Questioning Diversity (of Iron) in the Workplace: Bloomery Iron, Cast Iron, China and the West

The Iron Ages in the West and China did not start with the first appearance of iron but with the first functional applications of iron. Although the initial trajectory leading to these applications was similar in both regions, the West entered its Iron Age with bloomery iron, while China replaced bloomery iron with cast iron. Our zoomed-out approach suggests that this divergence had very little to do with differences in technological capital between the two regions, but was influenced mainly by the applications demanded of iron within the respective socio-political environments. We propose that access to the technologies associated with bronze and pottery, to mass produce cast iron, differentiated China from the West and set each region on its respective course. We further propose that the West's trajectory to adopt bloomery iron was fixed through its reliance on specialists (blacksmiths) who could work independently of these technologies. China's trajectory to adopt cast iron was fixed by the socio-economic powerbase required to set up a cast iron industry at a state level, which was reinforced by an Imperial monopoly from the Han dynasty. Essentially, we have investigated why the West did not develop cast iron technology earlier than China, and why China developed cast iron technology 2000 years before the West.