Humans had worked meteoric iron for millennia, but smelting iron from ore requires far more specialized knowledge. Iron ore is reduced at around 1,200-1,400 °C into a spongy mass called a bloom; this is then repeatedly reheated and hammered into tools or weapons.

The shift to widespread iron use did not occur at a single place or moment. Anatolia — especially within the Hittite sphere — was one of its early and crucial centres. Bronze required tin and copper; tin deposits are rare and depend on long-distance trade. Iron ore is far more common. When the trade networks of the Late Bronze Age collapsed, the practical advantage of local iron became decisive.

Iron tools transformed agriculture (ploughs, sickles) and broadened the warrior class — an iron sword was within reach of more than just the elite. This had lasting consequences for the political structures of the following centuries. The Iron Age was not only a technological transition but a kind of economic democratisation.