Recent comments in /f/history

Khwarezm t1_j61bhvw wrote

Reply to comment by offu in Dozens of pre-Hispanic Zapotec tombs found in San Pedro Nexicho in Mexico by MeatballDom

The Incas held a polity called Tiwanaku in high regard that came before them, even though their own empire had more in common with a different state called the Wari empire.

Tiwanaku is super weird btw, it gets called an empire but it doesn't really seem to have much in common with any other empire that comes to mind, including the Incas, there's not much sign that it was a militaristic state and instead it almost comes across as an extremely popular religious centre.

A good video on the subject.

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War_Hymn t1_j618kz2 wrote

Reply to comment by Ok-Goose-6320 in What's the earliest case of iron-smelting with hard evidence? by Ok-Goose-6320

I mean, it would had been a boast for them technologically as copper/bronze tools would had been very useful for agriculture and craft tools, and they probably could had a good supply of it trading with nearby tribes in the Keweenaw Peninsula (Michigan) where immense deposits of native copper and copper ore are found.

But in the grand scheme of things, I don't think it would had matter. The Mayans, Incans, and other players down south had access to copper/bronze metalworking/smelting technology, but they used it mostly for ornamentation and jewelry. It didn't replace their dominant stone or non-metal tools/weapons. And even if it did, metal tools won't had stop them from falling victim to epidemic diseases like smallpox and tuberculosis introduced by European newcomers, which ultimately what weakened and compromised the stronger states and societies of the New World to a point where the Europeans could subjugate/replace them with ease. The Mississippian cultures fell apart from these diseases before Europeans could even wage war against them.

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War_Hymn t1_j614xq9 wrote

Reply to comment by [deleted] in What's the earliest case of iron-smelting with hard evidence? by Ok-Goose-6320

Yep, that's why I didn't directly say the Hittites had an iron monopoly (the development of iron smelting appears to have predate them), but some small group(s) related or associated with them seem to have had dominance in its production - as the majority of early smelted-iron archeological finds are located in Anatolia or nearby areas where the Hittite lived or had influence. Moreover, we don't see any evidence of iron smelting sites outside of Anatolia (usually hinted by the large presence of associated slag waste) until ~950 BCE, specifically a dated site in Jordan where large amounts of ferrous slag and furnace building material was found. 900-800 BCE we just see a huge jump in iron artifacts being made and used in the Eastern Mediterranean despite the technology existing for at least three centuries. So it seems those who did knew how to smelt iron at first did their best to restrict the spread of the technology.

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secretly_a_zombie t1_j60slqn wrote

Reply to comment by dhrisc in Dozens of pre-Hispanic Zapotec tombs found in San Pedro Nexicho in Mexico by MeatballDom

The Aztecs, Mayas, Incas are "ancient" in the way that their way of life is similar to other ancient empires. What makes them interesting is that they're huge "ancient" empires living in close to modern day. It's like being able to step into Babylon and/or the Assyrians. Except we have more than buried ruins and scattered texts, we have actual cities, documents describing meeting these people and how they lived, actual recent descendants, it's getting to peek into ancient life.

Not trying to detract but these empires really are on a level on their own in just how interesting and helpful they are to understanding human history.

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Chagrinnish t1_j60rufv wrote

Reply to comment by kingofzdom in What's the earliest case of iron-smelting with hard evidence? by Ok-Goose-6320

The modern method of iron refining still uses a blast furnace. That amounts to filling a tall, cylindrical structure with layers of coal and iron, lighting it, and then blowing air into the bottom until molten iron starts leaking out. Of course it's a bit more elegant than that, but I don't think there's any large-scale production of iron anywhere in the world that simply cooks the iron in a crucible.

Primitive Technology has a good example of how it would be done in earlier times.

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