ACADEMIA Letters Technology in historical study: Iron culture and History of Assam Raktim Ranjan Saikia Kishor Goswami Use of technology in study of social science is relatively a new approach. Now a days, sci- entifc technologies are widely used in the study of diferent branches of social science and humanities. New technologies are extensively used in historical investigations also. Geo- archaeology and archaeo-metallurgy are such branches which have helped to solve several sig- nifcant historical problems and are now regarded as indispensible part of historical method- ology especially for the remote past. The development of civilization has accelerated from the moment when man started using metals. Among all the metals, iron is the most important. Historians rightly understand the importance of iron for the development of a civilization. Contemporary historians now tend to minutely study the amount and methodology of using iron by a civilization. It is now being recognized that just one piece of iron can bears a long history. Extraction of iron from ore involves a very complex technology especially the making of steel from iron by mixing of specifc amount of carbon, hammering and tampering it and make it usable. The civilization which masters over this technology usually strives and makes its presence felt across a large geographical territory. The importance of iron in human civilization can be best illustrated from the following ex- amples. On 16th November,1532 AD, Spanish General Francisco Pizarro and his 168 soldiers faced the Inca Emperor Atahuallapa and his 80,000 soldier in a Latin American city “Kaza- marka”. What happened next is known to all. Pijaro made Atahuallapa a prisoner within a few minutes. Though the Incas were very good artisan of gold and silver, but they did not know how to use iron properly. On that special daythe large bare footed Inca army with wooden, bronze and obsidian ammunition, fought against Pizarro’s cavalry equipped with steel armor, Academia Letters, June 2021 Corresponding Author: Raktim Ranjan Saikia, raktimrsaikia@gmail.com Citation: Saikia, R.R., Goswami, K. (2021). Technology in historical study: Iron culture and History of Assam. Academia Letters, Article 1332. https://doi.org/10.20935/AL1332. 1 ©2021 by the authors — Open Access — Distributed under CC BY 4.0