Materials · c. 2,000 BCE

Iron smelting (bloomery)

Iron ore becomes metal, centuries before iron tools become common.

Iron finds at Kaman-Kalehöyük in central Anatolia, from layers dated about 2100-1930 BCE, indicate early smelting. Analyses favor terrestrial ore rather than meteorites, but the furnace design and deliberate steelmaking remain uncertain. Iron use expanded much later, near the end of the second millennium BCE.

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Related measurements

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World GDP over a million years Latest: 41k billion 1990 international $ (2000) Source: DeLong 1998, Estimating World GDP, One Million B.C. - Present; Wikipedia: Gross world product (DeLong table, cross-check)

World population over a million years Latest: 6.27k million people (2000) Source: DeLong 1998, table 'Total World Population' (Kremer series); Kremer 1993, Population Growth and Technological Change: One Million B.C. to 1990, QJE 108(3)