We did, we used it for centuries in armour and swords - we simply did not get it in the quantities or the prices needed for industry, but we certainly knew how to make it.
And at first it was gathered on the surface or from rivers rather like gold was so the technology was well known. In fact even from mines the tin ore was washed and refined with vast amounts of water… seen it at restored sites not ten miles away!
Emphasis above is mine.
As a Chemical Engineer, I’ve spent a fair bit of time around making metals and alloys from ore. I am not a historian and I can be wrong here but I doubt that they discovered making iron and forging it at the same time. I would imagine that the initial centuries of Iron saw it cast into shapes and then someone accidently discovered forging or adding alloys to it or removing residual carbon.
It would take them a while before they realize the alloying properties of Carbon (steel), or the deleterious effects of phosphorus …
The immediate cause of the switch to iron in the Eastern Mediterranean area was the general political turmoil ca 1200 BC which made the importation of tin (from Afghanistan) more difficult. But primitive steel-making techniques soon led to a stronger metal than bronze: thus iron was soon better for weapons as well as cheaper.
It does seem surprising how extensive and early trading was. Polished jadeite axes from the Italian Alps were valued prestige items somehow exported (in a series of steps?) all the way to northern Scotland, by about 3800 BC.
ETA: Casting steel requires higher temperatures. Wasn’t early steel forged?
Interesting discussion. Bronzes can also be made with arsenic (although the smiths might get a lethal dose. The ruins of Tiwanaku (in modern Bolivia) contain foundation blocks that were clamped together with arsenical bronze clamps. Strangely, this alloy never seems to have been used for weapons and tools-why not?
I’m pretty sure it was. We’ve found weapons and tools made from arsenical bronze. It’s just that tin bronze tended to replace arsenical bronze.
ghetifal, welcome to the Dope.
You revived an old thread to provide a convincing answer to an unsettled question, doing so with a specific cite from a creditable source. You even showed awareness of the age of the thread.
In short, you did everything we could possibly ask for in a new poster. I hope you stick around and contribute more good stuff on this or any other subject.
He’s had ample time to think again…
I can just hear an early sergeant addressing his men. “Boys, today we’re upgrading to Sword Service Pack 5.6, which replaces the arsenical bronze with tin bronze. It’s a bit lighter which I’m sure you’re glad to hear; and considerably cheaper, which means we’re able to reduce the flogging penalty for losing one from 10 lashes down to five. Keep in mind that your opponent can no longer die from arsenic poisoning of the wound, but it’s dangerous to wait for that anyway. Just stab him again and move on.”
How ironic.
thats interesting as Cornwall is also blessed with Arsenic, in fact yesterday i walked near some old arsenic kilns.
Amazingly - shockingly - I did in fact know this as the thread was over a decade old.
I still refuse to believe it, however, because I hate the English.
First time I’ve heard the phrase “blessed by arsenic”, are you a super-villain priest?
No English to hate back then. 
Maybe in another decade you’ll have come to terms with it.
Not quite, but Arsenic was a big product in Victorian times, they used it as a pesticide and as a tonic! And it has left bits or Cornwall looking like a moon scape.
As for the “I hate the English”… facts is facts and no amount of tribalism is gon’a change that. Besides Cornwall at that time was closer to Ireland and the Breton region that the rest of the UK. It was far easier to travel across the water than across the moors/ forests.
Perhaps someone could clear some things up for me.
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I was under the impression that it was well established that the initial advantage to iron was the lower cost due to the limited availability of tin, and the simpler process of making crude iron.
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Wasn’t the earliest method of creating iron tools to find naturally occurring iron and then apply heat and hammers to form it? Hammering would remove impurities from the iron and heating would introduce carbon to improve the quality of the iron.
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Isn’t there ample evidence that iron working developed throughout the Bronze Age?
“naturally occurring iron”? Meteorites maybe (the Inuits made things out of meteorites Cape York meteorite - Wikipedia…)
That’s the only type I know of. But perhaps there are ores that aren’t entirely oxidized.
The earliest iron used was the metallic form in meteorites, obviously quite rare.
Preparing iron from iron ore requires high temperatures – the smelting point of iron is higher than the melting point of copper, and iron’s melting point higher still. Bellows were in use during the Bronze Age, but it was still difficult to get high temperatures; besides heat, there were other parts of the recipe for quality iron and steel that had to be found by trial-and-error, or chanced on with luck.
AFAIK, very little is known about early advances in iron production. The tomb of Tutankhamun contains an iron dagger that may have been more valuable than a gold dagger; that was less than two centuries before the nominal beginning of the Iron Age. Thus, widespread production of quality iron and (primitive) steel came very suddenly; presumably this was facilitated by the development of high-temperature furnaces, such as the Tell Hammeh site, ca 930 BC, described in detail in this pdf.
Some once thought the Hittite Empire had a secret recipe for iron, and the collapse of that Empire led to the secret’s revelation and the sudden emergence of cheap iron, but that view is now rejected AFAICT.
very cool article, toadspittle.