Talk:Nikana/@comment-178.204.33.107-20140411113918/@comment-88.113.186.123-20140413163045

From what I've read the Japanese didn't really improve squat - much of the overly elaborate shenanigans in their metalworking was there simply to deal with the acute shittiness of the raw iron they were stuck with. (Ferrous sand is no Noric or wootz steel...) By way of comparision by the time the provincial warrior class had effectively replaced the "court nobles" of the imperial capital as the true power of the realm - around late 1st millenium AD - European smiths were starting to *abandon* most of those selfsame methods as unnecessarily complicated, and by the High Middle Ages only bothered with them for decorative purposes.

Also, the curved sabre-type sword likely reached the Japanese archipelago the northern route, via the non-Yamato "northern barbarians" and ultimately Korea and the Eurasian steppes - more or less alongside serious horseback riding and cavalry warfare. Which makes sense, as the whole basic concept of the weapon pattern originated among the nomad empires around the Black Sea around the 6th or 7th century specifically for mounted use.