The Iron Age is the archaeological period generally occurring after the Bronze Age, marked by the prevalent use of iron. The early period of the age is characterized by the widespread use of iron or steel. The adoption of such material coincided with other changes in society, including differing agricultural practices, religious beliefs and artistic styles. The Iron Age as an archaeological term indicates the condition as to civilization and culture of a people using iron as the material for their cutting tools and weapons.^[1] The Iron Age is the third principal period of the three-age system created by Christian Jürgensen Thomsen for classifying ancient societies and prehistoric stages of progress.^[2]

In historical archaeology, the ancient literature of the Iron Age includes the earliest texts preserved in manuscript tradition. Sanskrit literature and Chinese literature flourished in the Age. Other text includes the Avestan Gathas, the Indian Vedas and the oldest parts of the Hebrew Bible. The principal feature that distinguishes the Iron Age from the preceding ages is the introduction of alphabetic characters, and the consequent development of written language which enabled literature and historic record.^[1]

The beginning of the Iron Age in Europe and adjacent areas is characterized by certain forms of implements, weapons, personal ornaments, and pottery, and also by systems of decorative design, which are altogether different from those of the preceding age of bronze.^[1] The work of blacksmiths^[3]—developing implements and weapons—is hammered into shape, and, as a consequence, gradually departed from the stereotyped forms of their predecessors in bronze, which were cast, and the system of decoration, which in the Bronze Age consisted chiefly of a repetition of rectilinear patterns, gave way to a system of curvilinear and flowing designs.^{[clarification needed][1]} The term "Iron Age" has low chronological value, because it didn't begin simultaneously across the entire world.^[4] The dates and context vary depending on the region, and the sequence of ages is not necessarily true for every part of the earth's surface. There are areas, such as the islands of the South Pacific, the interior of Africa, and parts of North and South America, where peoples have passed directly from the use of stone to the use of iron without the intervention of an age of bronze.^[1]

Chronology[link]

Modern archaeological evidence identifies the start of iron production as taking place in Anatolia around 1200 BC, though some contemporary archaeological evidence points to earlier dates. Around 3000 BC, iron was a scarce and precious metal in the Near East.^{[clarification needed]} Iron's qualities, in contrast to those of bronze, were not understood. Between 1200 BC and 1000 BC, diffusion in the understanding of iron metallurgy and utilization of iron objects was fast and far-flung. In the history of ferrous metallurgy, iron smelting — the extraction of usable metal from oxidized iron ores — is more difficult than tin and copper smelting. These other metals and their alloys can be cold-worked, or melted in simple pottery kilns and cast in molds; but smelted iron requires hot-working and can be melted only in specially designed furnaces. It is therefore not surprising that humans only mastered iron smelting after several millennia of bronze metallurgy.

Lack of archaeological evidence of iron production made it seem unlikely that it had begun earlier elsewhere, and the Iron Age was seen as a case of simple diffusion of a new and superior technology from an invention point in the Near East to other regions. It is now known that meteoric iron, or iron-nickel alloy, was used by various ancient peoples thousands of years before the Iron Age. Such iron, being in its native metallic state, required no smelting of ores.^[5][6] By the Middle Bronze Age, increasing numbers of smelted iron objects (distinguishable from meteoric iron by the lack of nickel in the product) appeared in the Middle East, Southeast Asia, and South Asia.

Iron in its natural form is barely harder than bronze, and is not useful for tools unless combined with carbon to make steel. The percentage of carbon determines important characteristics of the final product: the more carbon, the harder the steel. The systematic production and use of iron implements in Anatolia began around 2000 BC.^[7] Recent archaeological research in the Ganges Valley, India showed early iron working by 1800 BC.^[8] However, this metal was expensive, perhaps because of the complications of steel-making. It is attested in both documents and archaeology as a material for precious items such as jewellery.

Snodgrass^[9][10] suggests that a shortage of tin, as a part of the Bronze Age Collapse and trade disruptions in the Mediterranean around 1300 BC, forced metalworkers to seek an alternative to bronze. As evidence, many bronze implements were recycled into weapons during this time. More widespread use of iron led to improved steel-making technology at lower cost. Thus, even when tin became available again, iron was cheaper, stronger, and lighter, and forged iron implements superseded cast bronze tools permanently.^[11]

Recent archaeological work has modified not only the above chronology, but also the causes of the transition from bronze to iron. New dates from India suggest that iron was being worked there as early as 1800 BC, and African sites are turning up dates as early as 1200 BC,^[12][13][14] confounding the idea that there was a simple discovery and diffusion model. Increasingly, the Iron Age in Europe is being seen as a part of the Bronze Age collapse in the ancient Near East, in ancient India (with the post-Rigvedic Vedic civilization), ancient Iran, and ancient Greece (with the Greek Dark Ages). In other regions of Europe, the Iron Age began in the 8th century BC in Central Europe and the 6th century BC in Northern Europe. The Near Eastern Iron Age is divided into two subsections, Iron I and Iron II. Iron I (1200–1000 BC) illustrates both continuity and discontinuity with the previous Late Bronze Age. There is no definitive cultural break between the 13th and 12th century BC throughout the entire region, although certain new features in the hill country, Transjordan, and coastal region may suggest the appearance of the Aramaean and Sea People groups. There is evidence, however, that shows strong continuity with Bronze Age culture, although as one moves later into Iron I the culture begins to diverge more significantly from that of the late 2nd millennium.

History[link]

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During the Iron Age, the best tools and weapons were made from steel, particularly alloys which were produced with a carbon content between approximately 0.30% and 1.2% by weight. Alloys with less carbon than this, such as wrought iron, cannot be heat treated to a significant degree and will consequently be of low hardness, while a higher carbon content creates an extremely hard but brittle material that cannot be annealed, tempered, or otherwise softened. Steel weapons and tools were nearly the same weight as those of bronze, but stronger. However, steel was difficult to produce with the methods available, and alloys that were easier to make, such as wrought iron,^[15] were more common in lower-priced goods. Many techniques have been used to create steel; Mediterranean ones differ dramatically from African ones, for example. Sometimes the final product is all steel, sometimes techniques like case hardening or forge welding were used to make cutting edges stronger.

Near East[link]

Southeast Asia / Middle East

In Chaldaea and Assyria, the initial use of iron reaches far back, to perhaps 4000 BC.^[4] One of the earliest smelted iron artifacts known is a dagger with an iron blade found in a Hattic tomb in Anatolia, dating from 2500 BC.^[16] The widespread use of iron weapons which replaced bronze weapons rapidly disseminated throughout the Near East (southwest Asia) by the beginning of the 1st millennium BC.

Near East timeline[link]

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Dates are approximate, consult particular article for details

         Prehistoric (or Proto-historic) Iron Age      Historic Iron Age

Ancient Near East[link]

The Iron Age in the Ancient Near East is believed to have begun with the discovery of iron smelting and smithing techniques in Anatolia or the Caucasus and Balkans in the late 2nd millennium BC (c. 1300 BC).^[18] However, this theory has been challenged by the emergence of those placing the transition in price and availability issues rather than the development of technology on its own. The earliest bloomery smelting of iron is found at Tell Hammeh, Jordan around 930 BC (C14 dating).

The development of iron smelting was once attributed to the Hittites of Anatolia during the Late Bronze Age. It was believed that they maintained a monopoly on ironworking, and that their empire had been based on that advantage.^[19] Accordingly, the invading Sea Peoples were responsible for spreading the knowledge through that region. This theory is no longer held in the common current thought of the majority of scholarship,^[20] since there is no archaeological evidence of the alleged Hittite monopoly. While there are some iron objects from Bronze Age Anatolia, the number is comparable to iron objects found in Egypt and other places of the same time period; and only a small number of these objects are weapons.^[21] As part of the Late Bronze Age-Early Iron Age, the Bronze Age collapse saw the slow, comparatively continuous spread of iron-working technology in the region. The Ugaritic script was in use during this time, around 1300 BC. Ugarit was one of the centres of the literate world.

Assyro-Babylonian literature, written in the Akkadian language, of Mesopotamia (Assyria and Babylonia) continues into the Iron Age up until the 6th centuries BC. The oldest Phoenician alphabet inscription is the Ahiram epitaph, engraved on the sarcophagus of King Ahiram from circa 1200 BC.^[22] It has become conventional to refer to the alphabetic script as "Proto-Canaanite" until the mid-11th century BC, when it is first attested on inscribed bronze arrowheads, and as "Phoenician" only after 1050 BC.^[23] The Paleo-Hebrew alphabet is identical to the Phoenician alphabet and dates to the 10th century BC.

Europe[link]

In Europe, the use of iron covers the last years of the prehistoric period and the early years of the historic period.^[4] The regional Iron Age may be defined as including the last stages of the prehistoric period and the first of the proto-historic periods.^[1] Iron working was introduced to Europe in the late 11th century BC,^[24] probably from the Caucasus, and slowly spread northwards and westwards over the succeeding 500 years. The widespread use of the technology of iron was implemented in Europe simultaneously with Asia.^[25]

The usage of iron in northern Europe would seem to have been fairly general long before the invasion of Caesar. But iron was not in common use in Denmark until the 1st century AD. In the north of Russia and Siberia, its introduction was even as late as AD 800, whereas Ireland entered its Iron Age about the beginning of the 1st century. In Gaul, on the other hand, the Iron Age dates back some 500 years BC; whereas in Etruria the metal was known some six centuries earlier.^[4] As the knowledge of iron seems to have travelled over Europe from the south northward, the commencement of the Iron Age was very much earlier in the southern than in the northern countries. Homer represents Greece as beginning her Iron Age twelve hundred years before the Common era. Greece, as represented in the Homeric poems, was then in the transition period from bronze to iron, while Scandinavia was only entering its Iron Age about the time of the Common era.^[4]

The Iron Age in Europe is characterized by an elaboration of designs in weapons, implements, and utensils.^[4] These are no longer cast but hammered into shape, and decoration is elaborate curvilinear rather than simple rectilinear; the forms and character of the ornamentation of the northern European weapons resembles in some respects Roman arms, while in other respects they are peculiar and evidently representative of northern art. The dead were buried in an extended position, whereas in the preceding Bronze Age cremation had been the rule.

European timeline[link]

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Dates are approximate, consult particular article for details

         Prehistoric (or Proto-historic) Iron Age      Historic Iron Age

Eastern Europe[link]

The early 1st millennium BC marks the Iron Age in Eastern Europe. In the Pontic steppe and the Caucasus region, the Iron Age begins with the Koban and the Chernogorovka and Novocherkassk cultures from c. 900 BC. By 800 BC, it was spreading to Hallstatt C via the alleged "Thraco-Cimmerian" migrations.

Along with Chernogorovka and Novocherkassk cultures, on the territory of ancient Russia and Ukraine the Iron Age is to a significant extent associated with Scythians, who developed iron culture since the 7th century BC. The majority of remains of their iron producing and blacksmith's industries from 5th to 3rd century BC was found near Nikopol in Kamenskoe Gorodishche, which is believed to be the specialized metallurgic region of the ancient Scythia.^[26][27]

From the Hallstatt culture, the Iron Age spreads west with the Celtic expansion from the 6th century BC. In Poland, the Iron Age reaches the late Lusatian culture in about the 6th century, followed in some areas by the Pomeranian culture.

The ethnic ascriptions of many Iron Age cultures has been bitterly contested, as the roots of Germanic, Baltic and Slavic peoples were sought in this area.

Central Europe[link]

In Central Europe, the Iron Age is generally divided in the early Iron Age Hallstatt culture (HaC and D, 800–450) and the late Iron Age La Tène culture (beginning in 450 BC). The transition from bronze to iron in Central Europe is exemplified in the great cemetery, discovered in 1846, of Hallstatt, near Gmunden, where the forms of the implements and weapons of the later part of the Bronze Age are imitated in iron. In the Swiss or La Tene group of implements and weapons the forms are new and transition complete.^[1]

The Celtic culture, or rather Proto-Celtic groups, had expanded to much of Central Europe, (Gauls) and following the Gallic invasion of the Balkans in 279 BC as far east as central Anatolia (Galatians). In Central Europe, the prehistoric Iron Age ends with the Roman Conquest.

Aegean[link]

In the Greek Dark Ages, there was a widespread availability of edged weapons of iron, but a variety of explanations fits the available archaeological evidence. From around 1200 BC, the palace centres and outlying settlements of the Mycenaean culture began to be abandoned or destroyed, and by 1050 BC, the recognisable cultural features (such as Linear B script) had disappeared.

The Greek alphabet began in the 8th century BC.^[28] It is descended from the Phoenician alphabet. The Greeks adapted the system, notably introducing characters for vowel sounds and thereby creating the first truly alphabetic (as opposed to abjad) writing system. As Greece sent out colonies west towards Sicily and Italy (Pithekoussae, Cumae), the influence of their alphabet extended further. The ceramic Euboean artifact inscribed with a few lines written in the Greek alphabet referring to "Nestor's cup", discovered in a grave at Pithekoussae (Ischia) dates from c. 730 BC; it seems to be the oldest written reference to the Iliad. The fragmentary Epic Cycles, a collection of Ancient Greek epic poems that related the story of the Trojan War, were a distillation in literary form of an oral tradition developed during the Greek Dark Age. The traditional material from which the literary epics were drawn treats the Mycenaean Bronze Age culture from the perspective of Iron Age and later Greece.

Southern Europe[link]

In Italy, the Iron Age was probably introduced by the Villanovan culture but this culture is otherwise considered a Bronze Age culture, while the following Etruscan civilization is regarded as part of Iron Age proper. The Etruscans Old Italic alphabet spread throughout Italy from the 8th century. The Etruscan Iron Age was then ended with the rise and conquest of the Roman Republic, which conquered the last Etruscan city of Velzna in 265 BC.

Western Europe[link]

Hill forts spread across Europe in the Iron Age and Maiden Castle in England is one of the largest.^[29][30] Photograph taken in 1935 by Major George Allen (1891–1940).

The 'Celtic' culture had expanded to the group of islands of northwest Europe (Insular Celts) and Iberia (Celtiberians, Celtici and Gallaeci). On the British Isles, the British Iron Age lasted from about 800 BC^[31] until the Roman Conquest and until the 5th century in non-Romanised parts. Structures dating from this time are often impressive, for example the brochs and duns of northern Scotland and the hill forts that dotted the islands. On the Iberian peninsula, the Paleohispanic scripts began to be used between 7th century to the 5th century BC. These scripts were used until the end of the 1st century BC or the beginning of the 1st century AD.

Northern Europe[link]

The early Iron Age forms of Scandinavia show no traces of Roman influence, though these become abundant toward the middle of the period. The duration of the Iron Age is variously estimated according as its commencement is placed nearer to or farther from the opening years of the Christian era; but it is agreed on all hands that the last division of the Iron Age of Scandinavia, the Viking Period, is to be taken as from 700 to 1000 AD, when paganism in those lands was superseded by Christianity.^[1]

The Iron Age north of the Alps is divided into the Pre-Roman Iron Age and the Roman Iron Age. In Scandinavia, further periods followed up to AD 1100: the Migration Period, the Vendel or Merovingian Period and the Viking Period. The earliest part of the Iron Age in north-western Germany and southern Jutland was dominated by the Jastorf culture.

Early Scandinavian iron production typically involved the harvesting of bog iron. The Scandinavian peninsula, Finland and Estonia show sophisticated iron production from c. 500 BC. Metalworking and Asbestos-Ceramic pottery co-occur to some extent. Another iron ore used was iron sand (such as red soil). Its high phosphorus content can be identified in slag. Such slag is sometimes found together with asbestos ware-associated axe types belonging to the Ananjino Culture.

Asia[link]

The widespread use of the technology of iron was implemented in Asia simultaneously with Europe.^[32] In China, the use of iron reaches far back, to perhaps 4000 years before the Common era.^[4]

Central Asia[link]

The Iron Age in Central Asia began when iron objects appear among the Indo-European Saka in present-day Xinjiang between the 10th century BC and the 7th century BC, such as those found at the cemetery site of Chawuhukou.^[33]

North Asia[link]

The Pazyryk culture is an Iron Age archaeological culture (ca. 6th to 3rd centuries BC) identified by excavated artifacts and mummified humans found in the Siberian permafrost in the Altay Mountains.

South Asia[link]

South Asia timeline[link]

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Dates are approximate, consult particular article for details

         Prehistoric (or Proto-historic) Iron Age      Historic Iron Age

Indian subcontinent[link]

The history of metallurgy in the Indian subcontinent began during the 2nd millennium BC. Archaeological sites in India, such as Malhar, Dadupur, Raja Nala Ka Tila and Lahuradewa in present day Uttar Pradesh show iron implements in the period 1800 BC – 1200 BC.^[8] Archaeological excavations in Hyderabad show an iron age burial site.^[34] Rakesh Tewari^[35] believes that around the beginning of the Indian Iron Age (13th century BC), iron smelting was widely practiced in India. Such use suggests that the date of the technology's inception may be around the 16th century BC.^[8]

Epic India is traditionally placed around early 10th century BC and later on from the Sanskrit epics of Sanskrit literature. Composed between approximately 1500 BC and 600 BC of pre-classical Sanskrit, the Vedic literature forms four Vedas (the Rig, Yajur, Sāma and Atharva). The main period of Vedic literary activity is the 9th to 7th centuries when the various schools of thought compiled and memorized their respective corpora. Following this, the scholarship around 500 to 100 BC organized knowledge into Sutra treatises.

The beginning of the 1st millennium BC saw extensive developments in iron metallurgy in India. Technological advancement and mastery of iron metallurgy was achieved during this period of peaceful settlements. One iron working centre in east India has been dated to the first millennium BC.^[36] In Southern India (present day Mysore) iron appeared as early as 12th to 11th centuries BC; these developments were too early for any significant close contact with the northwest of the country.^[36] The Indian Upanishads mention metallurgy.^[37] and the Indian Mauryan period saw advances in metallurgy.^[38] As early as 300 BC, certainly by AD 200, high quality steel was produced in southern India, by what would later be called the crucible technique. In this system, high-purity wrought iron, charcoal, and glass were mixed in crucible and heated until the iron melted and absorbed the carbon.^[39]

Sri Lanka[link]

The protohistoric Early Iron Age in Sri Lanka lasted from 1000 to 600 BC. Radiocarbon evidence has been collected from Anuradhapura and Aligala shelter in Sigiriya.^{[40][41][42][43]} The Anuradhapura settlement is recorded to extend 10 hectares by 800 BC and grew to 50 hectares by 700 - 600 BC to become a town.^[44] The skeletal remains of an Early Iron Age chief was excavated in Anaikoddai, Jaffna. The name 'Ko Veta' is engraved in Brahmi script on a seal buried with the skeleton and is assigned by the excavators to the 3rd century BC. Ko, meaning "King" in Tamil, is comparable to such names as Ko Atan and Ko Putivira occurring in contemporary Brahmi inscriptions in south India.^[45] It is also speculated that Early Iron Age sites may exist in Kandarodai, Matota, Pilapitiya and Tissamaharama.^[46]

East Asia[link]

East Asia timeline[link]

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Dates are approximate, consult particular article for details

         Prehistoric (or Proto-historic) Iron Age      Historic Iron Age

China[link]

In China, Chinese bronze inscriptions are found around 1200 BC. The development of iron metallurgy was transpired by the 9th century BC.^[47][48] The large seal script is identified with a group of characters from a book entitled Shĭ Zhoù Piān (ca. 800 BC). Iron metallurgy reached the Yangzi Valley toward the end of the 6th century BC.^[49] The few objects were found at Changsha and Nanjing. The mortuary evidence suggests that the initial use of iron in Lingnan belongs to the mid-to-late Warring States period (from about 350 BC). Important non-precious husi style metal finds include Iron tools found at the Tomb at Ku-wei ts'un of the fourth century BC..^[50]

The techniques used in Lingnan are a combination of bivalve moulds of distinct southern tradition and the incorporation of piece mould technology from the Zhongyuan. The products of the combination of these two periods are bells, vessels, weapons and ornaments and the sophisticated cast.

An Iron Age culture of the Tibetan Plateau has tentatively been associated with the Zhang Zhung culture described in early Tibetan writings.

Korea[link]

Silla chest and neck armour from National Museum of Korea.

Iron objects were introduced to the Korean peninsula through trade with chiefdoms and state-level societies in the Yellow Sea area in the 4th century BC, just at the end of the Warring States Period but before the Western Han Dynasty began.^[51][52] Yoon proposes that iron was first introduced to chiefdoms located along North Korean river valleys that flow into the Yellow Sea such as the Cheongcheon and Taedong Rivers.^[53] Iron production quickly followed in the 2nd century BC, and iron implements came to be used by farmers by the 1st century in southern Korea.^[51] The earliest known cast-iron axes in southern Korea are found in the Geum River basin. The time that iron production begins is the same time that complex chiefdoms of Proto-historic Korea emerged. The complex chiefdoms were the precursors of early states such as Silla, Baekje, Goguryeo, and Gaya^[52][54] Iron ingots were an important mortuary item and indicated the wealth or prestige of the deceased in this period.^[55]

Japan[link]

Iron items, such as tools, weapons, and decorative objects, are postulated to have entered Japan during the late Yayoi period (c. 300 BC to AD 300)^[56] or the succeeding Kofun period (c. AD 250 to AD 538), most likely through contacts with the Korean Peninsula and China.

Distinguishing characteristics of the Yayoi period include the appearance of new pottery styles and the start of an intensive rice agriculture in paddy fields. Yayoi culture flourished in a geographic area from southern Kyūshū to northern Honshū. The Kofun and the subsequent Asuka periods are sometimes referred to collectively as the Yamato period; The word kofun is Japanese for the type of burial mounds dating from that era.

Africa[link]

In Africa, where there was no continent-wide universal Bronze Age, the use of iron succeeded immediately the use of stone.^[4] Metallurgy was characterized by the absence of a Bronze Age, and the transition from "stone to steel" in tool substances. Sub-Saharan Africa has produced very early instances of carbon steel found to be in production around 2000 years before present in northwest Tanzania, based on complex preheating principles. Nubia was one of the relatively few places in Africa to have a sustained Bronze Age along with Egypt and much of the rest of North Africa. The Meroitic script was developed in the Napatan Period (c. 700–300 BC).

Africa timeline[link]

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 from: -1292 till: -1070 text:Ramesside
 from: -1070 till: -700 text:Ancient Egypt
 from: -700 till: 1 text:Kingdom of Kush
 bar:N.Africa color:Filler
 from: 1 till: 500 text:Aksumite Empire
 bar:Africa color:era
 from: -1000 till: 500 shift:(-50,5) text:African Iron Age
 from: -1000 till: -500 shift:(-50,5) text:Sub-Saharan Africa
 from: -1000 till: -500 text:Nok
 from: -1000 till: 500 text:Bantu expansion

</timeline>

Dates are approximate, consult particular article for details

         Prehistoric (or Proto-historic) Iron Age      Historic Iron Age

Ancient Egypt[link]

In the Black Pyramid of Abusir, at least 3000 BC, Gaston Maspero found some pieces of iron, and in the funeral text of Pepi I, the metal is mentioned. ^[4] A sword bearing the name of pharaoh Merneptah as well as a battle axe with an iron blade and gold-decorated bronze shaft were both found in the excavation of Ugarit.^[57]

Iron metal is singularly scarce in collections of Egyptian antiquities. Bronze remained the primary material there until the conquest by Assyria. The explanation of this would seem to lie in the fact that the relics are in most cases the paraphernalia of tombs, the funereal vessels and vases, and iron being considered an impure metal by the ancient Egyptians it was never used in their manufacture of these or for any religious purposes. It was attributed to Seth, the spirit of evil who according to Egyptian tradition governed the central deserts of Africa.^[4]

Sub-Saharan[link]

Iron Age finds in East and Southern Africa, corresponding to the early 1st millennium Bantu expansion.

Discoveries of very early copper and bronze working sites in Niger, however, can still support that iron working may have developed in that region and spread elsewhere. Iron metallurgy has been attested very early, the earliest instances of iron smelting in Termit, Niger may date to as early as 1200 BC.^[12] It was once believed that iron and copper working in Sub-Saharan Africa spread in conjunction with the Bantu expansion, from the Cameroon region to the African Great Lakes in the 3rd century BC, reaching the Cape around AD 400.^[12]

Sub-Saharan Africa has produced very early instances of carbon steel found to be in production around 2000 years before present in northwest Tanzania, based on complex preheating principles. These discoveries, according to Schmidt and Avery (archaeologists credited with the discovery) are significant for the history of metallurgy.^[58]

At the end of the Iron Age, Nubia became a major manufacturer and exporter of iron. This was after being expelled from Egypt by Assyrians, who used iron weapons.^[59]

Indian subcontinent[link]

India timeline[link]

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 from: -700  till: -300 text:Maha Janapadas
 bar:Magadha color:era
 from: -684  till: -424 text:Magadha Empire
 bar:Nanda color:era
 from: -424  till: -321 text:Nanda Empire
 bar:Maurya  color:era
 from: -321 till: -272 text:Maurya Empire

</timeline>

Dates are approximate, consult particular article for details

         Prehistoric (or Proto-historic) Iron Age      Historic Iron Age

Gallery[link]

See also[link]

General

Fogou

Lists

List of archaeological periods, List of archaeological sites

Metallurgy

Blast furnace, Roman metallurgy

Other

Synoptic table of the principal old world prehistoric cultures

Further reading[link]

• Waldbaum, Jane C. From Bronze to Iron. Göteburg: Paul Astöms Förlag (1978): 56-8

References[link]

External links[link]

General

• A site with a focus on Iron Age Britain from resourcesforhistory.com
• About Iron Age China and Europe

Publications

• Andre Gunder Frank and William R. Thompson, Early Iron Age economic expansion and contraction revisited. American Institute of Archaeology, San Francisco, Ca., January, 2004.

News

• Mass burial suggests massacre at Iron Age hill fort. Archaeologists have found evidence of a massacre linked to Iron Age warfare at a hill fort in Derbyshire. BBC. 17 April 2011

Yu Dafu
Born	(1896-12-07)December 7, 1896 Fuyang, Zhejiang, China
Died	September 17, 1945(1945-09-17) (aged 48)
Occupation	Short Story writer and Poet

Yu Dafu (simplified Chinese: 郁达夫; traditional Chinese: 郁達夫; pinyin: Yù Dáfū; Wade–Giles: Yu Ta-fu) (December 7, 1896—September 17, 1945). Born in Fuyang, Hangzhou, Zhejiang, was a modern Chinese short story writer and poet.

Early years[link]

Yu Dafu's father died when he was three, leaving the family poverty-stricken and destitute. He received a number of scholarships through the Chinese government and went on to receive a traditional Chinese education in Hangzhou. Chronologically he studied in Jiangxing-Fu Middle School (before he came to Hangzhou), Hangzhou-Fu Middle School, Yuying Academy^[1] (育英学堂, formerly of Zhejiang University).

In 1912, he entered Hangchow University (later its major part merged into Zhejiang University) preparatory through examination. He was there only for a short period before he was expelled for participation in a student strike.^[2]

He then moved to Japan, where he studied economics at the Tokyo Imperial University between 1913 and 1922, where he met other Chinese intellectuals (namely, Guo Moruo, Zhang Ziping and Tian Han). Together, in 1921 they founded the Chuangzao she 創造社 ("Creation Society"), which promoted vernacular and modern literature. One of his earlier works Chenlun 沉淪, also his most famous, published in Japan in 1921. The work had gained immense popularity in China, shocking the world of Chinese literature with its frank dealing with sex, as well as grievances directed at the incompetence of Chinese government at the time.

In 1922, he returned to China as a literary celebrity and worked as the editor of Creation Quarterly, editing journals and writing short stories. In 1923, after an attack of tuberculosis, Yu Dafu directed his attention to the welfare of the masses.

In 1927, he worked as an editor of the Hongshui literary magazine. He later came in conflict with the Communist Party of China and fled back to Japan.

Second Sino-Japanese war[link]

After the start of the Second Sino-Japanese war, he returned to China and worked as a writer of anti-Japanese propaganda in Hangzhou, and later in Zhejiang. From 1938 to 1942, he worked as a literary editor for the newspaper Sin Chew Jit Poh in Singapore.

In 1942 when the Imperial Japanese Army invaded Singapore, he was forced to flee to Sumatra. Known under a different identity, he settled there among other overseas Chinese and began a brewery business with the help of the locals. Later he was forced to help the Japanese military police as an interpreter when it was discovered that he was one of the few "locals" in the area who could speak Japanese.

In 1945, he was arrested by the Kempeitai when his true identity was finally discovered. It is believed that he was executed by the Japanese shortly after the surrender of Japan.

Works[link]

• Chenlun 沉淪 "Sinking" (1921)
• Riji jiuzhong 日記九種 “Nine Diaries” (1927)
• Guoqu 過去 “The Past" (1927)
• his first novel?? (1928) (moderately successful)
• his second novel?? (1932)
• Chuben 出奔 "Flight" (1935)

His most popular work, breaking all Chinese sales records, was Jih-chi chiu-chung "Nine Diaries", which detailed his affair with the writer Wang Ying-hsin. The most critically acclaimed work is Kuo-ch'u or "The Past", written in 1927.^{[citation needed]}

References[link]

• Encyclopædia Britannica 2005 Ultimate Reference Suite DVD, article- "Yü Ta-fu"

External links[link]

• Works by Yu Dafu at Project Gutenberg

This article is about Fred Hampton, Sr. For his son, see Fred Hampton, Jr.

Fred Hampton (August 30, 1948 – December 4, 1969) was an African-American activist and deputy chairman of the Illinois chapter of the Black Panther Party (BPP). He was killed in his apartment during a raid by a tactical unit of the Cook County, Illinois State's Attorney's Office (SAO), in conjunction with the Chicago Police Department (CPD) and the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI). Hampton's death was chronicled in the 1971 documentary film The Murder of Fred Hampton, as well as an episode of the critically acclaimed documentary series Eyes on the Prize.^[1]

Youth[link]

Hampton was born on August 30, 1948, in present day Summit, Illinois and grew up in Maywood, a suburb to the west of the city. His parents had moved north from Louisiana, and both worked at the Argo Starch Company. As a youth, Hampton was gifted both in the classroom and on the athletic field, having a strong desire to play center field for the New York Yankees, and graduating from Proviso East High School with honors in 1966.

Following his graduation Hampton enrolled at Triton Junior College in nearby River Grove, Illinois, majoring in pre-law. He studied law to become more familiar with the law, using it as a defense against police. He and fellow Black Panthers would follow police, watching out for police brutality using this knowledge of law as a defense. He also became active in the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), assuming leadership of the Youth Council of the organization's West Suburban Branch. In his capacity as an NAACP youth organizer, Hampton began to show signs of his natural leadership abilities; from a community of 27,000, he was able to muster a youth group 500-members strong. He worked to get more and better recreational facilities established in the neighborhoods, and to improve educational resources for Maywood's impoverished black community. Through his involvement with the NAACP, Hampton hoped to achieve social change through nonviolent activism and community organizing.^[2]

Chicago[link]

About the same time that Hampton was successfully organizing young African Americans for the NAACP, the Black Panther Party (BPP) started rising to national prominence. Hampton was quickly attracted to the Black Panthers' approach, which was based on a ten-point program of a mix of black self-determination and certain elements of Maoism. Hampton joined the Party and relocated to downtown Chicago, and in November 1968 he joined the Party's nascent Illinois chapter — founded by Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) organizer Bob Brown in late 1967.

Over the next year, Hampton and his associates made a number of significant achievements in Chicago. Perhaps his most important accomplishment was his brokering of a nonaggression pact between Chicago's most powerful street gangs. Emphasizing that racial and ethnic conflict between gangs would only keep its members entrenched in poverty, Hampton strove to forge a class-conscious, multi-racial alliance between the BPP, the Young Patriots Organization and the National Young Lords under the leadership of Jose Cha Cha Jimenez. Later they were joined by the Students for a Democratic Society, the Blackstone Rangers, the Brown Berets and the Red Guard Party.^[3][4] In May 1969, Hampton called a press conference to announce that a truce had been declared among this "rainbow coalition," a phrase coined by Hampton and made popular over the years by Rev. Jesse Jackson, who eventually appropriated the name in forming his own unrelated coalition, Rainbow PUSH.

Hampton's organizing skills, substantial oratorical gifts, and personal charisma allowed him to rise quickly in the Black Panthers. Once he became leader of the Chicago chapter, he organized weekly rallies, worked closely with the BPP's local People's Clinic, taught political education classes every morning at 6am, and launched a project for community supervision of the police. Hampton was also instrumental in the BPP's Free Breakfast Program. When Brown left the Party with Stokely Carmichael in the FBI-fomented SNCC/Panther split, Hampton assumed chairmanship of the Illinois state BPP, automatically making him a national BPP deputy chairman. As the Panther leadership across the country began to be decimated by the impact of the FBI's COINTELPRO, Hampton's prominence in the national hierarchy increased rapidly and dramatically. Eventually, Hampton was in line to be appointed to the Party's Central Committee's Chief of Staff. He would have achieved this position had it not been for his death on the morning of December 4, 1969.^[3][4]

FBI investigation[link]

While Hampton impressed many of the people with whom he came into contact as an effective leader and talented communicator, those very qualities marked him as a major threat in the eyes of the FBI. It began keeping close tabs on his activities. Subsequent investigations have shown that FBI chief J. Edgar Hoover was determined to prevent the formation of a cohesive Black movement in the United States. Hoover saw the Panthers, and radical coalitions like that forged by Hampton in Chicago, as a frightening stepping stone toward the creation of just such a revolutionary body that could, in its strength, cause a radical change in the U.S. government.^{[citation needed]}

The FBI opened a file on Hampton in 1967 that over the next two years expanded to twelve volumes and over four thousand pages. A wire tap was placed on Hampton's mother's phone in February 1968. By May of that year, Hampton's name was placed on the "Agitator Index" and he would be designated a "key militant leader for Bureau reporting purposes."^{[citation needed]}

In late 1968, the Racial Matters squad of the FBI's Chicago field office brought in an individual named William O'Neal, who had recently been arrested twice, for interstate car theft and impersonating a federal officer. In exchange for dropping the felony charges and a monthly stipend, O'Neal apparently agreed to infiltrate the BPP as a counterintelligence operative.^[5] He joined the Party and quickly rose in the organization, becoming Director of Chapter security and Hampton's bodyguard.^{[citation needed]}

In 1969 the FBI special agent in San Francisco wrote Hoover that his investigation of the Black Panther Party (BPP) revealed that in his city, at least, the Panthers were primarily feeding breakfast to children. Hoover fired back a memo implying the career ambitions of the agent were directly related to his supplying evidence to support Hoover's view that the BPP was "a violence-prone organization seeking to overthrow the Government by revolutionary means".[32]

Hoover was willing to use false claims to attack his political enemies. In one memo he wrote: "Purpose of counterintelligence action is to disrupt the BPP and it is immaterial whether facts exist to substantiate the charge."[33]

By means of anonymous letters, the FBI sowed distrust and eventually instigated a split between the Panthers and the Rangers, with O'Neal himself instigating an armed clash between the two on April 2, 1969. The Panthers became effectively isolated from their powerbase in the ghetto, so the FBI went to work to undermine its ties with other radical organizations. O'Neal was instructed to "create a rift" between the Party and SDS, whose Chicago headquarters was only blocks from that of the Panthers. The Bureau released a batch of racist cartoons in the Panthers' name,^{[citation needed]} aimed at alienating white activists, and launched a disinformation program to forestall the realization of the "Rainbow Coalition." In repeated directives, J. Edgar Hoover demanded that the COINTELPRO personnel "destroy what the [BPP] stands for" and "eradicate its 'serve the people' programs".^{[citation needed]}

On July 16 there was an armed confrontation between party members and the Chicago Police Department, which left one member mortally wounded and six others arrested on serious charges.

On May 26, 1969, Hampton was successfully prosecuted in a case related to a theft in 1967 of $71 worth of Good Humor Bars in Maywood. He was sentenced to two to five years, but he managed to obtain an appeal bond and was released in August.^{[citation needed]}

In early October, Hampton and his girlfriend, Deborah Johnson (now known as Akua Njeri), pregnant with their first child (Fred Hampton, Jr.), rented a four-and-a-half room apartment on 2337 West Monroe Street to be closer to BPP headquarters. O'Neal reported to his superiors that much of the Panthers' "provocative" stockpile of arms was being stored there. In early November, Hampton traveled to California on a speaking engagement to the UCLA Law Students Association. While there, he met with the remaining BPP national hierarchy, who appointed him to the Party's Central Committee. Shortly thereafter he was to assume the position of Chief of Staff and major spokesman.^{[citation needed]}

Killing during Chicago police raid[link]

"We expected about twenty Panthers to be in the apartment when the police raided the place. Only two of those black niggers were killed, Fred Hampton and Mark Clark."

—FBI Special Agent Gregg York ^[6]

"You can kill the revolutionary, but you can't kill the revolution."

— Fred Hampton ^[7]

Fred Hampton was quickly moving up the ranks in the Black Panther Party, and his talent as a political organizer was remarkable.^[3][4]

In 1968 he was on the verge of creating a merger between the BPP and a southside street gang with thousands of members, which would have doubled the size of the national BPP.^[3][4]

In November 1969, Hampton traveled to California, and met with the National BPP leadership at UCLA. It was there that they offered him a position on the Central Committee as the chief of staff, and asked him to serve as the national spokesman for the BPP. While Hampton was out of town two Chicago police officers, John J. Gilhooly and Frank G. Rappaport, were killed in a gun battle with Panthers on the night of November 13. A total of 9 police officers were shot; a 19 year old Panther named Spurgeon Winter Jr. was killed by police and another Panther, Lawrence S. Bell, was charged with murder. In an editorial headlined "No Quarter for Wild Beasts" the Chicago Tribune urged that Chicago police be given the order to approach all Panther suspects prepared to shoot.^[8][9]

The FBI, determined to prevent any enhancement of the effectiveness of BPP leadership, decided to set up an arms raid on Hampton's Chicago apartment. FBI informant William O'Neal provided them with detailed information of Hampton's apartment, including the location of furniture and the bed in which Hampton and his then-pregnant girlfriend slept. An augmented, fourteen-man team of the SAO — Special Prosecutions Unit — was organized for a pre-dawn raid armed with a warrant for illegal weapons.^[3][4]

On the evening of December 3, Hampton taught a political education course at a local church, which was attended by most members. Afterwards, as was typical, several Panthers retired to the Monroe Street apartment to spend the night, including Hampton and Deborah Johnson, Blair Anderson, Doc Satchell, Harold Bell, Verlina Brewer, Louis Truelock, Brenda Harris, and Mark Clark.

Upon arrival, they were met by O'Neal, who had prepared a late dinner which was eaten by the group around midnight. O'Neal had slipped the powerful barbiturate sleep agent, secobarbitol into a drink that was consumed by Hampton during the dinner in order to sedate Hampton so that he would not awaken during the subsequent raid. O'Neal left at this point, and, at about 1:30 a.m., Hampton fell asleep in mid-sentence talking to his mother on the telephone.^{[10][11][12][13]} Although Hampton was not known to take drugs, Cook County chemist Eleanor Berman would report that she ran two separate tests which each showed a powerful barbiturate had been introduced into Hampton's blood. An FBI chemist would later fail to find similar traces, but Berman stood by her findings.^[14]

The raid was organized by the office of Cook County State's Attorney Edward Hanrahan using officers attached to his office.^[15] Hanrahan had recently been the subject of a large amount of public criticism by Hampton, who had made speeches about how Hanrahan's talk about a "war on gangs" was really rhetoric used to enable him to carry out a "war on black youth".^[16]

At 4:00 a.m., the heavily armed police team arrived at the site, dividing into two teams, eight for the front of the building and six for the rear. At 4:45, they stormed in the apartment.

Mark Clark, sitting in the front room of the apartment with a shotgun in his lap, was on security duty. He was killed instantly, firing off a single round which was later determined to be a reflexive reaction in his death convulsions after being shot by the raiding team; this was the only shot the Panthers fired.^[4][17][18]

Automatic gunfire then converged at the head of the bedroom where Hampton slept, unable to wake up as a result of the barbiturates that the FBI infiltrator had slipped into his drink. He was lying on a mattress in the bedroom with his pregnant girlfriend. Two officers found him wounded in the shoulder, and fellow Black Panther Harold Bell reported that he heard the following exchange:

"That's Fred Hampton."

"Is he dead?... Bring him out."

"He's barely alive.

"He'll make it."

Two shots were heard, which it was later discovered were fired point blank in Hampton's head. According to Deborah Johnson, one officer then said:

"He's good and dead now."^[19]

Hampton's body was dragged into the doorway of the bedroom and left in a pool of blood. The officers then directed their gunfire towards the remaining Panthers, who were hiding in another bedroom. They were wounded, then beaten and dragged into the street, where they were arrested on charges of aggravated assault and the attempted murder of the officers. They were each held on US$100,000 bail.

Aftermath[link]

At a press conference the next day, the police announced the arrest team had been attacked by the "violent" and "extremely vicious" Panthers and had defended themselves accordingly. In a second press conference on December 8, the assault team was praised for their "remarkable restraint," "bravery," and "professional discipline" in not killing all the Panthers present. Photographic evidence was presented of "bullet holes" allegedly made by shots fired by the Panthers, but this was soon challenged by reporters (although the Chicago Tribune initially published these photos in support of the police action). An internal investigation was undertaken; the assault team was exonerated of any wrongdoing.

Hampton's funeral was attended by 5,000 people, and he was eulogized by such black leaders as Jesse Jackson and Ralph Abernathy, Martin Luther King's successor as head of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference. In his eulogy, Jackson noted that "when Fred was shot in Chicago, black people in particular, and decent people in general, bled everywhere."

On December 6, members of the Weather Underground destroyed numerous police vehicles in a retaliatory bombing spree at 3600 N. Halsted Street, Chicago.^[20]

Four weeks after witnessing Hampton's death at the hands of the police, Deborah Johnson gave birth to Fred Hampton, Jr.^[21]

Civil rights activists Roy Wilkins and Ramsey Clark (styled as "The Commission of Inquiry into the Black Panthers and the Police") subsequently alleged that the Chicago police had killed Fred Hampton without justification or provocation and had violated the Panthers’ constitutional rights against unreasonable search and seizure.^[2] "The Commission" further alleged that the Chicago Police Department had imposed a summary punishment on the Panthers.^[22]

The federal grand jury did not return any indictment against anyone involved with the planning or execution of the raid. The officers involved in the raid were cleared by a grand jury of any crimes.^[23]

The FBI informant, William O'Neal, later committed suicide after admitting his involvement in setting up the raid.^[14]

Legacy[link]

The families of Hampton and Clark filed a US$47.7 million civil suit against the city, state, and federal governments. The case went to trial before Federal Judge J. Sam Perry. After more than 18 months of testimony and at the close of the Plaintiff's case, Judge Perry dismissed the case. The Plaintiffs appealed and the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit reversed, ordering the case to be retried. More than a decade after the case had been filed, the suit was finally settled for $1.85 Million.^[23] The two families each shared in the settlement.

A 27 minute documentary entitled Death of a Black Panther: The Fred Hampton Story^[24] was used as evidence in the civil suit.

Bernardine Dohrn of the predominantly white Weather Underground group, which had a close relationship with the Black Panthers in Chicago at the time of Hampton's death, said in the 2002 documentary The Weather Underground that the killing of Fred Hampton caused the them to "be more grave, more serious, more determined to raise the stakes, and not just be the white people who wrung their hands when black people were being murdered."^[25]

In 1990, the Chicago City Council passed a resolution declaring "Fred Hampton Day" in honor of the slain leader.^[26]

The Chicago City Council unanimously approved a resolution introduced by former Alderman Madeline Haithcock commemorating Dec. 4, 2004, as "Fred Hampton Day in Chicago." The resolution read in part: "Fred Hampton, who was only 21 years old, made his mark in Chicago history not so much by his death as by the heroic efforts of his life and by his goals of empowering the most oppressed sector of Chicago's Black community, bringing people into political life through participation in their own freedom fighting organization."

A public pool has been named in his honor in his home town of Maywood, Illinois.^[27] On Saturday September 7th, 2007, a bust of Hampton was erected outside the Fred Hampton Family Aquatic Center.^[28]

Jeffrey Haas, author and attorney for the plaintiffs in the federal suit Hampton v. Hanrahan, posited that Chicago was worse off without Hampton.

Haas wrote an account of Hampton's death entitled The Assassination of Fred Hampton: How the FBI and the Chicago Police Murdered a Black Panther.^[14]

Fred Hampton has become very popular in rap music. Jay-Z and Kendrick Lamar have made references to him. On "Watch the Throne," Jay-Z raps, "I arrived on the day Fred Hampton died." This is true, Jay-Z was born the same day that Hampton was killed. On his song "HiiiPower" Kendrick Lamar raps, "This is Fred Hampton on your campus, you can't resist his hiiipower."

Tyler, The Creator and Hodgy Beats reference Fred Hampton in rap songs.

Hip Hop artists Dead Prez mention Fred Hampton a lot in their lyrics and use samples of his speeches in their songs.

Hampton is referred to in Rage Against the Machine's "Down Rodeo"

Controversy[link]

In March 2006, controversy arose when supporters of Hampton's charity work proposed the naming of a Chicago street in honor of the former Black Panther leader. Chicago's chapter of the Fraternal Order of Police opposed this effort.^[30]

References[link]

External links[link]

• The Assassination of Fred Hampton: How the FBI and the Chicago Police Murdered a Black Panther - video report by Democracy Now!
• The Murder of Fred Hampton at the Internet Movie Database (A 1971 documentary film directed by Howard Alk)
• FBI files on Fred Hampton
• From COINTELPRO to the Shadow Government: As Fred Hampton Jr. Is Released From 9 Years of Prison, a Look Back at the Assassination of Fred Hampton. 36:48 real audio. Tape: Fred Hampton, Deborah Johnson. Guests: Fred Hampton Jr., Mutulu Olugabala, Rosa Clemente. Interviewer: Amy Goodman. Democracy Now!. Tuesday, March 5, 2002. Retrieved May 12, 2005.
• "Power Anywhere Where There's People" A Speech By Fred Hampton
• National Young Lords Brief notes on Young Lords origins
• The short film Death of a Black Panther: The Fred Hampton Story is available for free download at the Internet Archive [more]