Iron Age

I

Introduction

Iron Age, the period in antiquity in which iron replaced bronze for tools and weapons. In Europe the term “Iron Age” denotes the period between the end of the Bronze Age (c. 700 bc) and the spread of the Roman Empire (27 bc-ad 68), that is, the last stage of European prehistory before the Romans brought literacy and imposed a radically new way of life. From that point of view, those areas of Europe which the legions never reached—such as Scandinavia, Central Germany, or remote parts of Britain—remained in the Iron Age throughout the Roman period. In China, the Iron Age began c. 600 bc, in sub-Saharan Africa c. 500-400 bc, and in southern Africa c. ad 200.

II

Iron-working

The major advantage of iron over bronze was that the ores from which it could be obtained were widely available and hence inexpensive when compared with bronze. It needed no alloying, and was an admirable material for the manufacture of saws, axes, hoes, and nails. However, it was much more difficult to process, and in prehistoric times a temperature high enough to melt it for casting in a mould was never achieved, except in China (see below). Instead, the ore was simply smelted (heated) in a furnace; the pieces of iron were picked out of the slag, reheated into a single lump, and then hammered into the required shape. Razor-sharp cutting edges could be produced. But since the whole process differed so radically from the manufacture of copper or bronze implements, it is no surprise that iron-working did not develop directly from bronze-working. Once iron had been adopted for heavy tools and weapons, bronze was used mostly for decorated personal items, such as pins or mirrors. Gold and silver continued as prestige materials, for example to make torcs, the heavy neck rings worn by Celtic warriors.

III

Europe

Iron seems to have been first used extensively in western Asia by the Hittites between 2000 and 1500 bc, and spread from there into Europe, central and southern Asia and North Africa. It appears sporadically in the Late Bronze Age Urnfield cultures of Central Europe, but the first true Iron Age culture of Europe is the Hallstatt (c. 750-450 bc), named after a site in the Austrian Alps where about 2,500 graves have been excavated. The second is La Tène (c. 450-58 bc), named after a site on the shore of Lake Neuchâtel in Switzerland where an abundance of metalwork has been recovered from the water.

Finds at Hallstatt date from the early part of the Iron Age, between 700 and 500 bc. The burials reflect the extraordinary wealth of the community, since the dead are accompanied by weapons, including swords of iron and bronze, daggers, axes, and helmets; bronze bowls, cauldrons and cups; ceramic vessels; bronze, gold and iron ornaments, and beads of amber and glass. The inhabitants of Hallstatt were part of a trading network that encompassed central Europe and reached beyond to the Baltic and the Mediterranean. Their wealth was based on salt, mined in the adjacent mountains. In recent centuries, salt miners have encountered numerous traces of prehistoric activity, including galleries with timber shoring and a range of organic remains preserved by the salt. These include miners' tools such as picks, shovels, and mallets; torches used for illumination in the dark passages which sometimes reach 330 m (1,000 ft) below the surface of the mountain; packs made from leather stretched over wooden frames which the miners used to haul blocks of salt to the entrance of the mine; and clothing made from hides and fur.

The Hallstatt Culture is characterized not only by long iron swords and horse trappings but also by rich chieftain burials under large barrows. One of the best known is the Vix tomb in eastern France, where a female burial of the 6th century bc was accompanied by a dismantled four-wheeled wagon, and a huge bronze crater (wine-mixing bowl) of Greek manufacture, indicating that direct trading contacts existed between Europe and the recently founded Greek colonies in the western Mediterranean. The Iron Age occupants of Europe can be considered Celts, and the Celtic aristocracy seem to have imported many prestige goods from the Mediterranean such as wine, rich textiles, and Etruscan bronzes.

A

Ritual and Religion

Fascinating evidence of the ritual and religious framework through which Iron Age people understood their world is provided by bodies recovered from peat bogs, where anaerobic conditions have almost perfectly preserved them. In 1950 peat-cutters at Tollund Fen in Denmark saw a human face protruding from the peat. The body, which became known as the Tollund Man, was naked except for a leather cap and belt, the legs drawn up in the foetal position. The man's eyes were closed; around his neck was the rope by which he was hanged about 2,000 years ago. Hundreds of bog bodies have been discovered in northern Europe, most of them by local peat cutters decades or centuries ago. Most of them seem to have died violent deaths, often from strangulation (hanging or garotting), blows to the head, or stabbing (and sometimes from more than one of these). It is possible that they were being punished for a crime, but there is some evidence to suggest that their deaths were ritual sacrifices. The grain porridge found in the stomach of some of the bodies may represent ritual meals, while their death could have been by special sacrificial methods of execution. In addition it is likely that many of the victims were of high social standing: their hands are well-kept and without calluses, and they were groomed and stripped before being deposited in the bog.

During the Iron Age other ritual deposits, especially of metal objects, were made in bogs and waterways, so it is likely that these places of earth and water had some special meaning to Iron Age people. At La Tène, votive offerings included over 150 swords, some with decorated scabbards, as well as fibulae, spearheads, and other bronze and iron tools and weapons. Similar offerings, notably the Battersea shield (British Museum), have been recovered from the Thames.