A society without metal

Question

What would a medieval society without access to metal look like? How would things like wagons, weapons, coinage, and tools be different?

"Medieval" in this sense would mean something like feudal Japan, medieval Europe, or the Muslim/Arab nations during the Crusades period. Technology is different without metal, but they understand the basics of medicine (like disease) but not concepts like bacteria or genetics, they have roads, the wheel, tamed animals, boats capable of at least limited ocean voyages, farming, semi-accurate cartography, books written by hand on paper or paper-like materials, some form of carpentry or stone work that enables fortifications like castles, etc.

Other Conditions:

• Metal still exists in the world (and in plants/animals/people). It just isn't used by this society for anything
• No fantasy creatures like dragons or dwarves. Only real animals and plants
• Topography, geography, and climate can be anything found on Earth
• Magic exists, but I'm looking at how things would be without magic. Explaining the magic system would be unnecessarily involved for this question. I can take your ideas and add magic to it

(Related: Warfare without Metal)

Answer 1

Substitutes

You can make this work with substitutes. Armor can be made of items other than metal. For instance, Cuir Bouilli, which is speculated to be the origin of cuirasses, is boiled leather. It gives a "plastic-like" leather armor, which can be an effective defense. Padded armor was popular throughout the medieval period as well, especially for archers, as it retains mobility and is a cheaper alternative to other armors.

Obsidian have been used since time immemorial, at least before written records. This stone is used for knives, arrow heads, and other items. Obsidian is even used by modern surgeons, as the blade can be much more even (and therefore better at cutting) than metal blades. Durability is an issue with obsidian. Stone tools of other types are well documented, and can be used for many things.

Coinage and economy would be a little different. Metal coins were used because metal was valuable, and therefore the money had intrinsic value. In the absence of metal coins, other valuables could be traded. The natives of Aruba used round stones for their coinage. (I know this from their museum!) There are also other economies which do not rely on cash. They could use one of those systems. (My personal favorite are gift-economies!)

Wagons can be made almost entirely of wood. In the place of nails, you can use wooden pegs. Old furniture (antiques) can often be found with wooden pegs instead of nails. Joints can be made with rope lashings, or slots in the wood. No metal can be worked around. The fact that wood warps when wet can cause lots of problems. Wagon wheels would need to be sealed or treated often in order to avoid cracking and warping.

Answer 2

Well there are plenty of societies without metal out there, or at least traditionally had none. The Inuit, the Aborigine, many tribes in Borneo and South America.

One of the things about metal is that it is stronger than wood and is more shapable than stone, not as brittle as bone etc. So without metal you are left to make tools out of the other three options.

So bows are not going to change much, the metal arrow heads are more important to pierce heavy armor, but now they are limited to boiled leather, which while still tough doesn't need as much of a punch as steel, unless you have it in layers.

instead of swords, you will have clubs/maces. Lances/pikes can still have sharpened points or stone heads.

Bones make good weapons too.

Wood, Stone and bones all can make a multitude of tools, often one can be made that we normally see in metal, but will many times have a different weakness. It's hard to make wood sharp, but it can have great points and it works well as a frame. Bones are harder and stronger than wood, can be made sharp but don't hold an edge well and are difficult to sharpen. Stone is heavy, and easy to find. Practice can be used to make many different kinds of tools. Using sharp stones to shape the other materials.

So Many tools might never be made because the effort put into them might not be worth the value one gets out of them. A stone sword it fairly pointless, since one good swing at another stone sword, and both will shatter to nothing and weeks/months of effort gone. Why build a two story house when you will need to cut and shape much larger trees by hand, when you can just make another building nearby?

Economy? I suspect it will be primarily trade/barter. However, anything that is agreed upon can be used as currency. Sea Shells have been used in the past, and so have rocks. I also suspect precious gems could work well too.

Answer 3

In reality the same but everything would take longer and cost more (in terms of absolute calorific cost, prices would be the same because it would all be relatively the same). For example a wagon is wagon shaped because it works, the tools are different but the products are going to be very similar, there are certain pieces of technology that are now "top end" that weren't, the double bow spring for suspension since leafsprings are out, bricks and mortar over steel frame, that kind of thing, but most of that only comes late in, or after the time period you're interested in emulating. In terms of weapons and armour I'd look to the Aztec and Maya as a guide to the science of the possible in that arena. Coinage isn't a necessity of the time period you want to emulate but it helps, shells, beads, letters of credit in a sufficiently sophisticated society all work, so does a grain standard for setting prices against.

But I'm not actually sure you can get to the population densities you need for a Medieval/Renaissance society and technological base without metal, one of the biggest things about the Iron Age was the fact that humans started to be able to cultivate land that was previously inaccessible. Not a little bit of land, tens of thousands of square miles of land previously under impenetrable old-growth forest went under the plow in Europe and Asia. It changed the coastlines of whole continents, without those farms producing a surplus urbanisation would never have gotten started, specialisation and division of labour couldn't have progressed to any great degree because everyone would still be scrambling to eek out a living on the little pockets of good plow land around the edges. Unless you can break ground on the same kind of land another way, or have some super abundance of good farm land that the trees don't like you're a bit stuck.