No Bronze Age

As far as I can find out, there's no theoretical reason the Bronze Age had to happen. So how might history have differed if ironworking had been discovered instead of bronze working, considering that unlike bronze, iron doesn't generally require large scale trade networks?
 
Where do you want iron working to develop early?

Identify the regions that benefited from the bronze trade networks, they now have less development.
 
No copper alloys at all before iron is difficult in Eurasia. Just no prevalence of copper-tin is doable. Develop a Pod and i'll gladly speculate.
 
Does this include the exclusion of the copper age as well? Because Iron has a higher melting point than both copper and tin so without the prior knowledge of how to melt down and forge with either I can’t really see Iron smelting really taking off.
 

TruthfulPanda

Gone Fishin'
Does this include the exclusion of the copper age as well? Because Iron has a higher melting point than both copper and tin so without the prior knowledge of how to melt down and forge with either I can’t really see Iron smelting really taking off.
A circutious route to iron smelting could be through pottery.
 
Have iron working discovered in central Africa, as OTL but a lot earlier. I don't think they had knowledge of Bronze working beforehand. We would probably have an also-Bantu Expansion period, but I'm not sure how early it would cross the Desert. Would iron reach the North via a sea route à l'Arabie or across the Desert by Berber trade. If the latter, Berbers are likely to learn the technique, rather than transport tools, and make iron at the destination. If so, Iron working will be learnt in the Med fairly early on.
 
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No copper alloys at all before iron is difficult in Eurasia. Just no prevalence of copper-tin is doable. Develop a Pod and i'll gladly speculate.
I was thinking in terms of "bronze doesn't become a big thing," since tin's a surprisingly scarce metal. Copper seems to be hard not to develop, considering the First Nations of the Pacific Northwest had it (they used it to make art objects of immense value). As agisXIV says, perhaps iron working is discovered earlier in the history of Abyssinia, and the knowledge spreads by way of the Berbers to the Mediterranean. Now, bronze is still going to be discovered, and used; even today brass and bronze are superior to iron or steel for certain purposes, but iron is more abundant and much more amenable to forging. Bronze is great stuff for casting things.
 

Infinity

Banned
I was thinking in terms of "bronze doesn't become a big thing," since tin's a surprisingly scarce metal. Copper seems to be hard not to develop, considering the First Nations of the Pacific Northwest had it (they used it to make art objects of immense value). As agisXIV says, perhaps iron working is discovered earlier in the history of Abyssinia, and the knowledge spreads by way of the Berbers to the Mediterranean. Now, bronze is still going to be discovered, and used; even today brass and bronze are superior to iron or steel for certain purposes, but iron is more abundant and much more amenable to forging. Bronze is great stuff for casting things.
Does your PoD exclude brass? All it takes is one curious person to mix zinc or tin with copper. Once it's discovered that an alloy of copper is better than copper itself, there will be a strong incentive to experiment with other alloys. Vast trade networks will spark the curiosity of those who are thousands of miles away from the ore. All it takes is one person to melt the zinc from the bronze to make copper and voila a light bulb goes off. Anyone curious enough or accident prone enough to melt zinc from copper will be inclined to see if other metals can be combined with copper. Especially when copper is more abundant than brass obtained by distant trade networks. Suppose this curious or clumsy person lived near tin deposits. They would be likely to desire to see what happens if they put this rare ore in fire or melted copper.

Here's a video that shows zinc being separated from copper:

Other metals obtained through trade networks are gold and silver. Since lead is common and has a low melting point, it has likely been melted as well, perhaps with deleterious results. Nevertheless, melting lead could inspire curiosity as long as it's not indirectly ingested. Once someone has a taste (hopefully not literally, in the case of lead) of metallurgy, they will likely want more. There's something innately human that's attracted to changing the chemical nature of objects with fire.

Therefore, I would think that a PoD which has the iron age predate the bronze age, would also need iron to predate brass. Not sure if silver and gold would need to be skipped as well. Lead isn't as important, but due to it's abundance and far lower melting point than iron, it's inevitable that someone would have melted lead before iron. For obvious reasons though, smelting lead may have done civilization more harm than good. In fact, lead could be the sole reason why metallurgy wasn't mainstream right after fire was discovered. A case of curiosity killed the cat, or at least caused sterility and brain damage. Curiosity over mercury may have held back humanity in the same way as well. Similarly, creating flint pottery is highly toxic. The British had to find out the hard way in the late 18th century when they forged classical sculptures. There may have very well been abundant flint pottery hundreds of thousands of years ago if it hadn't been toxic to breath in. This most important stone for hunting likely was used by curious humans for other persons, with fatal results. Chronic exposure to flint dust, would have impaired humans from being curious about applications of other less utilized materials. Not so much at an individual level, but at a societal level, lead, mercury, and flint would have would have deterred humans from using other materials for abstract purposes.
 

Infinity

Banned
Arsenic - which makes better bronze than tin - was a popular alloy before smiths/smelters worked out that is is Bad! for you ...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arsenical_bronze
Antimonial bronze is another one:

Phosphor bronze and beryllium bronze could have been possible as well. Beryllium bronze could have been used for cutting. Although the melting point of Beryllium is barely lower than iron, so maybe there wouldn't have been much point in creating such an alloy in antiquity. In contrast, phosphorus has a melting point of 111.38F! One of the perks of Phosphor bronze is it's non-toxic. A modern application of phosphor bronze is guitars:
If phosphor bronze is good enough for guitars today, it at least could have had applications in antiquity. Considering phosphorous is one of the most important elements for life life on Earth (it's in DNA and cell membranes), it certainly was abundant enough to have been used by the ancients to smelt phosphor bronze. There's something strangely satisfying, almost poetic, about listening to the last video while typing this btw. I don't normally listen to much music, but the phosphor bronze sounds beautiful. The music sounds even better the second time.

Here's a graph that shows phosphorus is one of the more abundant elements:
2mo8gfr.png
 
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