User talk:Kierkkadon

[Update: Actually, I'm probably mistaken about this - it looks like the information in the articles refers to the first iron casting, rather than iron smelting in general. I apologize for the error. - RadiantRang (talk) 00:39, 26 November 2019 (UTC) ][reply]

Hi, I'm brand new to Wikipedia editing. I was looking at the article Timeline of historic inventions and I noticed the claim that iron smelting was first invented in China. That sounded odd to me, and I had once read an article about a systematic editing war between politically-motivated parties of the article on Taiwan. I had read that China had a long Bronze Age and then started casting iron in much more recent times than the Western iron-age.

I asked a native Chinese friend who knows a lot about history, and he was very skeptical of the claim as well. I started poking around and found similar information in Ferrous metallurgy and History of metallurgy in China - it may be in many other places.

I believe I have looked up almost all of the sources for iron smelting being first invented in China that is presented in those articles, and most of it leads to a very strange and contentious set of research by one Western scholar who has a joint appointment with a Chinese University, and sporadic, local claims of findings of ancient iron objects which had their "microstructures" studied to determine authenticity. I'm not an expert, but it really looks like almost all the work about this is presented as hypothesis or speculation, and the general agreement is that the research into early Chinese iron-working is early, and is speculative at this point.

It seems to me an extraordinary claim to any student of history that iron smelting, which is considered a key part of the dawn of an era in Western civilization, was first invented in China. Maybe the whole idea of the Bronze Age and Iron Age of Classical Antiquity around Greece and Rome is too Eurocentric, and progress should be put into a more international context - I really don't know. But I don't think that speculative information should be presented as fact - especially at the expense of a well-documented system of understanding that has a lot of evidence.

In any case, I'm hoping to make edits to these articles soon, and I wanted to let somebody from the Metalworking WikiProject know (I just learned about WikiProjects this afternoon) in case members have any advice or ideas about this. Please feel free to contact me on my page or by email - thanks very much! - RadiantRang (talk) 00:41, 26 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Hi, you've done a great job fixing the issues I raised!

However, after looking over the article again I noticed one final small issue, please see the review page and tell me what you think.

Thanks! Retrolord (talk) 02:17, 30 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Sorry Kierkkadon! I've come across another issue with the nomination, please check the review page. Thanks! Retrolord (talk) 02:26, 30 January 2013 (UTC

I passed your article

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A barnstar for you!

	The Tireless Contributor Barnstar
	For your article Industrial porcelain enamel. Looks awesome, great job! Osarius - Want a chat? 18:47, 2 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Speedy deletion nomination of Molemo Maarohanye

I would appreciate it if you actually bothered to read the edit history before you throw groundless accusations around. If you had done you would have realised that I had nothing to do with the creation of this page. Thank you. -- Necrothesp (talk) 21:51, 4 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Materialscientist (talk) 08:21, 11 February 2013 (UTC)[reply