The Âge of iron indicates in the beginning one period of the European Protohistoire characterized by the use of the metallurgy of the Fer. The invention of a “Age of iron” is due to the Danish researcher C.J. Thomsen which had in 1816 the intuition of successive employment by the humanity of the stone, bronze and iron, whereas it was to classify the national antiquities.
Today, it is allowed that this period succeeds, in Europe and with the the Middle East, the Bronze Age and precedes the entry by the civilizations concerned in the Histoire. The Age of iron begins towards 1100 av. J. - C in the Mediterranean world and towards 800 with 700 av. J. - C in north from the Europe.
However, as for the other periods of the Prehistory, the chronological limits of the age of iron vary considerably according to the cultural surface and the surface geographical considered. Moreover, certain civilizations never knew Age of iron while knowing very early certain characteristics of an important social development and/or technique. It is for example the case of the Civilizations précolombiennes.
Also, the concept of Age of iron should not get along today like a chronological concept or a stage of evolution, but simply as the index of a technique which influenced and in-depth certain companies durably, in particular in continental Europe.
In particular, appear among civilizations which knew an Age of iron:
- the Achaens (in the antiquated Greece),
- Celtic (whose sites of Hallstatt and Tène are used as reference to the chronology of the Age of iron)
- or the Germanic Civilization (the age of Germanic iron - [[: in: Germanic Iron Old|ref.]]).
Thereafter, the Age of iron was subdivided in two categories, named according to sites éponymes, which correspond in a state of civilization, more than at one period:
Techno-economic complexes of the Age of iron in Europe
In the absence of knowledge extended on the cultural and political whole of the Age of iron, the material culture of European civilizations makes it possible to draw, during this period, of great geographical units inside whose the material of the excavations presents a remarkable homogeneity as well in terms of technique as to the level of the decorations. These techno-economic complex units or persist during the two ages of iron, “dilating and contracting with the liking of the circumstances” (Patrice Brun in the first Age of iron: princes and princesses of Celtic the , Paris, 1987).- the Complex Atlantic: Great Britain, Wallonia, West of the France, Basque Country
- Complex Scandinavian: Flanders, Denmark, Scandinavia
- Complex lusacian: Poland, north of the north-alpine Carpates
- Complex: Lyons, Savoy, the Jura, Swiss (qualified Celtic by Hérodote as of fifth century BC.
- Complex Iberian: Iberian peninsula (except Portugal and Basque Country)
- Complex italic: Italic Peninsula and the Alps of the south
- Complex carpathic: Danubian Basin and Carpates
- Complex Greek: Greece and Crete
See too
Simple: Old Iron
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