Plausibility check on the transition to iron from bronze

Hey guys,

I'm doing research on the development of metallurgy for my American domesticates timeline. My original idea was that the food/extra population brought by livestock would allow the old copper complex to develop copper smelting, and from there create bronze, and much later develop iron.

The more I researched, though, the more I seem to find that the area is extremely poor in tin. The most significant tin deposits north of Mexico seem to be in Texas, which has its own rich deposits of copper. Even if trade develops between these regions, it seems to me that lot of tin would be used up locally instead of traded.

My second idea was that this alt copper complex would smelt copper, experiment with creating tin bronze for a brief period, and then go straight to smelting iron. Iron smelting may have developed independently in Africa without a bronze age, so in some ways this is less implausible than things that have happened in our own timeline. However, I'm leery of advancing Native American metallurgy too fast. It just takes away a lot of believability for me.

So, what's the opinion of the board experts: Do you think that bronze smiths would rather trade for tin with Texas than work with the more difficult and inferior iron? If not, how fast would iron metallurgy develop from copper metallurgy?

Finally, I'll ask if anyone knows any good books about ancient bronze or iron metallurgy. Anything I can find in the local library is helpful.

My thinking is its all about the Benjamin's. What's the demand and where is it? What's available?

There's not alot of tin in North America, true, but there are definitely ores outside of Mexico and Texas, for example, Wisconsin and Alaska. If I'm not mistaken, also in eastern Canada. Bronze can also be made without tin: arsenic bronzes, for example, and silver bronzes.

I'm of the opinion that ironworking cannot be discovered without some prior cultural experience with metal-working, and only in areas where it is plentiful and close to the surface.

I'm by no means an expert on these matters, but I have a few thoughts.

twovultures said:

Hey guys,

I'm doing research on the development of metallurgy for my American domesticates timeline. My original idea was that the food/extra population brought by livestock would allow the old copper complex to develop copper smelting, and from there create bronze, and much later develop iron.

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As something of an aside, one possible reason the Old Copper Complex didn't lead to metallurgy was because the copper was of too high a grade; there was no need to smelt it, and so no-one got around to discovering it. There's no automatic reason why copper smelting would start, even given a higher population. Of course, this doesn't rule it out, either, but it's a point to consider.

The more I researched, though, the more I seem to find that the area is extremely poor in tin. The most significant tin deposits north of Mexico seem to be in Texas, which has its own rich deposits of copper. Even if trade develops between these regions, it seems to me that lot of tin would be used up locally instead of traded.

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Don't underestimate the potential for trade. Tin was an extremely valuable mineral in Bronze Age times, to the point where it was traded extremely long distances. Cf. the trade in Cornish tin, which went far into Europe.

Granted, most of that trade was by water, which is far, far cheaper than overland trade. But a lot of the distance could be covered via the Mississippi and the Red River (assuming no logjam - the "Great Raft" - in the latter; no-one's sure when that first formed).

There are also tin deposits in other places, albeit not on the same scale as Texas. The Black Hills had some, if memory serves, and there were smaller deposits in parts of Wisconsin and Michigan. There's also the Irish Creek deposits in Virginia, where the CSA got their tin in OTL, but that may be trickier, being on the wrong side of the Appalachians.

My second idea was that this alt copper complex would smelt copper, experiment with creating tin bronze for a brief period, and then go straight to smelting iron. Iron smelting may have developed independently in Africa without a bronze age, so in some ways this is less implausible than things that have happened in our own timeline. However, I'm leery of advancing Native American metallurgy too fast. It just takes away a lot of believability for me.

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Trying to figure out what's plausible with iron-working is hard since, at most, it developed twice in OTL's history, in Anatolia (or somewhere nearby, no-one being quite sure) and, maybe, in West Africa.

There's all sorts of different arguments, but to me one of the more convincing one was that even in Anatolia, iron-working was not a direct progression from bronze-working. The techniques are really quite different. For one thing, Anatolian-style wrought iron was not actually melted, per se.

It's possible - although by no means certain - that iron working in Anatolia was developed by people who vaguely knew that "those guys over that away" did something with fire and rocks to make bronze, and happened to stumble across the technique of a bloomery. And as you mention, there's no particular evidence that West African ironsmiths went through the techniques of bronze-working before they went to iron-working. However, they may well have come into contact with traded bronze artifacts, which is a whole other story.

So, what's the opinion of the board experts: Do you think that bronze smiths would rather trade for tin with Texas than work with the more difficult and inferior iron? If not, how fast would iron metallurgy develop from copper metallurgy?

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Honestly, you could probably flip a coin on this one. On the one hand, tin is perfectly plausible for long-distance trade, and while bronze-working may not have been part of a direct progression toward iron-working, it was quite likely to have been the inspiration. On the other hand, people may stumble across iron-working eventually if they're working on copper smelting, but it may take a looooong time. Figure at least a couple of thousand years. Iron-working required that long (at least) to develop from bronze-working in OTL, and without bronze-working as a catalyst, it may take even longer.

As a wild-card, there's always arsenical bronze instead of tin bronze, but there's very, very good reasons why people abandoned that as soon as they had access to tin.

Why not have arsenical bronze be developed? Arsenic is more widespread than tin, and occurs near or is part of some copper ores. It was developed before tin bronze in antiquity.

ChucK Y said:

Why not have arsenical bronze be developed? Arsenic is more widespread than tin, and occurs near or is part of some copper ores. It was developed before tin bronze in antiquity.

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Arsenic bronze was used in one group in mesoamerica, iirc. But arsenic has severe drawbacks if you dont want to poison your smiths.

With arsenical bronze being a bit problematic, and tin being restricted, i could easily see some group putting up with inferior iron, for lack of anything better. Then, eventually theyll figure out how to make good iron.

Initial iron results are spongy and inferior to bronze, but its better than pure copper, afaik, and much easier to find than tin.

Thank you for your input everybody! I appreciate it.

Looking at these suggestions (Particularly Jared's) helps me a lot with related decisions in my timeline-when to have agriculture start and things like that. That's the frustrating and wonderful part about writing alternate history. You never have it figured out, no matter how close you think you are.