Re: [tied] Re: First iron swords on mass scale

John Croft wrote:

> As for the Dorians, they have been pushed later back in history. It
> is now widely thought that the so called "Dorian invasion" did not
> occur much before 1,000, and the areas they moved into were already
> larely depopulated. There was not much resistence here. This leaves
> questionable who were the enemies that Pylos was defending against?
> Philistines perhaps?

This is very interesting. What is your opinion about the origins and routes
of early Philistines? At what point in their history did they become experts
in iron metallurgy? And was the "Dorian invasion" a real invasion, or rather
a peaceful infiltration?

> Thus the Dorians would have had iron weapons
> because of the collapse of the tin trade. But by then all peoples in
> the Eastern Mediterranean (apart from Egypt) had substituted bronze
> with iron.

Did Achaeans also switch to iron before the Dorians came?

> The Tyrrhenoi who in about 800 arrived in Etruria were already
> arriving into an area which had long used iron. The Villanova
> culture which preceeded them had derived from the European Urn
> Fields, from whence they had learned their tool making.

Is the Urn Fields Culture considered an IE phenomenon, or rather Old
European?

> Hope this helps you further

This was excellent! I hope you will keep answering all my further questions,
and I'm afraid there is no end to this story :-)

Thanks,

Michal