might explain some human behavior we still observe today. I can make any voice speak in my head in any way I decide. I could have Bugs Bunny read Shakespeare or I can have silence and it requires a negligible amount of effort. It's all determined by what I decide to think about. I don't really know any other form of thought so it is difficult for me to imagine others who lack the mental to discipline to do what I have always done... This is probably why I prefer to be alone because it's peaceful and I enjoy silence or perhaps I enjoy the absence of mental chatter so I can hear the wind, birds and other sounds more clearly.

Re:Why is any of this notable?

[Anonymous Coward]

Holy crap you're conceited. In other words, you've seen Cosmos therefore you have a "science education", and it's not worth wasting your time on people that lack a "science education".

Get over yourself.

You're obsessed with anthropomorphism and spending more time explaining that than realizing that the GP is right. "Budgets" can be observed naturally, such as in conservation of energy (which you refer to). Any conservation law naturally reflects a constraint on availability of a physical property (mass, energy, momentum, etc), and that is the equivalent of a budget (in monetary terms a budget reflects a constraint on availability of money).

The universe is a closed system. The Earth is not a closed system in the context of many processes.

Re:Why is any of this notable?

[Solandri]

The Bronze Age isn't so named because we knew how to cast bronze. We already knew how to cast metal during the Copper Age. The Copper Age was when we learned to refine ore (de-oxidize it) to create metal. The Bronze Age was when we learned that mixing two different metals together in certain combinations and ratios could create an alloy (bronze is a combination of copper and tin) which was stronger or had more desirable properties than either of its constituent metals on their own.

And as has been pointed out in another followup comment, iron isn't necessarily better than bronze for making a sword. It's just cheaper. Even today iron and steel (alloy of iron and carbon, and often other metals) don't sit at the top of the engineering strength chart. They sit at the top of the strength per unit cost chart.

Re:Why is any of this notable?

[whitroth]

Bzzzt! Thank you for playing.

Arthur was somewhere between the late-400 CE to early 500CE. That's about two thousand years after the end of the Bronze Age.

And before you try to argue that, *every* story and legend has him *after* the Roman Legions left Britain.

Re:Why is any of this notable?

[arth1]

Bronze is a harder metal than pure iron. That means that it keeps a better edge and is less likely to bend.

Both the first and the second sentence is wrong.

First of all, bronze is a lot of different things, but the Rockwell hardness scale scores of various bronze alloys available at the time are in the 40-65 range. That's certainly much harder than copper, which is at 10 on the same scale, but cast iron is at 86. I.e. much higher than bronze. Even modern bronzes, like aluminium and silicon bronze, are less hard than cast iron, although they come closer.

As for keeping an edge, that is related to factors that's not hardness, like ductility and chipping resistance. A stiffer (not harder) blade can resist the edge bending, but can also crack easier. And some metals have a crystallization pattern that makes them more prone to chipping, even with the same hardness. The edge folding over slightly is often preferable to the blade shattering or nicking in use.
This is why chefs use a butcher's steel to straighten the edge of the knife.

Re:Why is any of this notable?

[jdschulteis]

Meteoritic iron differs significantly from cast iron (more nickel, less carbon), but your point still holds. An investigation into the hardness of meteorites found Rockwell B hardness ranging from 60 to 92.

Re:Why is any of this notable?

[dasunt]

First of all, bronze is a lot of different things, but the Rockwell hardness scale scores of various bronze alloys available at the time are in the 40-65 range. That's certainly much harder than copper, which is at 10 on the same scale, but cast iron is at 86. I.e. much higher than bronze. Even modern bronzes, like aluminium and silicon bronze, are less hard than cast iron, although they come closer.

My source, among others, was Mark Miodownik. Wikipedia also claims that bronze was harder than iron, and cites the Smithells Metals Reference Book, 8th Edition, ch. 22.

What's your source? What alloys are you considering?

Re:Why is any of this notable?

[Anonymous Coward]

Cold worked bronze is really harder at a reasonable tin content than pure annealed iron. Cast iron is hard because it has a high carbon content, that is not generally available in the bronze age, or in meteors...It is also useless for swords as it is would break as soon as you try to use it

But I agree that it is pretty complicated, and a lot depends on how the metal is worked.

There are bronze swords with a VPH (I find rockwell a mess when comparing metals) reported above 200. That is as good as some steels. The problem is hard bronze (with a lot of tin) gets brittle. Not much good if your sword breaks in half during battle. There are some chinese swords (not bronze age IIRC) with a tin content over 20% on the edge, but not in the core of the sword. This solves that issue, but requires vastly improved metal working.

With meteoric iron, you would have a high nickel content and this will make it much harder (and again more brittle). Depending on how well it is worked, I think it is quite possible to make a superior weapon from it (compared to bronze age bronze weapons). There is a report of an Etruscan lance-head forge-welded with layers of meteoric iron that approaches 250 VPH.

This all still pales in comparison to quenched steel blades (~700 VPH).

Sources:
https://www.amazon.com/Knight-Blast-Furnace-History-Metallurgy/dp/9004124985
https://www.amazon.com/Sword-Crucible-History-Metallurgy-European/dp/9004227830

Re:Why is any of this notable?

[John Da' Baddest]

Aha, "He pulled a sword from the stone."
Now it makes sense.

Like quickly pulling something out of your hat:
He pulled a "rapid" out of his hat!
What a great magician!

Re:Why is any of this notable?

[Chris Mattern]

I might note that while the universe is generally believed to be a closed system and most theories in use today work from that assumption, it has not been proved to be so, and some theories have been advanced on the assumption that it is not so.

Re:Why is any of this notable?

[Anonymous Coward]

as I noted above he is talking about cast iron. That is useless in this context.

Re:Why is any of this notable?

[Chris Mattern]

Talking about the advancement of civilization and available energy "in the context of the universe" is not the correct context. The advancement of civilization takes place in the context of various small regions of the planet Earth; that is the appropriate context to discuss it in.

Re:Why is any of this notable?

[Anonymous Coward]

I would *hate* to be your co-worker.

There's actually a word in German that describes you: Korinthenkacker.

Re:Why is any of this notable?

[Anonymous Coward]

Oh my, well thank you for blessing us lowly plebes on /. with a description of your amazing mental capabilities. ...

Re:Why is any of this notable?

[swb]

It seems hard to believe now, but I find it kind of compelling because in the absence of any compelling evidence/information/communication to the contrary it seems like the "voice in your head" could possibly be thought of as a separate entity or at least something different than your animal impulses.

Re:Why is any of this notable?

[Anonymous Coward]

Iron was not cheaper than bronze until it was learned how to smelt it from ore. When the only iron was from meteorites and native iron, it was extremely rare.

I don't know whether iron is better for making swords than bronze, but steel certainly is. I know this because for centuries, people who could afford "the best that money can buy", like knights and samurai, had their swords made from steel.

Re:Why is any of this notable?

[zifn4b]

AC troll. Can't even be bothered to ask what my educational background is and immediately jump to the presupposition that my science background is solely composed of watching a couple episodes. I have two words for you: FUCK YOU

Re:Why is any of this notable?

[zifn4b]

It seems hard to believe now, but I find it kind of compelling because in the absence of any compelling evidence/information/communication to the contrary it seems like the "voice in your head" could possibly be thought of as a separate entity or at least something different than your animal impulses.

I'd go with animal impulses but in my case, I don't have any spontaneous/autonomous voices. I can purposefully do "think talk" to work through a thought process. Everyone can do that and control what the thoughts are. Those who have a voice occur spontaneously and can't control it have symptoms of schizophrenia.

Re:Why is any of this notable?

[zifn4b]

Oh my, well thank you for blessing us lowly plebes on /. with a description of your amazing mental capabilities. ...

Thank you for such a wonderful contribution to the discussion

Re:Why is any of this notable?

[painandgreed]

So where did we get the iron? Meteorites.

Pretty cool.

Yes, pretty cool, but we've known about meteorite iron for quite some time. Long enough for it to be a thing in D&D. I think there are even some large meteors around that were still being "mined" for iron until fairly recently when they were instead protected. I think the take away with this study is that ALL bronze age iron came from meteorites. Previously, it seems that it was thought that iron smelting was known in the bronze age but not really used until it absolutely had to be due to disrupted trade routes because bronze was still the superior metal. Instead, it's looking like there was only bronze smelting until the trade routes for tin were disrupted, and then people developed iron smelting which is quote a deviation from how we understood the timeline earlier.

Re:Why is any of this notable?

[wyHunter]

Such as King Arthur.

Re:Why is any of this notable?

[Tenebrousedge]

You're making a bullshit semantic argument.

Re:Why is any of this notable?

[angel'o'sphere]

Being clever or not has not much to do with 'technology level'.
Most people I ever met don't know why a circle has 360 degrees ... I would call that 'not clever', most people I know can not skin an animal or cut the meat from the bones, or sail a boat ar build a shelter ... sounds all very unclever to me.
But they all handle a smart phone and can even operate difficult to handle micro waves ... not sure how clever that is.

Re:Why is any of this notable?

[angel'o'sphere]

Bronce is not harder, it is softer, both than iron and steel.
However it is not as brittle as 'bad' iron/steel.

Bottom line it is not a question of rarity but industry. The indusrty slowly shifted to iron. And a workshop that was producing iron, probably could not afford to habe a second branch for iron.
It might also be a matter of style, who wants an old school bronce knive when he can have a nice glittering steel knive?

Both technologies existed at the same time, e.g. spartan spears had an iron/steal tip. But the tip on the back side was bronce, so was their sword and armor and shield.

Re:Why is any of this notable?

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm not the same AC, but an impartial person not previously invested in this conversation.

All I can say is wow - you are a complete and utter fucking asshole. You do have an air of superiority. Perhaps you are smart, but what a COMPLETE AND UTTER FUCKING ASSHOLE YOU ARE. JUST A COMPLETE FUCKING DOUCHEBAG. TOTAL. DOUCHE.

Re:Why is any of this notable?

[Anonymous Coward]

For people like me that have a fairly high degree of mental discipline with regard to regulating thoughts and emotions to direct them purposefully,

Mental discipline? You've just said this some posts above [#55703377]:

Can't even be bothered to ask what my educational background is and immediately jump to the presupposition that my science background is solely composed of watching a couple episodes. I have two words for you: FUCK YOU

So much for mental discipline...

Re: Why is any of this notable?

[Anonymous Coward]

How is not asking about your scientific background any worse than you declaring youâ(TM)re not going to continue talking to someone because they didnâ(TM)t use the word âoeuniverseâ?

Re: Why is any of this notable?

[Anonymous Coward]

It is hard for you to consider other peoples perspectives? That sounds to me like a rather rigid mind, and frankly pretty limiting...

Re: Why is any of this notable?

[Anonymous Coward]

The interplay of metallurgy and the introduction of iron alloys meant that some swords and irons were harder in some geographys and softer in others. The carboning and nickeling of the iron into early forms of steel left lots of room for variation. So some swords bent in battle and some were wonder weapons.

Re: Why is any of this notable?

[crimson tsunami]

So that's where all the +5 swords came from.

Re:Why is any of this notable?

[Anonymous Coward]

Really? Meteors falling from the sky are significantly more abundant than the bronze you already found and had been using?

Re:Why is any of this notable?

[minstrelmike]

Without electricity, we can't move beyond the iron age because we don't have enough energy to melt the other ores and make aluminum or titanium. One we had fire, not only could we make bronze and iron, we could also get a lot more energy from food. Cooked meat provides far more calories per chew than raw meat.

Re:Why is any of this notable?

[redlemming]

The thinking is that the bronze age didn't end because iron was better for weapons, but the bronze age ended because tin and copper were relatively rare compared to iron and frequently needed to be traded long distance. When the bronze age saw the collapse of its trading networks, people turned to local resources, which meant iron.

There's some disagreement over this: the collapse of the trading networks could have been caused by increased use of iron weapons causing the collapse of the bronze age civilizations.

Historian Robert Drews discusses this in his book The End of the Bronze Age.

It's not that the iron weapons were necessarily much better at that point. Bronze worker Neil Burridge discusses this on his web site:

"In recent television programme for the BBC, one of my bronze swords was repeatedly stuck against a reproduction of an early iron sword, in a test to show the advantages of iron over bronze. Even though both myself and Hector Cole (the iron sword maker) had advised the programme makers the that the bronze sword would do better than expected, they were very surprised. The bronze sword was more than a match for the iron, both blades received heavy damage. "

Robert Drews argues that ironworking may have been available earlier than previously believed, allowing societies that possessed it to overwhelm established bronze age societies with large numbers of relatively cheap weapons - the scarcity of tin limited the availability of bronze weapons, but iron ore is much more common. Certainly something caused the sudden collapse around 1200 BCE, and there's lot of evidence it was something military.

The book was written 20 years ago, I don't know if there is more recent evidence - not my field.

Re:Why is any of this notable?

[Shirley Marquez]

And increasing technology. It would be very difficult, if not impossible, for a post-apocalypse society to work its way back up to our current level of technology, or even to sustain any level higher than the Stone Age, because the remaining resources for the Iron Age or the Bronze Age are no longer extractable with those levels of technology. All the easy to mine sources have already been exhausted.

That includes energy. Restarting the Machine Age would be challenging because we've already gotten to all the easy coal and oil. What remains can't be mined or drilled with 19th century tech. Our current renewable sources also require a high degree of technological sophistication; that restarting civilization couldn't make solar panels or wind turbines that work nearly as well as current ones. Nor batteries; it could make lead acid batteries by melting down existing lead and reusing it but not by mining new lead (see the mining problem) and couldn't make fancier things like lithium-ion at all.

Re:Why is any of this notable?

[quantaman]

So were these iron weapons more ceremonial? Prized because they are rare? Or indicative of regional trade issues?

If they were meteorite iron I'd have to assume they were extremely rare.

Rich people back then would have been a lot like the rich people of today. When you have a bit of money you get the same thing everyone else has, only better. When you have an absurd amount of money you start looking for other ways to show off your wealth, a weapon made from a rock that fell from the friggin' sky is really damn cool.

Re:Why is any of this notable?

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah, ZIFN4B is a fucking piece of shit. And I'm saying that as someone who has a "fairly high degree of mental discipline...." LOL...

He thinks he is above everyone else. All of his comments reek of superiority. I bet his family and co-workers wish he was dead.

What's the difference?

[RobinH]

I'm clueless about this... what's the difference between meteoric iron and iron ore? Is it just purity? If so, why is it that meteoric iron is more pure?

Re:What's the difference?

[olsmeister]

Iron ore requires smelting at very high temperatures to extract the iron. Meteoric iron is in its metallic form already.

Re:What's the difference?

[Anonymous Coward]

Because of the nickel inclusions that are common, iron meteorites are more or less ready-to-go lumps of low grade stainless steel. The ancients could simply smash a piece off and then beat it into shape, no chemistry necesssary.

Re:What's the difference?

[jfdavis668]

People discovered how to work metal by finding "native" forms. Hunks of pure or nearly pure copper, silver and gold. Iron doesn't form these, you need to know how to smelt it. By the bronze age, they had learned to smelt copper and tin, but iron requires higher and more consistent heat than they had the ability to make. But, if you find native iron in the form of meteorites, you can skip that process and create tools.

Re:What's the difference?

[MerlTurkin]

Correct! And iron ore contains no nickle. Iron meteorites and those with some iron contain nickle.

Re:What's the difference?

[sgage]

Purity, and chemical form. Iron ore is oxidized iron, and requires skill and energy to extract the pure metal. Meteoric iron is already the metallic form (usually mixed with nickel). Many museums have a meteorite sawn in half - you can see it's shiny solid metal inside, not a lump of rock. But not all meteorites are iron - some are actually rocky.

Re:What's the difference?

[omnichad]

No nickel either.

Re:What's the difference?

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually no, temp is not a problem, if that was all it took, then more vigorous work at bellows would do the job. The technique of getting workable iron from ore using primitive methods is just different than with say copper or tin. You can't just smelt and pour an ingot. If you melt the iron at any point then it saturates with readily available carbon and produces useless material, the trick is to reduce the iron without melting it, for that you need to keep the temperature steady and limited. From that you get a seemingly useless iron sponge that is riddled with slag, that slag needs to be worked out of the material until you get an actual solid piece of metal. In comparison copper is much simpler, you just fire the ore with enough heat and it reduces, melts and collects into solid pieces, could happen accidentally in a campfire even.

Re:What's the difference?

[RobinH]

This is a more informative answer, thanks. So is it that Earth's iron has been exposed to too much oxygen over the billions of years and oxidized, but meteoric iron has not? I'm just trying to understand the why...

Re:What's the difference?

[Errol backfiring]

Not exactly. If you smelt iron from ore or from iron-rich soil, the iron is what is left behind in the oven. In other words: you melt the ore from the iron. The iron you have left in the oven is very porous and brittle, and contains a huge amount of carbon (making it extra brittle). It therefore takes quite some work to convert this iron into any workable steel or iron.

Re:What's the difference?

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes and no. Oxidation is the problem for getting workable iron from the smelting process, as discussed by prior posters. Hematite, magnetite and other iron ore compounds are all high% iron, but you have to find it, mine it, and then go through the smelting process.

Asteroids formed during the creation of our solar system. Iron's the heaviest element that can be made by fusion in stars, and supernovae explosions of early massive stars flung a lot of iron out into the galaxy, some of which coalesced along with our Sun/solar system. It's why it's the fourth most abundant element in Earth, after oxygen, silicon and aluminum.

Large asteroids formed just like the Earth, and the largest formed differentiated cores with iron sinking to the center, just like Earth. Some of these early huge asteroids were then splintered by early collisions, and their core fragments, mostly iron with nickel bonded in, are what rain down on us as iron meteorites. They survive reentry better than rocky meteorites, being denser, and so the biggest, most easily recognizable meteorites are iron/nickel. There's fewer of them than rocky meteorites.

It's pretty pure and relatively easily worked. There's just not a lot of it. The biggest example is the 60 ton Hoba meteorite in Australia, 84%iron, 16% nickel and not much else.

Re:What's the difference?

[Anonymous Coward]

Namibia, not Australia. Sorry.

Re:What's the difference?

[careysub]

This is a more informative answer, thanks. So is it that Earth's iron has been exposed to too much oxygen over the billions of years and oxidized, but meteoric iron has not? I'm just trying to understand the why...

Yes. Meteoric iron rusts away just like regular iron and turns to a lump of reddish iron oxide. Lots of historic meteor fall sites are full of red lumps of oxidized meteors. To make a useful tool you must recover a meteorite before this happens. A large chunk of meteor metal though could take a long time to completely oxidize, and if recovered from the desert (this is the Middle East) it could survive without rusting completely for thousands of years.

Re:What's the difference?

[careysub]

People discovered how to work metal by finding "native" forms. Hunks of pure or nearly pure copper, silver and gold. Iron doesn't form these...

Or rather, it is quite rare that it does. This is called telluric iron. The only major deposit of this is in Greenland (and was used by the Inuit) but small deposits might exist elsewhere. Examining the artifacts would be needed to confirm that this was not from some unknown telluric iron source.

Re:What's the difference?

[careysub]

Not exactly. If you smelt iron from ore or from iron-rich soil, the iron is what is left behind in the oven. In other words: you melt the ore from the iron. The iron you have left in the oven is very porous and brittle, and contains a huge amount of carbon (making it extra brittle). It therefore takes quite some work to convert this iron into any workable steel or iron.

Not exactly. The iron never melted in an Iron Age smelter. It forms a loose porous mass of reduced metal saturated with slag called a "bloom". This is taken out and hammered to from "wrought iron", which can then be shaped and perhaps carbonized in the a forge to make a harder surface.

Techniques to use melted iron - either directly as cast iron, or else by reducing it to eliminate the excess carbon - were developed much later. But it was easier to make smelters not quite hot enough to melt the iron anyway.

Re: What's the difference?

[akical0118]

Jesus, have you never seen a falling meteor? The intense heat would have smelted the iron and nickel, iron isn't on Earth and oxidizes

Re: What's the difference?

[careysub]

Jesus, have you never seen a falling meteor? The intense heat would have smelted the iron and nickel, iron isn't on Earth and oxidizes

The intense heat does melt the surface of the meteor, in fact in vaporizes some of it (which you see, in part, in the meteor trail).

But if you have seen a falling meteor you will have notice that this fiery part of the descent lasts just a few seconds at most. And then ordinary air cooling as it falls quickly cools the surface down to ambient. The intense heat does not have time to penetrate very far, so most of the meteor is extremely cold when it lands on Earth.

Re:What's the difference?

[angel'o'sphere]

Oki, I give me few cents to that thread:
Iron unlike copper etc. is not simply 'melted' out of ore.
Iron only exists in various forms of iron oxices, which need to be 'reduced', you need heat and something that takes the oxide out of the iron ore (and in that process the iron is melted)
For that you use cornon monoxide, aka burning charr coal ember, and obviously you need a hot fire.

So the main diffence to copper smelting is not the heat alone but the amount of carbon monoxide you can produce in the fire,

Re:What's the difference?

[RockDoctor]

But not all meteorites are iron - some are actually rocky.

90 to 95% of meteorites are "stony", not "iron". However, without fairly sophisticated petrology (art/ science of describing rocks) such as cutting thin- or polished- sections of the specimen, identification of "weird stone sample WS1234" as a meteorite was a lot harder than identifying an iron-nickel meteorite as a particular class of "weird".

to this day (well, about 2000), it has been routine for geology exams to include a "stony" meteorite in the list of things to be identified. It is there to separate the 85% score people (2:1 degree) from the 95%+ people (1st-class). Average petrologists will just miss the slient details in the 15 minutes they dare to assign to the specimen.

Before the development of petrology, iron meteorites were easy to classify as "weird class Fe", if not so easy to interpret. Of the first two meteorites examined in detail with a good provenance as a "stone from the sky" (Elbogen and Ensisheim, one is an iron (easily recognised as "weird"), and the other a "stony" meteorite of class LL6 ordinary chondrite.

Re:What's the difference?

[RockDoctor]

if recovered from the desert (this is the Middle East)

Most of the "Middle East" isn't desert now, and wasn't during the "Bronze Age". Just to confuse your mistaken perceptions, the area that you're probably considering "Middle East" is also closely coincident with what the historians and archaeologists consider as the "Fertile Crescent".

Captain Obvious? Or Captain Iron-ic?

[K. S. Kyosuke]

it's possible that all iron-based weapons and tools of the Bronze Age were forged using metal salvaged from meteorites.

You don't say! "Before we could make X on our own, we used whatever X was lying around"?

Re:Captain Obvious? Or Captain Iron-ic?

[zifn4b]

You don't say! "Before we could make X on our own, we used whatever X was lying around"?

I'd love to see someone demonstrate that they can create "Fe". Think carefully before you respond.

Re:Captain Obvious? Or Captain Iron-ic?

[Hal_Porter]

As someone else pointed out above the iron in meteorites is metallic. If you didn't have that you'd have to smelt iron ore. Which required higher temperatures than bronze.

Though oddly enough once you can smelt iron it's easier to get iron ore than it is to get copper and tin or arsenic which you need for bronze.

So once you can smelt iron it's actually easier to get hold of the ore so you can make weapons in volume. And iron plus carbon gives you steel which is harder than bronze.

I.e. if you're a militaristic society, mass produced iron weapons means it's well and truly smiting time for your neighbors. Steel weapons plus a bit of organisation means gives you the Roman army, which subjugated most of Western Europe.

Re:Captain Obvious? Or Captain Iron-ic?

[K. S. Kyosuke]

You can't make a knife out of "Fe", or out of any other quoted two characters of the alphabet. You can make it from metallic iron if you have any, though.

Re:Captain Obvious? Or Captain Iron-ic?

[jellomizer]

In the old times, before chemistry, making metals pure enough to be more useful then just a colored rock was a skill.

How would we know that we could probably get a strong metal out of an orange rock. The ore rarely shows properties of the refined product. So when people found more pure iron from meteorite and find their properties useful, and the fact they will rust over time, and show properties of the ore, for someone to try to make better.
No they are not doing atomic fusion to make iron atoms, but they are making iron as a material, to be used.
 

Re:Captain Obvious? Or Captain Iron-ic?

[Anonymous Coward]

Misunderstanding the periodic table or nouns?

Re:Captain Obvious? Or Captain Iron-ic?

[omnichad]

You can't make a knife out of "Fe"

Sure you can, just put "Kni" in front of it.

Re: Captain Obvious? Or Captain Iron-ic?

[Anonymous Coward]

So, potassium nitrogen and iodide? You may be onto something there.

Let me run to my alchemy lab and try it.

Re:Captain Obvious? Or Captain Iron-ic?

[Errol backfiring]

Well, it sounds like kicking in an open door, but there could have been two scenarios:

• 1. For whatever reason ore got heated (because people accidentally built an oven out of ore or bog iron, for example), and later on they thought it was useful,
• 2. People knew iron before ore and started looking for more resources.

Glass was probably invented the first way. If you want to make iron, you will heat a clay oven so hot that sand in the clay turns to glass. Glass droplets were found in old finding sites, suggesting that the inhabitants back then did not know glass had any use.

So this study shows that with iron, the second scenario happened.

Re:Captain Obvious? Or Captain Iron-ic?

[Tablizer]

You can't make a knife out of "Fe"

You can if you mix it with other stuff. How about we call it "cofefe".

Re:Captain Obvious? Or Captain Iron-ic?

[ImprovOmega]

I wish to invest in your Potassium-Nickel-Iron cutting implements. How soon until they start shipping?

Re:Captain Obvious? Or Captain Iron-ic?

[K. S. Kyosuke]

It's possible that the second scenario happened, but given the vastly different nature of iron meteorites and iron ores, I wonder how plausible it is, unless someone made a connection somehow between a rusted meteorite and a solid piece of high-grade iron ore and got an "aha!" moment of sorts.

Re:Captain Obvious? Or Captain Iron-ic?

[K. S. Kyosuke]

Misunderstanding quotations?

Re:Captain Obvious? Or Captain Iron-ic?

[painandgreed]

it's possible that all iron-based weapons and tools of the Bronze Age were forged using metal salvaged from meteorites.

You don't say! "Before we could make X on our own, we used whatever X was lying around"?

The entire point of the article is that evidence is showing that the time when we could make our own is now moved from what history had previously assumed to a much later date.

Re:Captain Obvious? Or Captain Iron-ic?

[KiloByte]

I'd love to see someone demonstrate that they can create "Fe". Think carefully before you respond.

But we can! It's just still extremely expensive, but can be done. And once we'll learn how to milk fusion and fission to the last bit of energy, it's pure Fe that we'll have in excess.

Re:Captain Obvious? Or Captain Iron-ic?

[wyHunter]

Or is it Potassium Nitrogen Iodine?

SEO

[Anonymous Coward]

?
http://proup-god.pp.ua/

pre-Cromian Times

[Anonymous Coward]

Gods gave us the holy metal of iron from the skies above, to be appreciated and valued. But then the giants wanted more..

Misleading title

[jfdavis668]

All artifacts are made from meteorite iron? Does that include clay pots? The write up is accurate, do a better job with the title.

Re:Misleading title

[Anonymous Coward]

The write up is accurate, do a better job with the title.

That's right. This is Slashdot. Should have been:

"Trump Denies Almost All Bronze Age Bitcoins Were Made From Meteorite Iron Until Climate Change Forced Unvaccinated Immigrants Into Universal Basic Income"

Re:Misleading title

[Anonymous Coward]

That's right. This is Slashdot. Should have been:

"Trump Denies Almost All Bronze Age Bitcoins Were Made From Meteorite Iron Until Climate Change Forced Unvaccinated Immigrants Into Universal Basic Income"

That's not the Slashdot *I* know.

According to ESR, Trump Denies Almost All Bronze Age Bitcoins Were Made From Meteorite Iron Until Climate Change Forced Unvaccinated Immigrants Into Universal Basic Income"

*Now* it's "news for nerds".

Re: Misleading title

[Anonymous Coward]

Clay pots are not "bronze age artifacts", they had been invented earlier.

Re: Misleading title

[Tablizer]

Clay pots are not "bronze age artifacts", they had been invented earlier.

Agreed, that's how I interpreted it. However, headlines are almost always lossy or ambiguous out of necessity. The details go into the body text: that's what body text is for. However, I invite the complainer to offer an alternative headline.

Re: Misleading title

[jfdavis668]

How about "Almost All Bronze Age Iron Artifacts Were Made From Meteorite Iron"

Whoever smelt it, dealt it.

[Anonymous Coward]

That is all.

No! the point is ALIENS.

[Kludge]

The point of the article is that human evolution is really just one big alien experiment. In this case aliens were dropping chunks of metal on us, so we can use it to evolve our societies.

Though maybe I'm reading too much into the article.

Re:No! the point is ALIENS.

[Opportunist]

Get a haircut, weirdo!

Re:No! the point is ALIENS.

[Anonymous Coward]

Why do I always see the most insightful posts when I don't have mod points?

Born in Arizona, moved to Babylonia

[Anonymous Coward]

King Tut

Now, if I'd known
They'd line up just to see him,
I'd taken all my money
And bought me a museum

I feel like we're missing the obvious!

[Gravis Zero]

You say they were made from "meteorites" but all we really know is that the metal didn't come from earth. ;)

Re:I feel like we're missing the obvious!

[Br00se]

I'm not saying it's Aliens... But....

It's Aliens.

Re:I feel like we're missing the obvious!

[aix tom]

No wonder the earth branch of Watto's Junk Shop Emporium went broke, seeing how little he seems to have sold. It was even a bigger loss than all the guys trying to stick him with worthless Republican Credits.

Magic Items

[Thyamine]

I enjoy the idea of what people would have thought about those items. Just very pragmatic that it's just some other metal, or looking at their bronze weapons and then the special one that someone important was given and thinking it was very different. I can see how that could lend credence to the idea of it being magic or somehow special. If they knew it fell from space, then it would literally be other worldly to them.

Re:Magic Items

[cyberchondriac]

It would likely be seen as a gift from the gods, if they saw it fall and tracked it down.. That would be the stuff of legend.

Re:Magic Items

[careysub]

If they knew it fell from space, then it would literally be other worldly to them.

They wouldn't. You find meteorites on the ground long after they fall. Observed falls with recovery are extremely rare, even on a much more densely inhabited Earth, and of metallic meteors (which are only about 0.1% of all falls) almost unknown.

No one on Earth knew of the extra-terrestrial origin of meteors until the Eighteenth Century.

Re:Magic Items

[careysub]

... which are only about 0.1% of all falls...

Typo. That should be 0.4% of all falls.

Re:Magic Items

[Anonymous Coward]

No one on Earth knew of the extra-terrestrial origin of meteors until the Eighteenth Century.

In the sense of "no one" being scientists and "knew" as proved.

The rest of humanity called them falling stars, shooting stars, and other terms associated with an "extra-terrestrial origin" for all of written history. Wikipedia cites a website that says what you believe, but as usual, wikipedia is proven wrong with the most superficial of glances. A website made in 2017 does not refute the existence of ancient poetry and descriptors of the night sky.

So what?

[nagora]

In the Bronze Age - the period before we had discovered how to smelt iron - we had to use naturally occurring iron if we wanted iron artefacts. Well, no shit Sherlock. That's why it was still the Bronze Age and not the Iron Age.

Re:So what?

[careysub]

In the Bronze Age - the period before we had discovered how to smelt iron...

The Bronze Age is the period where nearly all metal tools were made of bronze -- which is the primary observable fact.

Claiming that this was entirely a "period before we had discovered how to smelt iron" is a conclusion that must be derived from actual data, not simply asserted.

There were iron artifacts being made during the Bronze Age. It could have been the case that iron smelting existed and was conducted on a small scale, but simply had not supplanted bronze. Without examining the actual evidence we would not know which is the case.

Not meteorites

[antek9]

New studies suggest that all the ancient weaponry actually came from loot boxes that the alien cult named Activision spread all over the inhabited world in order to extract revenue from planet Earth. Not content with microtransactions in the form of animal teeth and leather, it taught their subjects how to make shiny coins from metallic stones.

Just saying.

Re:Not meteorites

[penandpaper]

Good god. Life is a simulation! You can tell because the graphics are getting better.

Re:Not meteorites

[Anonymous Coward]

And why do we hate loot boxes again? Those kickstarted our civilization into a unicorn that it is!

Star iron!

[Anonymous Coward]

Like, *everyone* had a +4 axe made from star iron! Thats a whole lot of loot. How did anyone manage to make their saving throws?

Not All...

[Anonymous Coward]

One was forged in the heart of a dying star...

Here's a Tautology:

[Anonymous Coward]

There was no iron ore mined from the earth before people had figured out how to mine iron ore from the earth. Brilliant, just brilliant.

Well, yeah

[Chris Mattern]

Because when people figured out how to smelt iron, that was the Iron Age.

Re:Well, yeah

[Anonymous Coward]

Because when people figured out how to smelt iron, that was the Iron Age.

The Iron Age was when the majority of tools and weapons were being made of iron.

The earliest archaeological evidence of iron smelting (iron artifacts that contain no nickel, indicating they are not made of meteoritic iron) dates to the Bronze Age.

It took some centuries between the discovery of iron smelting and the technology becoming refined and widespread enough for iron to displace bronze.

The Bronze Age Collapse was caused by systemd

[Anonymous Coward]

Systemd drove all the Sea Peoples into the Mediterranean! Are we doomed as well?

Is this new?

[Anonymous Coward]

"Early Egyptian tools made of iron contained nickel, implying a possible meteorite source. The British still refer to the study of iron and steel metallurgy as "siderurgy" from the Greek term for iron, sideros, which means "from the heavens." Implements made of iron date back to about 2000 B.C. These implements were ..."

https://books.google.pt/books?id=57jzHvkZrCQC&pg=PA184&lpg=PA184&dq=iron+sideros&source=bl&ots=iveTKdBR1Q&sig=bKxO7JSX3a1GkWIKxrcY8wKm3vM&hl=pt-BR&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwifx9W-3PrXAhWEJhoKHWt3DwQQ6AEIWDAK

English[edit]. Etymology 1[edit]. From Latin sdus, sideris, ("constellation"). Prefix[edit]. sidero-. Related to stars or constellations, as sidereal relationships. Etymology 2[edit]. From Ancient Greek (sídros, “iron”). Prefix[edit]. sidero-. Related to iron or steel, as in siderosis (fibrosis caused by iron deposits).

https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/sidero

Re:Is this new?

[careysub]

No. Sidros means "iron" in Greek (and the name of an island), sideris means "star" in Latin. They are independently derived from Proto Indoeuropean (PIE) *sweid which means "to shine". Shiny metal, shiny star. That is the relationship.

Re:Is this new?

[Anonymous Coward]

best post in the thread, thanks!

Artefacts

[nuckfuts]

TFA would come off as more sciencey if artifacts was spelled correctly in the title.

Re:Artefacts

[Anonymous Coward]

Artefact IS the correct spelling, Artifact is the American mis-spelling

artefact /tfakt/

noun
plural noun: artefacts

1. an object made by a human being, typically one of cultural or historical interest.
"gold and silver artefacts"

2. something observed in a scientific investigation or experiment that is not naturally present but occurs as a result of the preparative or investigative procedure.
"the curvature of the surface is an artefact of the wide-angle view"

Origin
early 19th century: from Latin arte ‘by or using art’ + factum ‘something made’ (neuter past participle of facere ‘make’).

Bronze made with iron

[aglider]

This is really news!

Noobs

[Anonymous Coward]

Egyptions so silly. While you were investing in iron age tech, Moses was dominating with wululu. Do you even Age of Empires?

Old news ...

[angel'o'sphere]

That is well known since 50 years or more, but nice that a 'new study' confirms it again.

Let me reword this...

[Anonymous Coward]

A shitty new study did some shoddy science and made some shite conclusions not based in reality.

There wasnâ(TM)t enough meteorites to use to make these tools. More likely, some civilizations could smelt it and others could not.