According to Vagn Fabritius Buchwald, wüstite was an important component during the Iron Age to facilitate the process of forge welding. In ancient times, when blacksmithing was performed using a charcoal forge, the deep charcoal pit in which the steel or iron was placed provided a highly reducing, virtually oxygen-free environment, producing a thin wüstite layer on the metal. At the welding temperature, the iron becomes highly reactive with oxygen, and will spark and form thick layers of slag when exposed to the air, which makes welding the iron or steel nearly impossible. To solve this problem, ancient blacksmiths would toss small amounts of sand onto the white-hot metal. The silica in the sand reacts with the wüstite to form fayalite, which melts just below the welding temperature. This produced an effective flux that shielded the metal from oxygen and helped extract oxides and impurities, leaving a pure surface that can weld readily. Although the ancients had no knowledge of how this worked, the ability to weld iron contributed to the movement out of the Bronze Age and into the modern.