For instance, Lindow Man, found near Manchester, England, appears to have been hit over the head, had his throat slit and was whipped with a rope made of animal sinew before being thrown into the watery bog. The mysterious bog bodies appear to have at least one thing in common: They died brutal deaths. Bog bodies are corpses that have been naturally mummified or preserved in peat bogs.Įxamples of Iron Age bog bodies include the Tollund Man, found in Denmark, and the Gallagh Man from Ireland. Hundreds of bog bodies dating back to the Iron Age have been discovered across Northern Europe. They grew crops and kept livestock, including goats, sheep, pigs, cows and geese. Inside the hill forts, families lived in simple, round houses made of mud and wood with thatched roofs. Walls and ditches surrounded the forts, and warriors defended hill forts against attacks by rival clans. People throughout much of Celtic Europe lived in hill forts during the Iron Age. The First Persian Empire, founded by Cyrus the Great around 550 B.C., became one of the largest empires in history, stretching from the Balkans of Eastern Europe to the Indus Valley in India.Īerial view of entrance to Old Oswestry Hill Fort in the Welsh Marches near Oswestry in north west Shropshire during the Iron Age. They may have been the first civilization to develop an armored cavalry in which horses and riders were completely covered in steel armor. The ancient Persians also fought on horseback. Steel weapons were sharper and stronger than earlier bronze or stone weapons. The Persians established their empire at a time after humans had learned to make steel. The classical period also brought political reform and introduced the world to a new system of government known as demokratia, or “rule by the people.” Persian Empireĭuring the Iron Age in the Near East, nomadic pastoralists who raised sheep, goats and cattle on the Iranian plateau began to develop a state that would become known as Persia. Classical Greece was an era of cultural achievements including the Parthenon, Greek drama and philosophers including Socrates. Few artifacts or ruins remain from the period, which lasted roughly 300 years.īy the late Iron Age, the Greek economy had recovered and Greece had entered its “classical” period. Mycenaean Greece had been a literate society, but the Greeks of the early Iron Age left no written record, leading some scholars to believe they were illiterate. As urban societies splintered, people moved toward smaller, more pastoral groups focused on raising livestock. Major cities (with the exception of Athens) were abandoned. Greece entered a period of turmoil sometimes called the Greek Dark Ages.Īrchaeologists believe there may have been a period of famine in which Greece’s population dropped dramatically during this time. Mycenaeans built large palaces and a society with strict class hierarchy.īut around 1200 B.C. The Mycenaean civilization was rich in material wealth from trade. Greece had become a major hub of activity and culture on the Mediterranean during the late Bronze Age. In Western and Central Europe, the end of the Iron Age is typically identified as coinciding with the Roman conquest during the first century BC. Many scholars place the end of the Iron Age in at around 550 B.C., when Herodotus, “The Father of History,” began writing “The Histories,” though the end date varies by region. Metal smiths, as a result, may have turned to iron as an alternative. Some experts believe that a disruption in trade routes may have caused shortages of the copper or tin used to make bronze around this time. Earthquakes, famine, sociopolitical unrest and invasion by nomadic tribes may also have played a role. likely figured prominently in the collapse. Archaeological evidence suggests a succession of severe droughts in the eastern Mediterranean region over a 150-year period from 1250 to 1100 B.C. The cause for the collapse of these Bronze Age kingdoms remains unclear. Ancient cities including Troy and Gaza were destroyed, trade routes were lost and literacy declined throughout the region.

in the Mediterranean region and Near East with the collapse of several prominent Bronze Age civilizations, including the Mycenaean civilization in Greece and the Hittite Empire in Turkey.

Moments in time images