I would have thought that with bronze being an alloy it would have been more difficult to work with than iron, so why was it the first to become widely used?
In: 2489
It’s worth pointing out that a Bronze Age doesn’t always happen before an Iron Age. In most places that has been the case, but not in West and Central Africa. Cultures like the Nok smelted iron before they smelted copper, and so went straight from the Stone Age to the Iron Age.
Note though that the history of early metallurgy in Africa is still poorly understood, and there is still a lively debate about if ironworking was discovered independently in Africa or if the knowledge was imported somehow.
But at any rate the progression from Stone to Bronze to Iron should not be taken as the only possible path even if it’s the “easiest” and thus most common.
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