There is iron ore in modern Peru that appears to have been known to pre-Inca cultures for use as a dye perhaps as early as 100AD. Would it be possible for the Inka or an earlier culture to develop ironworking, perhaps even steelworking, given the right set of circumstances? What sorts of effects would this have on the Pre-Colombian Americas and Contact with the Spanish or Portugese?
Pre-Colombian Iron or Steel
- Thread starter M79
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One of the main problems would be to make them want to develop such technology. They had the knowledge, the techniques and the expertise. But they simply chose not to: to the Andeans the metals to be worked were only gold, silver, and copper; to be used for jewelry or other practical/religious purposes. Weaponry never evolved past the stone Age.
Actually, they were just getting into the bronze age by the time the Europeans showed up. Arsenical bronze for the most part, but bronze nevertheless. I have no doubt they would have gotten around to iron eventually. The question is how long it would take.
Peru has huge concentrations of all sorts of useful ores. Given ironworking, would they be able to make use of locally available vanadium in order to create an ATL analogue of Damascus steel...
Peru has huge concentrations of all sorts of useful ores. Given ironworking, would they be able to make use of locally available vanadium in order to create an ATL analogue of Damascus steel...
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NothingNow
Banned
It didn't need to Obsidian and Flint were cheap, plentiful, and a lot more effective than metal weapons would've been for the most part.
A Macuahuitl leaves some nasty-ass wounds. Swords OTOH don't for the most part. Especially bronze ones.
twovultures
Donor
Whodawhut now? Tell that to the Conquistadors and the people they killed. Metal is easier to shape into very killy designs and easier to keep sharp, and in some ways more durable-a broken or bent sword can be reshaped or reforged, but obsidian can shatter.
Getting slashed by a sword is much more likely to kill you than being hit by a rock.
Rex Mundi
Banned
I was under this impression as well. I remember reading that most of the iron deposits where the Inca empire stood - or at least the ones large enough to be exploited on a commercial scale - were inaccessible at the time, even with technology brought over by Europeans. This isn't my area of expertise, so it'd be great if someone more knowledgeable could confirm or correct what I've heard.
Bavarian Raven
Banned
metal leaves a straight cut,
their rock blades ripped the flesh and tore it, making a wound more likely to get infected (assuming you get away).
that being said, in the long run the metal weapons do have a serious advantage once they are adapted.
cheersI don't know much about the situation in the Andes, but from what I've read, in Mesoamerica the (military) technological edge of the Spanish seems to have been not in blades or firearms, but in their armor.
(No, I don't have citations at hand -- I'm sneaking in to AHL on my coffee break at work.)
(No, I don't have citations at hand -- I'm sneaking in to AHL on my coffee break at work.)
wolf_brother
Banned
iirc the Tarascan were starting to work with iron when Cortes showed up... but they were using it for things like nails and such.
A big issue that people who approach this idea need to understand is that the culture of the Americas was very different from that of Afro-Eurasia. The Andean and Mesoamerican societies had been working at a bronze age level of technology for a long time, but they used them for things like jewelry or etc., as opposed to weapons. Mann goes into this quite a bit, and iirc even Diamond touches upon it.
A big issue that people who approach this idea need to understand is that the culture of the Americas was very different from that of Afro-Eurasia. The Andean and Mesoamerican societies had been working at a bronze age level of technology for a long time, but they used them for things like jewelry or etc., as opposed to weapons. Mann goes into this quite a bit, and iirc even Diamond touches upon it.
That honestly depends on what it's being used for. Metal used for weaponry or tools needs good tempering--malleability isn't all there is to it. The first copper worked in the Old World may have been produced from copper melting out of clays in very hot kilns. These kilns provided an infrastructure for early experiments in arsenic- and tin-alloying, to make bronze. The infrastructure of dedicated furnaces and experienced bronze-workers, in turn, enabled the development of the even hotter furnaces needed for good iron. This infrastructure, IIRC, didn't really exist in the New World--kilns were much more limited. Even with them, it took a rather long time for the eneolithic cultures of the Black Sea and Near East to jump from bone and stone weaponry to bronze--as in the New World, copper, gold, and silver (and maybe meteorite iron) were first used for decorative purposes, as status symbols.
Unless obsidian and flint also benefited from hot fires?
Given the iron working in subsaharan East Africa and elsewhere before the common era, I think with the hundreds of years of history in copperworking in modern Ecuador and the Mexican state of Jalisco it might be plausible. There is also evidence of copperworking along the Mississippi river cultures (mound 37, near modern St Louis?) in the pre-Colombian era, with large reserves of iron not terribly far north of there. If the Mississippian cultures in that area could rise to Iron Age technology or even to steel I wonder if they could unite the region and expand agriculture simultaneously.
Closer to the civilizations in question, Hematite artifacts have been found as far afield as the Yucatan and Costa Rica with known iron deposits in Bolivia and Chile though I am not sure how much drilling those needed to be exposed. There were deposits in Peru that were closer to the surface that, again, were used for dyes.
Do you all think that it is feasible for such a transition to occur under the right circumstances? And if the civilizations can develop iron or steel several hundred years before Columbus arrived, what would the long-term impact?
Closer to the civilizations in question, Hematite artifacts have been found as far afield as the Yucatan and Costa Rica with known iron deposits in Bolivia and Chile though I am not sure how much drilling those needed to be exposed. There were deposits in Peru that were closer to the surface that, again, were used for dyes.
Do you all think that it is feasible for such a transition to occur under the right circumstances? And if the civilizations can develop iron or steel several hundred years before Columbus arrived, what would the long-term impact?
The availability of iron is not an issue. It was there; and the natives found it and put it to use: dyes, etc. What you need to change in order to make this plausible is to alter the cultural perecption of it. Iron and steel are not the best to make jewelry or any other ornamental pieces with. That was what metal working was for. To put it plainly it'd be like asking the Romans to sculpt in mud having marble and bronze around.
In the middle east, iron was an INFERIOR substitute for bronze for a long time, until brand new techniques were found to make good iron and then steel. Bronze lasted for, what, a thousand years in the old world as the goto war material. Given that bronze was only just recently discovered in the new world, ?1300?, and that supplies of tin werent very accessible, i think, realistically the independent use of iron for tools and weapons is likely to take a good while.
In many ways, their best bet would be to pick up techniques from a shipwrecked phoenician, say.
In many ways, their best bet would be to pick up techniques from a shipwrecked phoenician, say.
NothingNow
Banned
Yeah, the conquistadors and other early explorers who lived in fear of native bows (which easily could penetrate "bullet-proof" armor, or a decently thick tree-trunk,) and Macahuitils, which were perfectly capable of killing a man or horse.
As for the Conquistadors, they generally formed an elite corps, or the core of whatever army they were leading at the time, with their cavalry being a major factor. Even then, successful conquistadors were generally a mix of Lucky, ruthless, and devious bastards with a talent for diplomacy, or they resorted to overwhelming force.
Narváez' expeditions to Mexico and Florida illustrate what happened to the would-be conquistadors who weren't the sort of man Cortez and Pizarro were, and relied purely on their assumed overwhelming qualitative superiority.
Depends on what's handy. But flint and obsidian are easy to sharpen, and stay very sharp. Admittedly flint is brittle, but that doesn't matter as much when you're hitting someone straight on with it, and it's protected from shocks along it's weaker axes by a material like Oak or Ironwood.
And when that little bit of obsidian in your macahuitl shatters, you pull it out and replace it with a new piece. It takes maybe an hour plus knapping, tops.
Yeah, look at an actual Macahutil, and then say that.
Both of these probably weigh a good five to ten pounds each, depending on the size and type of wood used. The Average Spada da Lato weighs about a half to a quarter of that. This is one of those places where kinetic energy is the deciding factor.
That depends. from personal experience, I can definitely say Stone knapping is pretty easy once you know what you're doing.
Metalworking requires a lot more infrastructure and materials, plus the specific ores, which aren't really as close to the surface in the Americas. Also, it takes a hell of a lot of wood to burn as fuel, either straight for bronze production, or to make charcoal. In the most advanced parts of the Americas that wasn't really an option without the means of hauling several tons of wood over a mountain range or two, or from the coast.
Working precious metals and making Alloys like Tumbaga OTOH was worth enough to make procuring the smaller quantities of wood needed to do it practical.
twovultures
Donor
Almost every time they faced the Natives, the Conquistadors killed them in far higher numbers than they themselves suffered casualties. Native arrows could penetrate quilted armor, but it was useless against plate armor. It's why they were so effective. Yes, they needed Native auxiliaries, but they functioned so well as an elite corps precisely because they were much, much more lethal than the Native American soldiers they encountered. Even the 'failed' expeditions such as that of Narvaez left behind far more Indian bodies than Spanish ones. Their failure was not due to the effectiveness of stone tools, but to their own mistake of not recruiting enough reliable Native allies.
If stone is so easy to work with and so much more lethal than the metal sword than why, pray tell, did the Old World abandon the use of stone weapons? Were Ancient Greeks, Chinese and Indians such idiots that they decided to turn to inferior swords over superior stone-knapping? And how utterly incompetent could the Native Americans from Alaska to Patagonia be, that nation after nation toppled over despite being armed with such amazingly effective stone weapons?
Ultimately, the 'clean cut' of the sword is much more deadly than the 'rough cut' of stone, for the same reason that bullets are more lethal than metal swords despite leaving smaller external wounds. The ability to penetrate deeply into the body and puncture vital organs makes for a deadlier weapon, which is why I would much rather be slashed by one of these macahutils than stabbed by a rapier.
If stone is so easy to work with and so much more lethal than the metal sword than why, pray tell, did the Old World abandon the use of stone weapons? Were Ancient Greeks, Chinese and Indians such idiots that they decided to turn to inferior swords over superior stone-knapping? And how utterly incompetent could the Native Americans from Alaska to Patagonia be, that nation after nation toppled over despite being armed with such amazingly effective stone weapons?
Ultimately, the 'clean cut' of the sword is much more deadly than the 'rough cut' of stone, for the same reason that bullets are more lethal than metal swords despite leaving smaller external wounds. The ability to penetrate deeply into the body and puncture vital organs makes for a deadlier weapon, which is why I would much rather be slashed by one of these macahutils than stabbed by a rapier.
twovultures
Donor
Yes, but bullets that leave small wounds will kill you anyway.
Put it another way: If I got slashed with broken glass across the chest, I'm in very big trouble. In the long run, severed muscles and nerves are going to make life difficult for me, and in the short run, I'm at risk of bleeding to death.
However, most of the damage caused by this glass is shallow. The wound is relatively easy to suture/compress, so if I can get to someone with basic medical knowledge, I have a better chance of living than if someone stabbed me in the lower back with a switchblade and punctured my kidneys.
The latter wound is much smaller than the hypothetical slash across the chest, but is much more lethal. The shock of having the organ punctured, the internal (and therefore harder to prevent) bleeding, and whatever toxic effects of having urea now flow into my bloodstream make the smaller switchblade puncture more lethal than the larger cut across my chest.