Two iron technology diffusion routes in Eastern Europe

Abstract

Archaeometallographic data suggest that there were two technological models in Eastern Europe as early as the Bronze Age–Early Iron Age transition period (9th–7th centuries BC). We link their development to two routes via which knowledge of use of ferrous metals diffused from Anatolia. The first route reached the North Caucasus, the second route passed through Greece and the Balkans to Central and Eastern Europe.

Towards a Broader Understanding of the Emergence of Iron Technology in Prehistoric Arctic Fennoscandia

“…the idea of a single centre of invention (from which iron diffused to the rest of the world) and of multiple centres of independent invention (for a review, see Killick & Fenn 2012). In the single invention model, the origin of iron technology is placed in the Near East in the second millennium bc (according to the earliest dated iron objects and written evidence), from where it is assumed to have spread by different routes to central and eastern Europe (Bebermeier et al 2016; Pleiner 2000; Zavyalov & Terekhova 2018), Africa (Killick 2009) and eventually northern Europe and the New World (Buchwald 2005; Charlton et al 2010). The long-lived notions of V. Gordon Childe (1944) have had a profound impact in viewing the Near East as the primary centre of important inventions.…”