section_path: Definition of "iron"
section_name: Definition of "iron"
paragraph_text: Definition of "iron"
  
  Meteoric iron, a natural iron–nickel alloy, was used by various ancient peoples thousands of years before the Iron Age. The earliest-known meteoric iron artifacts are nine small beads dated to 3200 BC, which were found in burials at Gerzeh in Lower Egypt, having been shaped by careful hammering.
  
  The characteristic of an Iron Age culture is the mass production of tools and weapons made not just of found iron, but from smelted steel alloys with an added carbon content. Only with the capability of the production of carbon steel does ferrous metallurgy result in tools or weapons that are harder and lighter than bronze.
  
  Smelted iron appears sporadically in the archeological record from the middle Bronze Age. Whilst terrestrial iron is abundant naturally, temperatures above 1,250 °C (2,280 °F) are required to smelt it, impractical to achieve with the technology available commonly until the end of the second millennium BC. In contrast, the components of bronze—tin with a melting point of 231.9 °C (449.4 °F) and copper with a relatively moderate melting point of 1,085 °C (1,985 °F) —were within the capabilities of Neolithic kilns, which date back to 6000 BC and were able to produce temperatures greater than 900 °C (1,650 °F).
  
  In addition to specially designed furnaces, ancient iron production required the development of complex procedures for the removal of impurities, the regulation of the admixture of carbon, and the invention of hot-working to achieve a useful balance of hardness and strength in steel. The use of steel has also been regulated by the economics of the metallurgical advancements.