Knowledge of iron in Catalonia spread due to the influence of peoples living on the other side of the Pyrenees and of the Greek and Phoenician colonisers. The process for making iron is more complex than the process for bronze, but once it had been mastered it spread virtually everywhere as the raw materials were in abundant supply, unlike copper and tin. Iron is harder than bronze as well as cheaper to produce, and was used on a massive scale to make all kinds of tools and weapons. Metal was no longer reserved for the nobility, and farmers and labourers now had a varied and effective range of implements for their work.