The Iron Age is the period generally occurring after the Bronze Age, marked by the prevalent

use of iron. The early period of the age is characterized by the widespread use of iron or steel.
The adoption of such material coincided with other changes in society, including differing
agricultural practices, religious beliefs and artistic styles. The Iron Age as an archaeological
term indicates the condition as to civilization and culture of a people using iron as the material
for their cutting tools and weapons.[1] The Iron Age is the third principal period of the threeage system created by Christian Thomsen (17881865) for classifying ancient societies and
prehistoric stages of progress.[2]
In historical archaeology, the ancient literature of the Iron Age includes the earliest texts
preserved in manuscript tradition. Sanskrit literature and Chinese literature flourished in the
Iron Age. Other texts include the Avestan Gathas, the Indian Vedas and the oldest parts of the
Hebrew Bible. The principal feature that distinguishes the Iron Age from the preceding ages is
the introduction of alphabetic characters, and the consequent development of written language
which enabled literature and historic record.[1]
The beginning of the Iron Age in Europe and adjacent areas is characterized by certain forms
of implements, weapons, personal ornaments, and pottery, and also by systems of decorative
design, which are altogether different from those of the preceding age of bronze.[1] The work
of blacksmiths[3]developing implements and weaponsis hammered into shape, and, as a
consequence, gradually departed from the stereotyped forms of their predecessors in bronze,
which were cast, and the system of decoration, which in the Bronze Age consisted chiefly of a
repetition of rectilinear patterns, gave way to a system of curvilinear and flowing designs.
[clarification needed][1]
The term "Iron Age" has low chronological value, because it didn't begin
simultaneously across the entire world.[4] The dates and context vary depending on the region,
and the sequence of ages is not necessarily true for every part of the earth's surface. There are
areas, such as the islands of the South Pacific, the interior of Africa, and parts of North and
South America, where peoples have passed directly from the use of stone to the use of iron
without the intervention of an age of bronze.[1]
The Iron Age is the third of the three-age system of archaeology, which divides human
technological prehistory into three periods:

The Stone Age

The Bronze Age

The Iron Age

Europe

In Europe, the use of iron covers the last years of the prehistoric period and the early
years of the historic period.[4] The regional Iron Age may be defined as including the
last stages of the prehistoric period and the first of the proto-historic periods.[1] Iron
working was introduced to Europe in the late 11th century BC,[23] probably from the
Caucasus, and slowly spread northwards and westwards over the succeeding 500

years. The widespread use of the technology of iron was implemented in Europe
simultaneously with Asia.[24]
The Iron Age in Europe is characterized by an elaboration of designs in weapons,
implements, and utensils.[4] These are no longer cast but hammered into shape, and
decoration is elaborate curvilinear rather than simple rectilinear; the forms and
character of the ornamentation of the northern European weapons resembles in some
respects Roman arms, while in other respects they are peculiar and evidently
representative of northern art. The dead were buried in an extended position, whereas
in the preceding Bronze Age cremation had been the rule.

Transition to stationary agriculture due to the iron plow

In Southern Europe Mediterranean climates, the forest at that time, immemorial for the
most part, was open evergreen leaves and pine forests. After slash and burn this forest
had less capacity for regeneration than the forest north of the Alps.
In Northern Europe, there was usually only one crop harvested before grass growth
took over, while in the south, suitable fall was used for several years and the soil was
quickly exhausted. Slash and burn shifting cultivation therefore ceased much earlier in
the south than the north. Most of the forests in the Mediterranean had disappeared by
classical times. The classical authors wrote about the great forests (Semple 1931 261296).[25]
Homer writes of wooded Samothrace, Zakynthos, Sicily and other wooded land.[26]
The authors give us the general impression that the Mediterranean countries had more
forest than now, but that it had already lost much forest, and that it was left there in the
mountains (Darby 1956 186).[27]
It is clear that Europe remained wooded, and not only in the north. However, during
the Roman Iron Age and early Viking Age, forest areas drastically reduced in Northern
Europe, and settlements were regularly moved. There is no good explanation for this
mobility, and the transition to stable settlements from the late Viking period, as well as
the transition from shifting cultivation to stationary use of arable land. At the same
time plows appears as a new group of implements were found both in graves and in
depots. It can be confirmed that early agricultural people preferred forest of good
quality in the hillside with good drainage, and traces of cattle quarters are evident
here.
The Greek explorer and merchant Pytheas of Massalia made a voyage to Northern
Europe ca. 330 BC. Part of his itinerary is kept at Polybios, Pliny and Strabo. Pytheas
had visited Thule, which lay a six-day voyage north of Britain. There "the barbarians
showed us the place where the sun does not go to sleep. It happened because there the
night was very short -- in some places two, in others three hours -- so that the sun
shortly after its fall soon went up again." He says that Thule was a fertile land, "rich in
fruits that were ripe only until late in the year, and the people there used to prepare a
drink of honey. And they threshed the grain in large houses, because of the cloudy
weather and frequent rain. In the spring they drove the cattle up into the mountain
pastures and stayed there all summer." This description may fit well with WestNorwegian conditions. Here is an instance of both dairy farming and drying/threshing
in a building.
In Italy, shifting cultivation was a thing of the past at the birth of Christ. Tacitus
describes it as the strange cultivation methods he had experienced among the
Germans, whom he knew well from his stay with them. Rome was entirely dependent
on shifting cultivation by the barbarians to survive and maintain "Pax Romana", but

when the supply from the colonies "trans alpina" failed, the Roman Empire collapsed.
[citation needed]

Tacitus writes in 98 AD about the Germans: fields are proportionate to the

participating growers, but they share their crops with each other by reputation.
Distribution is easy because there is great access to land. They change soil every year,
and mark some off to spare, for they seek not a strenuous job in cramming this fertile
and vast land even greater ydelser, by planting apple orchards, cultivated spesial beds
or watering gardens; grain is the only thing they insist that the ground will provide.
The original text reads:
agri pro numero cultorum ad universis vicinis occupantur, quos mox inter se
secundum dignationem partientur, facilitate partiendi camporum spatial
praestant, arva per annos mutant, et superest ager, nec enim cum ubertate et
amplitudine soli labore contendunt, ut pomaria conserant et prata separent et
hortos rigent, sola terrae seges imperatur.[28]
Tacitus discusses the shifting cultivation.[29]
The Migration Period in Europe after the Roman Empire and immediately before the
Viking Age suggests that it was still more profitable for the peoples of Central Europe
to move on to new forests after the best parcels were exhausted than to wait for the
new forest to grow up. Therefore, the peoples of the temperate zone in Europe slash
and burners, remained for as long as the forests permitted. This exploitation of forests
explains this rapid and elaborate move. But the forest could not tolerate this in the
long run; it first ended in the Mediterranean. The forest here did not have the same
vitality as the powerful coniferous forest in Central Europe. Deforestation was partly
caused by burning for pasture fields. Missing timber delivery led to higher prices and
more stone constructions in the Roman Empire (Stewart 1956 123).[30]
The forest also decreased gradually northwards in Europe, but in the Nordic countries
it has survived. The clans in pre-Roman Italy seemed to be living in temporary
locations rather than established cities. They cultivated small patches of land, guarded
their sheep and their cattle, traded with foreign merchants, and at times fought with
one another: etruscans, umbriere, ligurianere, sabinere, Latinos, campaniere,
apulianere, faliscanere, and samniter, just to mention a few. These Italic ethnic groups
developed identities as settlers and warriors ca. 900 BC. They built forts in the
mountains, today a subject of much investigation. The forest has hidden them for a
long time, but eventually they will provide information about the people who built and
used these buildings. The ruin of a large samnittisk temple and theater at
Pietrabbondante is under investigation. These cultural relics have slumbered in the
shadow of the glorious history of the Roman Empire.
Many of the Italic tribes realized the benefits of allying with the powerful Romans.
When Rome built the Via Amerina 241 BC, the Faliscan people established
themselves in cities on the plains, and they collaborated with the Romans on road
construction. The Roman Senate gradually gained representatives from many Faliscan
and Etruscan families. The Italic tribes are now settled farmers. (Zwingle, National
Geographic, January 2005).[31]
An edition of Commentarii de Bello Gallico from the 800AD. Julius Caesar wrote
about Svebians, "Commentarii de Bello Gallico, "book 4.1; they are not by private and
secluded fields, "privati ac separati agri apud eos nihil est", they cannot stay more than
one year in a place for cultivations sake, "Neque longius anno remanere uno in loco
colendi causa licet ". The Svebes lived between the Rhine and the Elbe. About the
Germans, he wrote: No one has a particular field or area for themselves, for the

magistrates and chiefs give fields every year to the people and the clans, which have
gathered so much ground in such places that it seems good for them to continue on to
somewhere else after a year. "Neque quisquam agri modum certum aut fines habet
proprios, sed magistratus ac principes in annos singulos gentibus cognationibusque
hominum, qui tum una coierunt, a quantum et quo loco visum est agri attribuunt atque
anno post alio transire cogunt" book 6, 22.
Strabo (63 BC - about 20 AD) also writes about sveberne in Geographicon VII, 1, 3.
Common to all the people in this area is that they can easily change residence because
of their sordid way of life; that they do not grow any fields and do not collect property,
but live in temporary huts. They get their nourishment from their livestock for the
most part, and like nomads, they pack all their goods in wagons and go on to wherever
they want. Horazius writes in 17 BC (Carmen sculare, 3, 24, 9 ff .) about the people
of Macedonia. The proud Getae also live happily, growing free food and cereal for
themselves on land that they do not want to cultivate for more than a year, "vivunt et
rigidi Getae, immetata quibus iugera liberal fruges et Cererem freunt, nec cultura
placet longior annua." Several classical writers have descriptions of shifting
cultivation people. Many peoples various shifting cultivations characterized the
migration Period in Europe. The exploitation of forests demanded constant
displacement, and large areas were deforested.

Locations of the tribes described by Jordanes in Norway, contemporary with, and

some possibly ruled by Rodulf.
Locations of the tribes described by Jordanes in Norway, contemporary with, and
some possibly ruled by Rodulf. Jordanes was of Gothic descent and ended up as a
monk in Italy. In his work De origine actibusque Getarum (The Origin and Deeds of
the Getae/Goths[32]),[33] the Gothic origins and achievements, the author of 550 AD
provides information on the big island Scandza, which the Goths come from. He
expects that of the tribes who live here, some are adogit living far north with 40 days
of the midnight sun. After adogit come screrefennae and suehans who also live in the
north. Screrefennae moved a lot and did not bring to the field crops, but made their
living by hunting and collecting bird eggs. Suehans was a seminomadic tribe that had
good horses like Thringians and ran fur hunting to sell the skins. It was too far north
to grow grain. Prokopios, ca. 550 AD, also describes a primitive hunter people he calls
skrithifinoi. These pitiful creatures had neither wine nor corn, for they did not grow
any crops. "Both men and women engaged incessantly just in hunting the rich forests
and mountains, which gave them an endless supply of game and wild animals."
Screrefennae and skrithifinoi is well Sami who often have names such as; skridfinner,
which is probably a later form, derived from skrithibinoi or some similar spelling. The
two old terms, screrefennae and skrithifinoi, are probably origins in the sense of
neither ski nor finn. Furthermore, in Jordanes' ethnographic description of Scandza are

several tribes, and among these are finnaithae "who was always ready for battle" Mixi
evagre and otingis that should have lived like wild beasts in mountain caves, "further
from them" lived osthrogoth, raumariciae, ragnaricii, finnie, vinoviloth and suetidi that
would last prouder than other people.
Adam of Bremen describes Sweden, according to information he received from the
Danish king Sven Estridson or also called Sweyn II of Denmark in 1068: "It is very
fruitful, the earth holds many crops and honey, it has a greater livestock than all other
countries, there are a lot of useful rivers and forests, with regard to women they do not
know moderation, they have for their economic position two, three, or more wives
simultaneously, the rich and the rulers are innumerable." The latter indicates a kind of
extended family structure, and that forests are specifically mentioned as useful may be
associated with shifting cultivation and livestock. The "livestock grazing, as with the
Arabs, far out in the wilderness" can be interpreted in the same direction.
European timeline

Dates are approximate, consult particular article for details

Prehistoric (or Proto-historic) Iron Age
Historic Iron Age
Eastern Europe
The early 1st millennium BC marks the Iron Age in Eastern Europe. In the Pontic
steppe and the Caucasus region, the Iron Age begins with the Koban and the
Chernogorovka and Novocherkassk cultures from c. 900 BC. By 800 BC, it was
spreading to Hallstatt C via the alleged "Thraco-Cimmerian" migrations.
Along with Chernogorovka and Novocherkassk cultures, on the territory of ancient
Russia and Ukraine the Iron Age is to a significant extent associated with Scythians,
who developed iron culture since the 7th century BC. The majority of remains of their
iron producing and blacksmith's industries from 5th to 3rd century BC was found near
Nikopol in Kamenskoe Gorodishche, which is believed to be the specialized
metallurgic region of the ancient Scythia.[34][35]
Central Europe
In Central Europe, the Iron Age is generally divided in the early Iron Age Hallstatt
culture (HaC and D, 800450) and the late Iron Age La Tne culture (beginning in 450
BC). The transition from bronze to iron in Central Europe is exemplified in the great
cemetery, discovered in 1846, of Hallstatt, near Gmunden, where the forms of the
implements and weapons of the later part of the Bronze Age are imitated in iron. In the
Swiss or La Tne group of implements and weapons, the forms are new and the
transition complete.[1]
The Celtic culture, or rather Proto-Celtic groups, had expanded to much of Central
Europe (Gauls), and, following the Gallic invasion of the Balkans in 279 BC, as far
east as central Anatolia (Galatians). In Central Europe, the prehistoric Iron Age ends
with the Roman conquest.
From the Hallstatt culture, the Iron Age spreads westwards with the Celtic expansion
from the 6th century BC. In Poland, the Iron Age reaches the late Lusatian culture in
about the 6th century, followed in some areas by the Pomeranian culture.
The ethnic ascription of many Iron Age cultures has been bitterly contested, as the
roots of Germanic, Baltic and Slavic peoples were sought in this area.
Aegean

Main article: Greek Dark Ages

In the Greek Dark Ages, there was a widespread availability of edged weapons of iron,
but a variety of explanations fits the available archaeological evidence. From around
1200 BC, the palace centres and outlying settlements of the Mycenaean culture began
to be abandoned or destroyed, and by 1050 BC, the recognisable cultural features
(such as Linear B script) had disappeared.
The Greek alphabet began in the 8th century BC.[36] It is descended from the
Phoenician alphabet. The Greeks adapted the system, notably introducing characters
for vowel sounds and thereby creating the first truly alphabetic (as opposed to abjad)
writing system. As Greece sent out colonies eastwards, across the Black Sea, and
westwards towards Sicily and Italy (Pithekoussae, Cumae), the influence of their
alphabet extended further. The ceramic Euboean artifact inscribed with a few lines
written in the Greek alphabet referring to "Nestor's cup", discovered in a grave at
Pithekoussae (Ischia) dates from c. 730 BC; it seems to be the oldest written reference
to the Iliad. The fragmentary Epic Cycles, a collection of Ancient Greek epic poems
that related the story of the Trojan War, were a distillation in literary form of an oral
tradition developed during the Greek Dark Age. The traditional material from which
the literary epics were drawn treats the Mycenaean Bronze Age culture from the
perspective of Iron Age and later Greece.
Southern Europe
Further information: Prehistoric Italy and Ancient peoples of Italy
In Italy, the Iron Age was probably introduced by the Villanovan culture, but this
culture is otherwise considered a Bronze Age culture, while the following Etruscan
civilization is regarded as part of Iron Age proper. The Etruscans Old Italic alphabet
spread throughout Italy from the 8th century. The Etruscan Iron Age was then ended
with the rise and conquest of the Roman Republic, which conquered the last Etruscan
city of Velzna in 265 BC.
Western Europe

Hill forts spread across Europe in the Iron Age and Maiden Castle in England is one of
the largest.[37][38] Photograph taken in 1935 by Major George Allen (18911940).
The 'Celtic' culture had expanded to the group of islands of northwest Europe (Insular
Celts) and Iberia (Celtiberians, Celtici and Gallaeci). On the British Isles, the British
Iron Age lasted from about 800 BC[39] until the Roman Conquest and until the 5th
century in non-Romanised parts. Structures dating from this time are often impressive,
for example the brochs and duns of northern Scotland and the hill forts that dotted the
islands. On the Iberian peninsula, the Paleohispanic scripts began to be used between

7th century to the 5th century BC. These scripts were used until the end of the 1st
century BC or the beginning of the 1st century AD.
Northern Europe
The early Iron Age forms of Scandinavia show no traces of Roman influence, though
these become abundant toward the middle of the period. The duration of the Iron Age
is variously estimated according as its commencement is placed nearer to or farther
from the opening years of the Christian era; but it is agreed on all hands that the last
division of the Iron Age of Scandinavia, the Viking Period, is to be taken as from 700
to 1000 AD, when paganism in those lands was superseded by Christianity.[1]
The Iron Age north of the Alps is divided into the Pre-Roman Iron Age and the Roman
Iron Age. In Scandinavia, further periods followed up to AD 1100: the Migration
Period, the Vendel or Merovingian Period and the Viking Period. The earliest part of
the Iron Age in north-western Germany and southern Jutland was dominated by the
Jastorf culture.
Early Scandinavian iron production typically involved the harvesting of bog iron. The
Scandinavian peninsula, Finland and Estonia show sophisticated iron production from
c. 500 BC. Metalworking and Asbestos-Ceramic pottery co-occur to some extent.
Another iron ore used was iron sand (such as red soil). Its high phosphorus content can
be identified in slag. Such slag is sometimes found together with asbestos wareassociated axe types belonging to the Ananyino Culture.