Iron reached Spain way before previously thought—via meteors

The presence of iron in a bracelet and a gold-decorated sphere, which are parts of the Treasure of Villena, has baffled archaelogists and scientists for long since iron was not was not used here until much later.

The Treasure of Villena—one of the most remarkable hoard finds of objects made from gold and other valuable metals dating back to the European Bronze Age—has become the subject of renewed interest after it was discovered that two of the objects from the collection are made of iron.

The European Bronze Age lasted from 2500 BCE to 800 BCE, as per A F Harding's European Societies of the Bronze Age. However, the Iron Age lasted from roughly 800 to 51 BCE, Oxford Academic reveals.

The presence of iron in a bracelet and a gold-decorated sphere, which are parts of the Treasure of Villena, has baffled archaeologists and scientists for long since iron was not used here until much later.

Researchers now believe that the iron which was used to make the objects found in the Treasure of Villena was not from any earthly source. Instead, they were likely extracted from a meteorite.

This also means that ancient people in the town of Villena were using iron long before previously estimated.

This observation was published in the journal Trabajos de Prehistoria of the Spanish National Research Council.

Scientists were able to discover that the iron used in the objects recovered from Villena in 1963 came from meteorites because the metal from this source has a special chemical signature and has more nickel content than its terrestrial counterpart.

A method called mass spectrometry was used to analyse the chemical composition of these objects, after which scientists came to a conclusion about their source.

Despite the prehistoric objects being rusted, the test revealed a high level of nickel in them.

These two objects were also made in the period ranging from 1400 to 1200 BCE. This aligns with the estimated period of production of the gold objects discovered along with them.