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The Bronze Age is a historic period, lasting approximately from 3300 BC to 1200 BC, characterized by the use of
bronze Bronze is an alloy consisting primarily of copper, commonly with about 12–12.5% tin and often with the addition of other metals (including aluminium, manganese, nickel, or zinc) and sometimes non-metals, such as phosphorus, or metalloids such ...
, the presence of writing in some areas, and other early features of urban
civilization A civilization (or civilisation) is any complex society characterized by the development of a state, social stratification, urbanization, and symbolic systems of communication beyond natural spoken language (namely, a writing system). Ci ...
. The Bronze Age is the second principal period of the three-age system proposed in 1836 by
Christian Jürgensen Thomsen Christian Jürgensen Thomsen (29 December 1788 – 21 May 1865) was a Danish antiquarian who developed early archaeological techniques and methods. In 1816 he was appointed head of 'antiquarian' collections which later developed into the Nat ...
for classifying and studying ancient societies and history. An ancient civilization is deemed to be part of the Bronze Age because it either produced bronze by
smelting Smelting is a process of applying heat to ore, to extract a base metal. It is a form of extractive metallurgy. It is used to extract many metals from their ores, including silver, iron, copper, and other base metals. Smelting uses heat and a c ...
its own copper and alloying it with tin,
arsenic Arsenic is a chemical element with the symbol As and atomic number 33. Arsenic occurs in many minerals, usually in combination with sulfur and metals, but also as a pure elemental crystal. Arsenic is a metalloid. It has various allotropes, but ...
, or other metals, or traded other items for bronze from production areas elsewhere. Bronze is harder and more durable than the other metals available at the time, allowing Bronze Age civilizations to gain a technological advantage. While terrestrial iron is naturally abundant, the higher temperature required for smelting, , in addition to the greater difficulty of working with the metal, placed it out of reach of common use until the end of the second millennium BC. Tin's low melting point of and copper's relatively moderate melting point of placed them within the capabilities of the Neolithic pottery kilns, which date back to 6,000 BC and were able to produce temperatures greater than .James E. McClellan III; Harold Dorn (2006).
Science and Technology in World History: An Introduction
''. JHU Press. . p. 21.
Copper and tin ores are rare, since there were no tin bronzes in
Western Asia Western Asia, West Asia, or Southwest Asia, is the westernmost subregion of the larger geographical region of Asia, as defined by some academics, UN bodies and other institutions. It is almost entirely a part of the Middle East, and includes Ana ...
before trading in bronze began in the
3rd millennium BC The 3rd millennium BC spanned the years 3000 through 2001 BC. This period of time corresponds to the Early to Middle Bronze Age, characterized by the early empires in the Ancient Near East. In Ancient Egypt, the Early Dynastic Period is followe ...
. Worldwide, the Bronze Age generally followed the Neolithic period, with the Chalcolithic serving as a transition. Bronze Age cultures differed in their
development of writing The history of writing traces the development of expressing language by systems of markings and how these markings were used for various purposes in different societies, thereby transforming social organization. Writing systems are the foundati ...
. According to archaeological evidence, cultures in Mesopotamia (
cuneiform Cuneiform is a logo-syllabic writing system, script that was used to write several languages of the Ancient Near East, Ancient Middle East. The script was in active use from the early Bronze Age until the beginning of the Common Era. It is nam ...
script) and Egypt ( hieroglyphs) developed the earliest practical writing systems.


Metal use

The period is characterized by the widespread use of bronze, even if only by elites in its early part, though the introduction and development of bronze technology were not universally synchronous. Human-made tin bronze technology requires set production techniques. Tin must be mined (mainly as the tin ore
cassiterite Cassiterite is a tin oxide mineral, SnO2. It is generally opaque, but it is translucent in thin crystals. Its luster and multiple crystal faces produce a desirable gem. Cassiterite was the chief tin ore throughout ancient history and remains t ...
) and smelted separately, then added to hot copper to make bronze alloy. The Bronze Age was a time of extensive use of metals and of developing trade networks (See ''
Tin sources and trade in ancient times Tin is an essential metal in the creation of tin-Bronze, bronzes, and its acquisition was an important part of ancient history, ancient cultures from the Bronze Age onward. Its use began in the Middle East and the Balkans around 3000 BC. Tin is a r ...
''). A 2013 report suggests that the earliest tin-alloy bronze dates to the mid-5th millennium BC in a
Vinča culture The Vinča culture (), also known as Turdaș culture or Turdaș–Vinča culture, is a Neolithic archaeological culture of Southeast Europe, dated to the period 5700–4500 BC or 5300–4700/4500 BC.. Named for its type site, Vinča-Belo Brdo ...
site in Pločnik ( Serbia), although this culture is not conventionally considered part of the Bronze Age. The dating of the foil has been disputed.


Near East

Western Asia Western Asia, West Asia, or Southwest Asia, is the westernmost subregion of the larger geographical region of Asia, as defined by some academics, UN bodies and other institutions. It is almost entirely a part of the Middle East, and includes Ana ...
and the Near East were the first regions to enter the Bronze Age, which began with the rise of the Mesopotamian civilization of Sumer in the mid-4th millennium BC. Cultures in the ancient Near East (often called one of "the
cradles of civilization A cradle of civilization is a location and a culture where civilization was created by mankind independent of other civilizations in other locations. The formation of urban settlements (cities) is the primary characteristic of a society that c ...
") practiced intensive year-round agriculture, developed writing systems, invented the
potter's wheel In pottery, a potter's wheel is a machine used in the shaping (known as throwing) of clay into round ceramic ware. The wheel may also be used during the process of trimming excess clay from leather-hard dried ware that is stiff but malleable, ...
, created centralized governments (usually in form of hereditary monarchies), written law codes,
city-state A city-state is an independent sovereign city which serves as the center of political, economic, and cultural life over its contiguous territory. They have existed in many parts of the world since the dawn of history, including cities such as ...
s and nation-states and empires, embarked on advanced architectural projects, introduced
social stratification Social stratification refers to a society's categorization of its people into groups based on socioeconomic factors like wealth, income, race, education, ethnicity, gender, occupation, social status, or derived power (social and political). A ...
, economic and civil administration, slavery, and practiced organized warfare, medicine and religion. Societies in the region laid the foundations for
astronomy Astronomy () is a natural science that studies celestial objects and phenomena. It uses mathematics, physics, and chemistry in order to explain their origin and evolution. Objects of interest include planets, moons, stars, nebulae, galax ...
, mathematics and
astrology Astrology is a range of divinatory practices, recognized as pseudoscientific since the 18th century, that claim to discern information about human affairs and terrestrial events by studying the apparent positions of celestial objects. Dif ...
. :'' Dates are approximate, consult particular article for details'' ImageSize = width:800 height:115 PlotArea = width:720 height:90 left:65 bottom:20 AlignBars = justify Colors = id:period value:rgb(1,0.7,0.5) # id:age value:rgb(0.95,0.85,0.5) # id:era value:rgb(1,0.85,0.5) # Period = from:-3500 till:-1000 TimeAxis = orientation:horizontal ScaleMajor = unit:year increment:500 start:-3000 ScaleMinor = unit:year increment:100 start:-3500 PlotData = align:center textcolor:black fontsize:8 mark:(line,black) width:15 shift:(0,-5) bar:  color:period from: -3300 till: -1200 text:Classic Bronze Age bar:NEast color:era from: -3300 till: -1200 shift:(0,5) text:
Ancient Near East The ancient Near East was the home of early civilizations within a region roughly corresponding to the modern Middle East: Mesopotamia (modern Iraq, southeast Turkey, southwest Iran and northeastern Syria), ancient Egypt, ancient Iran (Elam, ...
from: -3300 till: -2100 text:Early Bronze Age from: -2100 till: -1550 text:Intermediate Bronze Age from: -1550 till: -1200 text:Late Bronze Age bar:Mesop. color:age from: -2900 till: -2350 text:
Sumerian city-states The earliest cities in history were in the ancient Near East, an area covering roughly that of the modern Middle East: its history began in the 4th millennium BC and ended, depending on the interpretation of the term, either with the conquest by ...
from: -2350 till: -2193 text:
Akkadia The Akkadian Empire () was the first ancient empire of Mesopotamia after the long-lived civilization of Sumer. It was centered in the city of Akkad () and its surrounding region. The empire united Akkadian and Sumerian speakers under one ru ...
from: -2119 till: -2000 text: Ur from: -2050 till: -1700 shift:(0,5) text:
Assyria Assyria (Neo-Assyrian cuneiform: , romanized: ''māt Aššur''; syc, ܐܬܘܪ, ʾāthor) was a major ancient Mesopotamian civilization which existed as a city-state at times controlling regional territories in the indigenous lands of the ...
from: -1900 till: -1800 text: Babylonia from: -1600 till: -1200 text:
Kassites The Kassites () were people of the ancient Near East, who controlled Babylonia after the fall of the Old Babylonian Empire c. 1531 BC and until c. 1155 BC ( short chronology). They gained control of Babylonia after the Hittite sack of Babyl ...
bar:Egyptian color:era from: -3200 till: -1070 shift:(0,5) text: Ancient Egypt from: -3200 till: -3000 text: Protodynastic from: -3000 till: -2700 text: Archaic from: -2700 till: -2180 text:
Old Kingdom In ancient Egyptian history, the Old Kingdom is the period spanning c. 2700–2200 BC. It is also known as the "Age of the Pyramids" or the "Age of the Pyramid Builders", as it encompasses the reigns of the great pyramid-builders of the Fourt ...
from: -2050 till: -1700 text: Middle Kingdom from: -1550 till: -1070 text: New Kingdom
ImageSize = width:400 height:665 PlotArea = width:300 height:640 left:80 bottom:20 AlignBars = justify Colors = id:time value:rgb(0.7,0.7,1) # id:period value:rgb(1,0.7,0.5) # id:age value:rgb(0.95,0.85,0.5) # id:era value:rgb(1,0.85,0.5) # id:eon value:rgb(1,0.85,0.7) # id:filler value:gray(0.8) # background bar id:black value:black Period = from:1200 till:3300 TimeAxis = orientation:vertical ScaleMajor = unit:year increment:100 start:1200 ScaleMinor = unit:year increment:50 start:1200 PlotData = align:center textcolor:black fontsize:8 mark:(line,black) width:20 shift:(25,-5) bar:Phase color:era from: 3300 till: 3000 text:EBA I from: 3000 till: 2700 text:EBA II from: 2700 till: 2200 text:EBA III from: 2200 till: 2100 text:EBA IV from: 2100 till: 2000 text:MBA I from: 2000 till: 1750 text:MBA II A from: 1750 till: 1650 text:MBA II B from: 1650 till: 1550 text:MBA II C from: 1550 till: 1400 text:LBA I from: 1400 till: 1300 text:LBA II A from: 1300 till: 1200 text:LBA II B bar:Period color:age from: 3300 till: 2100 text:Early Bronze Age (EBA) from: 2100 till: 1550 text:Middle Bronze Age (MBA) from: 2100 till: 1550 shift:(25,-20) text:(Intermediate Bronze Age) from: 1550 till: 1200 text:Late Bronze Age (LBA) bar:Age color:period from: 3300 till: 1200 shift:(-25,0) text:Bronze Age


Anatolia

The Hittite Empire was established in
Hattusa Hattusa (also Ḫattuša or Hattusas ; Hittite: URU''Ḫa-at-tu-ša'', Turkish: Hattuşaş , Hattic: Hattush) was the capital of the Hittite Empire in the late Bronze Age. Its ruins lie near modern Boğazkale, Turkey, within the great loop of ...
in northern Anatolia from the 18th century BC. In the 14th century BC the Hittite Kingdom was at its height, encompassing central Anatolia, southwestern Syria as far as Ugarit, and upper Mesopotamia. After 1180 BC, amid general turmoil in the Levant conjectured to have been associated with the sudden arrival of the
Sea Peoples The Sea Peoples are a hypothesized seafaring confederation that attacked ancient Egypt and other regions in the Eastern Mediterranean, East Mediterranean prior to and during the Late Bronze Age collapse (1200–900 Common Era, BCE).. Quote: ...
,. Quote: "First coined in 1881 by the French Egyptologist G. Maspero (1896), the somewhat misleading term "Sea Peoples" encompasses the ethnonyms Lukka, Sherden, Shekelesh, Teresh, Eqwesh, Denyen, Sikil / Tjekker, Weshesh, and Peleset (Philistines). Drews 1993, 57 for a summary). The use of quotation marks in association with the term "Sea Peoples" in our title is intended to draw attention to the problematic nature of this commonly used term. It is noteworthy that the designation "of the sea" appears only concerning the Sherden, Shekelesh, and Eqwesh. Subsequently, this term was applied somewhat indiscriminately to several additional ethnonyms, including the Philistines, who are portrayed in their earliest appearance as invaders from the north during the reigns of Merenptah and Ramesses Ill (see, e.g., Sandars 1978; Redford 1992, 243, n. 14; for a recent review of the primary and secondary literature, see Woudhuizen 2006). Henceforth the term Sea Peoples will appear without quotation marks.]"''The End of the Bronze Age: Changes in Warfare and the Catastrophe Ca. 1200 B.C.'', Robert Drews, pp. 48–61
Quote: "The thesis that a great "migration of the Sea Peoples" occurred ca. 1200 B.C. is supposedly based on Egyptian inscriptions, one from the reign of Merneptah and another from the reign of Ramesses III. Yet in the inscriptions themselves, such a migration nowhere appears. After reviewing what the Egyptian texts have to say about 'the sea peoples', one Egyptologist (Wolfgang Helck) recently remarked that although some things are unclear, "eins ist aber sicher: Nach den agyptischen Texten Haben wir es Nicht mit einer 'Volkerwanderung' zu tun." Thus the migration hypothesis is based not on the inscriptions themselves but their interpretation."
the kingdom disintegrated into several independent "Neo-Hittite" city-states, some of which survived until as late as the 8th century BC.
Arzawa Arzawa was a region and a political entity (a " kingdom" or a federation of local powers) in Western Anatolia in the second half of the 2nd millennium BC (roughly from the late 15th century BC until the beginning of the 12th century BC). The core ...
in Western Anatolia during the second half of the second millennium BC likely extended along southern Anatolia in a belt that reaches from near the
Turkish Lakes Region The Turkish Lake District or Turkish Lakeland ( tr, Göller Yöresi) is an area with a series of shallow tectonic lakes within the folds of the Taurus Mountains in Southwestern Anatolia, TurkeyDominic Whiting (2001) "Turkey Handbook", p. 439/ref> ...
to the Aegean coast.
Arzawa Arzawa was a region and a political entity (a " kingdom" or a federation of local powers) in Western Anatolia in the second half of the 2nd millennium BC (roughly from the late 15th century BC until the beginning of the 12th century BC). The core ...
was the western neighbor—sometimes a rival and sometimes a vassal—of the Middle and New Hittite Kingdoms. The
Assuwa league Assuwa ( hit, 𒀸𒋗𒉿, translit=aš-šu-wa, link=yes; gmy, 𐀀𐀯𐀹𐀊, translit=a-si-wi-ja, link=yes) was a confederation of 22 states in western Anatolia around 1400 BC. The confederation formed to oppose the Hittite Empire, but was def ...
was a confederation of states in western Anatolia that was defeated by the Hittites under an earlier
Tudhaliya I Tudhaliya is the name of several Hittite kings: *Tudhaliya (also Tudhaliya I) is a hypothetic pre-Empire king of the Hittites. He would have reigned in the late 17th century BC ( short chronology). Forlanini (1993) conjectures that this king corres ...
, around 1400 BC. Arzawa has been associated with the much more obscure
Assuwa Assuwa ( hit, 𒀸𒋗𒉿, translit=aš-šu-wa, link=yes; gmy, 𐀀𐀯𐀹𐀊, translit=a-si-wi-ja, link=yes) was a confederation of 22 states in western Anatolia around 1400 BC. The confederation formed to oppose the Hittite Empire, but was def ...
generally located to its north. It probably bordered it, and may even be an alternative term for it (at least during some periods).


Egypt


Early Bronze dynasties

In Ancient Egypt, the Bronze Age begins in the Protodynastic period, 3150 BC. The archaic ''Early Bronze Age of Egypt'', known as the Early Dynastic Period of Egypt,Karin Sowada and Peter Grave. Egypt in the Eastern Mediterranean during the Old Kingdom. immediately follows the unification of Lower and Upper Egypt, 3100 BC. It is generally taken to include the First and Second Dynasties, lasting from the Protodynastic Period of Egypt until about 2686 BC, or the beginning of the Old Kingdom. With the First Dynasty, the capital moved from
Abydos Abydos may refer to: *Abydos, a progressive metal side project of German singer Andy Kuntz *Abydos (Hellespont), an ancient city in Mysia, Asia Minor * Abydos (''Stargate''), name of a fictional planet in the ''Stargate'' science fiction universe ...
to Memphis with a unified Egypt ruled by an Egyptian god-king. Abydos remained the major holy land in the south. The hallmarks of ancient Egyptian civilization, such as art, architecture and many aspects of religion, took shape during the Early Dynastic Period. Memphis in the Early Bronze Age was the largest city of the time. The
Old Kingdom In ancient Egyptian history, the Old Kingdom is the period spanning c. 2700–2200 BC. It is also known as the "Age of the Pyramids" or the "Age of the Pyramid Builders", as it encompasses the reigns of the great pyramid-builders of the Fourt ...
of the regional Bronze Age is the name given to the period in the 3rd millennium BC when Egypt attained its first continuous peak of civilization in complexity and achievement – the first of three "Kingdom" periods, which mark the high points of civilization in the lower Nile Valley (the others being Middle Kingdom and the New Kingdom). The First Intermediate Period of Egypt, often described as a "dark period" in ancient Egyptian history, spanned about 100 years after the end of the Old Kingdom from about 2181 to 2055 BC. Very little monumental evidence survives from this period, especially from the early part of it. The First Intermediate Period was a dynamic time when the rule of Egypt was roughly divided between two competing for power bases: Heracleopolis in Lower Egypt and Thebes in Upper Egypt. These two kingdoms would eventually come into conflict, with the Theban kings conquering the north, resulting in the reunification of Egypt under a single ruler during the second part of the 11th Dynasty.


Nubia

The Bronze Age in Nubia started as early as 2300 BC. Copper smelting was introduced by Egyptians to the Nubian city of
Meroë Meroë (; also spelled ''Meroe''; Meroitic: or ; ar, مرواه, translit=Meruwah and ar, مروي, translit=Meruwi, label=none; grc, Μερόη, translit=Meróē) was an ancient city on the east bank of the Nile about 6 km north-east ...
, in modern-day Sudan, around 2600 BC. A furnace for bronze casting has been found in Kerma that is dated to 2300–1900 BC.


Middle Bronze dynasties

The
Middle Kingdom of Egypt The Middle Kingdom of Egypt (also known as The Period of Reunification) is the period in the history of ancient Egypt following a period of political division known as the First Intermediate Period. The Middle Kingdom lasted from approximately ...
lasted from 2055 to 1650 BC. During this period, the Osiris funerary cult rose to dominate Egyptian popular religion. The period comprises two phases: the 11th Dynasty, which ruled from Thebes and the 12th and 13th Dynasties centered on
el-Lisht Lisht or el-Lisht ( ar, اللشت, translit=Al-Lišt) is an Egyptian village located south of Cairo. It is the site of Middle Kingdom royal and elite burials, including two pyramids built by Amenemhat I and Senusret I. The two main pyramids were ...
. The unified kingdom was previously considered to comprise the 11th and 12th Dynasties, but historians now at least partially consider the 13th Dynasty to belong to the Middle Kingdom. During the
Second Intermediate Period The Second Intermediate Period marks a period when ancient Egypt fell into disarray for a second time, between the end of the Middle Kingdom and the start of the New Kingdom. The concept of a "Second Intermediate Period" was coined in 1942 by ...
, Ancient Egypt fell into disarray for a second time, between the end of the Middle Kingdom and the start of the New Kingdom. It is best known for the Hyksos, whose reign comprised the 15th and 16th dynasties. The Hyksos first appeared in Egypt during the 11th Dynasty, began their climb to power in the 13th Dynasty, and emerged from the Second Intermediate Period in control of
Avaris Avaris (; Egyptian: ḥw.t wꜥr.t, sometimes ''hut-waret''; grc, Αὔαρις, Auaris; el, Άβαρις, Ávaris; ar, حوّارة, Hawwara) was the Hyksos capital of Egypt located at the modern site of Tell el-Dab'a in the northeastern ...
and the
Delta Delta commonly refers to: * Delta (letter) (Δ or δ), a letter of the Greek alphabet * River delta, at a river mouth * D ( NATO phonetic alphabet: "Delta") * Delta Air Lines, US * Delta variant of SARS-CoV-2 that causes COVID-19 Delta may also ...
. By the 15th Dynasty, they ruled lower Egypt, and they were expelled at the end of the 17th Dynasty.


Late Bronze dynasties

The New Kingdom of Egypt, also referred to as the Egyptian Empire, lasted from the 16th to the 11th century BC. The New Kingdom followed the Second Intermediate Period and was succeeded by the Third Intermediate Period. It was Egypt's most prosperous time and marked the peak of Egypt's power. The later New Kingdom, i.e. the 19th and 20th Dynasties (1292–1069 BC), is also known as the
Ramesside period The Twentieth Dynasty of Egypt (notated Dynasty XX, alternatively 20th Dynasty or Dynasty 20) is the third and last dynasty of the Ancient Egyptian New Kingdom period, lasting from 1189 BC to 1077 BC. The 19th and 20th Dynasties furthermore togeth ...
, after the eleven pharaohs that took the name of Ramesses.


Iranian Plateau

Elam was a ''pre-Iranian'' ancient civilization located to the east of Mesopotamia. In the Old Elamite period (Middle Bronze Age), Elam consisted of kingdoms on the
Iranian Plateau The Iranian plateau or Persian plateau is a geological feature in Western Asia, Central Asia, and South Asia. It comprises part of the Eurasian Plate and is wedged between the Arabian Plate and the Indian Plate; situated between the Zagr ...
, centered in
Anshan Anshan () is an inland prefecture-level city in central-southeast Liaoning province, People's Republic of China, about south of the provincial capital Shenyang. As of the 2020 census, it was Liaoning's third most populous city with a population ...
, and from the mid-2nd millennium BC, it was centered in Susa in the Khuzestan lowlands. Its culture played a crucial role in the Gutian Empire and especially during the
Iranian Iranian may refer to: * Iran, a sovereign state * Iranian peoples, the speakers of the Iranian languages. The term Iranic peoples is also used for this term to distinguish the pan ethnic term from Iranian, used for the people of Iran * Iranian lan ...
Achaemenid dynasty The Achaemenid dynasty (Old Persian: ; Persian: ; Ancient Greek: ; Latin: ) was an ancient Persian royal dynasty that ruled the Achaemenid Empire, an Iranian empire that stretched from Egypt and Southeastern Europe in the west to the Indu ...
that succeeded it. The
Oxus civilization The Amu Darya, tk, Amyderýa/ uz, Amudaryo// tg, Амударё, Amudaryo ps, , tr, Ceyhun / Amu Derya grc, Ὦξος, Ôxos (also called the Amu, Amo River and historically known by its Latin name or Greek ) is a major river in Central Asi ...
was a Bronze Age Central Asian culture dated to 2300–1700 BC and centered on the upper
Amu Darya The Amu Darya, tk, Amyderýa/ uz, Amudaryo// tg, Амударё, Amudaryo ps, , tr, Ceyhun / Amu Derya grc, Ὦξος, Ôxos (also called the Amu, Amo River and historically known by its Latin name or Greek ) is a major river in Central As ...
(Oxus). In the Early Bronze Age, the culture of the
Kopet Dag The Köpet Dag, Kopet Dagh, or Koppeh Dagh ( tk, Köpetdag; fa, کپه‌داغ), also known as the Turkmen-Khorasan Mountain Range, is a mountain range on the border between Turkmenistan and Iran that extends about along the border southeast o ...
oases and
Altyndepe (, sometimes Altyn Tepe, Turkmen "Golden Hill"), is a Bronze Age ( BMAC) archaeological site in Turkmenistan, near Aşgabat, inhabited first from c. 3200 to 2400 BCE in the Late Regionalization Era, and from c. 2400 to 2000 BCE in the Integrat ...
developed a proto-urban society. This corresponds to level IV at
Namazga-Tepe Namazga-Tepe or ''Namazga-depe'', is a Bronze Age ( BMAC) archaeological site in Turkmenistan, some 100 km east of Aşgabat, near the border to Iran. Excavated by Vadim Mikhailovich Masson, Viktor Sarianidi, and I. N. Khlopin from the 1950s ...
. Altyndepe was a major center even then. Pottery was wheel-turned. Grapes were grown. The height of this urban development was reached in the Middle Bronze Age 2300 BC, corresponding to level V at Namazga-Depe. This Bronze Age culture is called the
Bactria–Margiana Archaeological Complex The Bactria–Margiana Archaeological Complex (short BMAC) or Oxus Civilization, recently dated to c. 2250–1700 BC,Lyonnet, Bertille, and Nadezhda A. Dubova, (2020b)"Questioning the Oxus Civilization or Bactria- Margiana Archaeological Cultu ...
(BMAC). The
Kulli culture The Kulli culture was a prehistoric culture in southern Balochistan (Gedrosia) in Pakistan ca. 2500 - 2000 BCE. The pottery and other artifacts are similar to those of the Indus Valley civilization and it is not clear whether the Kulli culture is ...
, similar to those of the Indus Valley civilisation, was located in southern
Balochistan Balochistan ( ; bal, بلۏچستان; also romanised as Baluchistan and Baluchestan) is a historical region in Western and South Asia, located in the Iranian plateau's far southeast and bordering the Indian Plate and the Arabian Sea coastline ...
(Gedrosia) 2500–2000 BC. Agriculture was the economic base of these people. At several places, dams were found, providing evidence for a highly developed water management system.
Konar Sandal Konar Sandal is a Bronze Age archaeological site, situated in the valley of the Halil River just south of Jiroft, Kermān Province, Iran. Description The site consists of two mounds a few kilometers apart, called Konar Sandal A and B with ...
is associated with the hypothesized "
Jiroft culture The Jiroft cultureOscar White MuscarellaJiroft(2008), in: Encyclopedia Iranica. "For archeological accuracy the terms "Jiroft" or "Jiroft culture" employed to define a specific ancient Iranian culture and its artifacts should only be cited within ...
", a 3rd-millennium-BC culture postulated based on a collection of artifacts confiscated in 2001.


Levant

In modern scholarship, the chronology of the Bronze Age Levant is divided into Early/Proto Syrian; corresponding to the Early Bronze. Old Syrian; corresponding to the Middle Bronze. Middle Syrian; corresponding to the Late Bronze. The term Neo-Syria is used to designate the early Iron Age. The old Syrian period was dominated by the Eblaite first kingdom,
Nagar Nagar ( -nagar) can refer to: Places Bangladesh * Nagar, Rajshahi Division, a village * Nagar, Barisal Division, a settlement India * Nagar taluka, Ahmednagar, Maharashtra State * Nagar, Murshidabad, a village in West Bengal * Nagar, Rajasthan ...
and the Mariote second kingdom. The Akkadians conquered large areas of the Levant and were followed by the Amorite kingdoms, 2000–1600 BC, which arose in Mari, Yamhad,
Qatna Qatna (modern: ar, تل المشرفة, Tell al-Mishrifeh) (also Tell Misrife or Tell Mishrifeh) was an ancient city located in Homs Governorate, Syria. Its remains constitute a tell situated about northeast of Homs near the village of al ...
,
Assyria Assyria (Neo-Assyrian cuneiform: , romanized: ''māt Aššur''; syc, ܐܬܘܪ, ʾāthor) was a major ancient Mesopotamian civilization which existed as a city-state at times controlling regional territories in the indigenous lands of the ...
. From the 15th century BC onward, the term
Amurru Amurru may refer to: * Amurru kingdom, roughly current day western Syria and northern Lebanon * Amorite, ancient Syrian people * Amurru (god) Amurru, also known under the Sumerian name Martu, was a Mesopotamian god who served as the divine perso ...
is usually applied to the region extending north of Canaan as far as
Kadesh Qadesh, Qedesh, Qetesh, Kadesh, Kedesh, Kadeš and Qades come from the common Semitic root " Q-D-Š", which means "sacred." Kadesh and variations may refer to: Ancient/biblical places * Kadesh (Syria) or Qadesh, an ancient city of the Levant, on ...
on the Orontes River. The earliest-known Ugaritic contact with Egypt (and the first exact dating of Ugaritic civilization) comes from a
carnelian Carnelian (also spelled cornelian) is a brownish-red mineral commonly used as a semi-precious gemstone. Similar to carnelian is sard, which is generally harder and darker (the difference is not rigidly defined, and the two names are often used ...
bead identified with the Middle Kingdom pharaoh Senusret I, 1971–1926 BC. A stela and a statuette from the Egyptian pharaohs Senusret III and Amenemhet III have also been found. However, it is unclear at what time these monuments got to Ugarit. In the
Amarna letters The Amarna letters (; sometimes referred to as the Amarna correspondence or Amarna tablets, and cited with the abbreviation EA, for "El Amarna") are an archive, written on clay tablets, primarily consisting of diplomatic correspondence between t ...
, messages from Ugarit 1350 BC written by Ammittamru I, Niqmaddu II, and his queen, were discovered. From the 16th to the 13th century BC, Ugarit remained in constant touch with Egypt and Cyprus (named Alashiya). The Mitanni was a loosely organized state in northern Syria and south-east Anatolia from 1500–1300 BC. Founded by an Indo-Aryan ruling class that governed a predominantly Hurrian population, Mitanni came to be a regional power after the Hittite destruction of Kassite Babylon created a power vacuum in Mesopotamia. At its beginning, Mitanni's major rival was Egypt under the Thutmosids. However, with the ascent of the Hittite empire, Mitanni and Egypt allied to protect their mutual interests from the threat of Hittite domination. At the height of its power, during the 14th century BC, it had outposts centered on its capital,
Washukanni Washukanni (also spelled Waššukanni) was the capital of the Hurrian kingdom of Mitanni, from around 1500 BC to the 13th century BC. Location The precise location of Waššukanni is unknown. A proposal by Dietrich Opitz located it under the lar ...
, which archaeologists have located on the headwaters of the Khabur River. Eventually, Mitanni succumbed to Hittite, and later Assyrian attacks, and was reduced to a province of the Middle Assyrian Empire. The Israelites were an ancient Semitic-speaking people of the
Ancient Near East The ancient Near East was the home of early civilizations within a region roughly corresponding to the modern Middle East: Mesopotamia (modern Iraq, southeast Turkey, southwest Iran and northeastern Syria), ancient Egypt, ancient Iran (Elam, ...
who inhabited part of
Canaan Canaan (; Phoenician: 𐤊𐤍𐤏𐤍 – ; he, כְּנַעַן – , in pausa – ; grc-bib, Χανααν – ;The current scholarly edition of the Greek Old Testament spells the word without any accents, cf. Septuaginta : id est Vetus Te ...
during the tribal and monarchic periods (15th to 6th centuries BC), and lived in the region in smaller numbers after the fall of the monarchy. The name "Israel" first appears 1209 BC, at the end of the Late Bronze Age and the very beginning of the Iron Age, on the
Merneptah Stele The Merneptah Stele, also known as the Israel Stele or the Victory Stele of Merneptah, is an inscription by Merneptah, a pharaoh in ancient Egypt who reigned from 1213–1203 BCE. Discovered by Flinders Petrie at Thebes in 1896, it is now ho ...
raised by the Egyptian pharaoh Merneptah. The
Aramaeans The Arameans ( oar, 𐤀𐤓𐤌𐤉𐤀; arc, 𐡀𐡓𐡌𐡉𐡀; syc, ܐܪ̈ܡܝܐ, Ārāmāyē) were an ancient Semitic-speaking people in the Near East, first recorded in historical sources from the late 12th century BCE. The Aramean ...
were a Northwest Semitic semi-nomadic and pastoralist people who originated in what is now modern Syria (Biblical Aram) during the Late Bronze Age and the early Iron Age. Large groups migrated to Mesopotamia, where they intermingled with the native Akkadian (Assyrian and Babylonian) population. The Aramaeans never had a unified empire; they were divided into independent kingdoms all across the Near East. After the Bronze Age collapse, their political influence was confined to many Syro-Hittite states, which were entirely absorbed into the Neo-Assyrian Empire by the 8th century BC.


Mesopotamia

The Mesopotamian Bronze Age began about 3500 BC and ended with the
Kassite The Kassites () were people of the ancient Near East, who controlled Babylonia after the fall of the Old Babylonian Empire c. 1531 BC and until c. 1155 BC (short chronology). They gained control of Babylonia after the Hittite sack of Babyl ...
period ( 1500 BC – 1155 BC). The usual tripartite division into an Early, Middle and Late Bronze Age is not used. Instead, a division primarily based on art-historical and historical characteristics is more common. The
cities of the Ancient Near East The earliest cities in history were in the ancient Near East, an area covering roughly that of the modern Middle East: its history began in the 4th millennium BC and ended, depending on the interpretation of the term, either with the conquest by ...
housed several tens of thousands of people. Ur, Kish,
Isin Isin (, modern Arabic: Ishan al-Bahriyat) is an archaeological site in Al-Qādisiyyah Governorate, Iraq. Excavations have shown that it was an important city-state in the past. History of archaeological research Ishan al-Bahriyat was visited b ...
, Larsa and
Nippur Nippur ( Sumerian: ''Nibru'', often logographically recorded as , EN.LÍLKI, "Enlil City;"The Cambridge Ancient History: Prolegomena & Prehistory': Vol. 1, Part 1. Accessed 15 Dec 2010. Akkadian: ''Nibbur'') was an ancient Sumerian city. It wa ...
in the Middle Bronze Age and Babylon,
Calah Nimrud (; syr, ܢܢܡܪܕ ar, النمرود) is an ancient Assyrian city located in Iraq, south of the city of Mosul, and south of the village of Selamiyah ( ar, السلامية), in the Nineveh Plains in Upper Mesopotamia. It was a ma ...
and
Assur Aššur (; Sumerian: AN.ŠAR2KI, Assyrian cuneiform: ''Aš-šurKI'', "City of God Aššur"; syr, ܐܫܘܪ ''Āšūr''; Old Persian ''Aθur'', fa, آشور: ''Āšūr''; he, אַשּׁוּר, ', ar, اشور), also known as Ashur and Qal ...
in the Late Bronze Age similarly had large populations. The
Akkadian Empire The Akkadian Empire () was the first ancient empire of Mesopotamia after the long-lived civilization of Sumer. It was centered in the city of Akkad () and its surrounding region. The empire united Akkadian and Sumerian speakers under one ru ...
(2335–2154 BC) became the dominant power in the region, and after its fall the Sumerians enjoyed a renaissance with the
Neo-Sumerian Empire The Third Dynasty of Ur, also called the Neo-Sumerian Empire, refers to a 22nd to 21st century BC (middle chronology) Sumerian ruling dynasty based in the city of Ur and a short-lived territorial-political state which some historians consider to ...
.
Assyria Assyria (Neo-Assyrian cuneiform: , romanized: ''māt Aššur''; syc, ܐܬܘܪ, ʾāthor) was a major ancient Mesopotamian civilization which existed as a city-state at times controlling regional territories in the indigenous lands of the ...
became a regional power, under the Amorite king
Shamshi-Adad I Shamshi-Adad ( akk, Šamši-Adad; Amorite: ''Shamshi-Addu''), ruled 1808–1776 BC, was an Amorite warlord and conqueror who had conquered lands across much of Syria, Anatolia, and Upper Mesopotamia.Some of the Mari letters addressed to Shamsi ...
, with the Old Assyrian Empire ( 1800–1600 BC). The earliest mention of Babylon (then a small administrative town) appears on a tablet from the reign of Sargon of Akkad in the 23rd century BC. The
Amorite The Amorites (; sux, 𒈥𒌅, MAR.TU; Akkadian: 𒀀𒈬𒊒𒌝 or 𒋾𒀉𒉡𒌝/𒊎 ; he, אֱמוֹרִי, 'Ĕmōrī; grc, Ἀμορραῖοι) were an ancient Northwest Semitic-speaking people from the Levant who also occupied la ...
dynasty established the
city-state A city-state is an independent sovereign city which serves as the center of political, economic, and cultural life over its contiguous territory. They have existed in many parts of the world since the dawn of history, including cities such as ...
of Babylon in the 19th century BC. Over 100 years later, it briefly took over the other city-states and formed the short-lived First Babylonian Empire during what is also called the
Old Babylonian Period The Old Babylonian Empire, or First Babylonian Empire, is dated to BC – BC, and comes after the end of Sumerian power with the destruction of the Third Dynasty of Ur, and the subsequent Isin-Larsa period. The chronology of the first dynast ...
. Akkad, Assyria, and Babylonia all used the written East Semitic
Akkadian language Akkadian (, Akkadian: )John Huehnergard & Christopher Woods, "Akkadian and Eblaite", ''The Cambridge Encyclopedia of the World's Ancient Languages''. Ed. Roger D. Woodard (2004, Cambridge) Pages 218-280 is an extinct East Semitic language th ...
for official use and as a spoken language. By that time, the Sumerian language was no longer spoken, but was still in religious use in Assyria and Babylonia, and would remain so until the 1st century AD. The
Akkadian Akkadian or Accadian may refer to: * Akkadians, inhabitants of the Akkadian Empire * Akkadian language, an extinct Eastern Semitic language * Akkadian literature, literature in this language * Akkadian cuneiform Cuneiform is a logo-syllabic ...
and Sumerian traditions played a major role in later Assyrian and Babylonian culture, even though Babylonia (unlike the more militarily powerful Assyria) itself was founded by non-native
Amorites The Amorites (; sux, 𒈥𒌅, MAR.TU; Akkadian: 𒀀𒈬𒊒𒌝 or 𒋾𒀉𒉡𒌝/𒊎 ; he, אֱמוֹרִי, 'Ĕmōrī; grc, Ἀμορραῖοι) were an ancient Northwest Semitic-speaking people from the Levant who also occupied la ...
and often ruled by other non-indigenous peoples, such as
Kassites The Kassites () were people of the ancient Near East, who controlled Babylonia after the fall of the Old Babylonian Empire c. 1531 BC and until c. 1155 BC ( short chronology). They gained control of Babylonia after the Hittite sack of Babyl ...
,
Aramaeans The Arameans ( oar, 𐤀𐤓𐤌𐤉𐤀; arc, 𐡀𐡓𐡌𐡉𐡀; syc, ܐܪ̈ܡܝܐ, Ārāmāyē) were an ancient Semitic-speaking people in the Near East, first recorded in historical sources from the late 12th century BCE. The Aramean ...
and
Chaldea Chaldea () was a small country that existed between the late 10th or early 9th and mid-6th centuries BCE, after which the country and its people were absorbed and assimilated into the indigenous population of Babylonia. Semitic-speaking, it was ...
ns, as well as its Assyrian neighbors.


Asia


Central Asia


Agropastoralism

For many decades scholars made superficial reference to Central Asia as the "pastoral realm" or alternatively, the "nomadic world", in what researchers have come to call the "Central Asian void": a 5,000 year span that was neglected in studies of the origins of agriculture. Foothill regions and glacial melt streams supported Bronze Age agropastoralists who developed complex east–west trade routes between Central Asia and China that introduced wheat and barley to China and spread millet across Central Asia.


Bactria–Margiana Archaeological Complex

The
Bactria–Margiana Archaeological Complex The Bactria–Margiana Archaeological Complex (short BMAC) or Oxus Civilization, recently dated to c. 2250–1700 BC,Lyonnet, Bertille, and Nadezhda A. Dubova, (2020b)"Questioning the Oxus Civilization or Bactria- Margiana Archaeological Cultu ...
(BMAC), also known as the Oxus civilization, was a Bronze Age civilization in Central Asia, dated to c. 2400–1600 BC, located in present-day northern
Afghanistan Afghanistan, officially the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan,; prs, امارت اسلامی افغانستان is a landlocked country located at the crossroads of Central Asia and South Asia. Referred to as the Heart of Asia, it is bordere ...
, eastern Turkmenistan, southern Uzbekistan and western
Tajikistan Tajikistan (, ; tg, Тоҷикистон, Tojikiston; russian: Таджикистан, Tadzhikistan), officially the Republic of Tajikistan ( tg, Ҷумҳурии Тоҷикистон, Jumhurii Tojikiston), is a landlocked country in Centr ...
, centred on the upper
Amu Darya The Amu Darya, tk, Amyderýa/ uz, Amudaryo// tg, Амударё, Amudaryo ps, , tr, Ceyhun / Amu Derya grc, Ὦξος, Ôxos (also called the Amu, Amo River and historically known by its Latin name or Greek ) is a major river in Central As ...
(Oxus River). Its sites were discovered and named by the Soviet archaeologist
Viktor Sarianidi Viktor Ivanovich Sarianidi or Victor Sarigiannides (russian: Ви́ктор Ива́нович Сариани́ди; el, Βίκτωρ Σαρηγιαννίδης; September 23, 1929 – December 22, 2013) was a Soviet archaeologist. He discovered ...
(1976).
Bactria Bactria (; Bactrian: , ), or Bactriana, was an ancient region in Central Asia in Amu Darya's middle stream, stretching north of the Hindu Kush, west of the Pamirs and south of the Gissar range, covering the northern part of Afghanistan, southwe ...
was the Greek name for the area of
Bactra ), named for its green-tiled ''Gonbad'' ( prs, گُنبَد, dome), in July 2001 , pushpin_map=Afghanistan#Bactria#West Asia , pushpin_relief=yes , pushpin_label_position=bottom , pushpin_mapsize=300 , pushpin_map_caption=Location in Afghanistan ...
(modern
Balkh ), named for its green-tiled ''Gonbad'' ( prs, گُنبَد, dome), in July 2001 , pushpin_map=Afghanistan#Bactria#West Asia , pushpin_relief=yes , pushpin_label_position=bottom , pushpin_mapsize=300 , pushpin_map_caption=Location in Afghanistan ...
), in what is now northern Afghanistan, and
Margiana Margiana ( el, ''Margianḗ'', Old Persian: ''Marguš'', Middle Persian: ''Marv'') is a historical region centred on the oasis of Merv and was a minor satrapy within the Achaemenid satrapy of Bactria, and a province within its successors, the Se ...
was the Greek name for the Persian
satrap A satrap () was a governor of the provinces of the ancient Median and Achaemenid Empires and in several of their successors, such as in the Sasanian Empire and the Hellenistic empires. The satrap served as viceroy to the king, though with consid ...
y of Marguš, the capital of which was
Merv Merv ( tk, Merw, ', مرو; fa, مرو, ''Marv''), also known as the Merve Oasis, formerly known as Alexandria ( grc-gre, Ἀλεξάνδρεια), Antiochia in Margiana ( grc-gre, Ἀντιόχεια ἡ ἐν τῇ Μαργιανῇ) and ...
, in modern-day southeastern Turkmenistan. A wealth of information indicates that the BMAC had close international relations with the Indus Valley, the Iranian Plateau, and possibly even indirectly with Mesopotamia, and all civilizations were very familiar with lost wax casting. According to recent studies, the BMAC was not a primary contributor to later South-Asian genetics.


Seima-Turbino phenomenon

The
Altai Mountains The Altai Mountains (), also spelled Altay Mountains, are a mountain range in Central and East Asia, where Russia, China, Mongolia and Kazakhstan converge, and where the rivers Irtysh and Ob have their headwaters. The massif merges with the ...
in what is now southern
Russia Russia (, , ), or the Russian Federation, is a transcontinental country spanning Eastern Europe and Northern Asia. It is the largest country in the world, with its internationally recognised territory covering , and encompassing one-eight ...
and central Mongolia have been identified as the point of origin of a cultural enigma termed the
Seima-Turbino Phenomenon The Seima-Turbino phenomenon is a pattern of burial sites with similar bronze artifacts dated to ca. 2300-1700 BC (2017 dated from 2100 BC to 1900 BC, 2007 dated to 1650 BC onwards) found across northern Eurasia, particularly Siberia and Cent ...
. It is conjectured that changes in climate in this region around 2000 BC and the ensuing ecological, economic and political changes triggered a rapid and massive migration westward into northeast Europe, eastward into China and southward into Vietnam and Thailand across a frontier of some 4,000 miles. This migration took place in just five to six generations and led to peoples from Finland in the west to Thailand in the east employing the same metal working technology and, in some areas, horse breeding and riding. It is further conjectured that the same migrations spread the
Uralic The Uralic languages (; sometimes called Uralian languages ) form a language family of 38 languages spoken by approximately 25million people, predominantly in Northern Eurasia. The Uralic languages with the most native speakers are Hungarian lan ...
group of languages across Europe and Asia: some 39 languages of this group are still extant, including Hungarian, Finnish and
Estonian Estonian may refer to: * Something of, from, or related to Estonia, a country in the Baltic region in northern Europe * Estonians, people from Estonia, or of Estonian descent * Estonian language * Estonian cuisine * Estonian culture See also * ...
. However, recent genetic testings of sites in south Siberia and Kazakhstan (
Andronovo The Andronovo culture (russian: Андроновская культура, translit=Andronovskaya kul'tura) is a collection of similar local Late Bronze Age cultures that flourished  2000–1450 BC,Grigoriev, Stanislav, (2021)"Andronovo ...
horizon) would rather support a spreading of the bronze technology via
Indo-European migrations The Indo-European migrations were hypothesized migrations of Proto-Indo-European language (PIE) speakers, and subsequent migrations of people speaking derived Indo-European languages, which took place approx. 4000 to 1000 BCE, potentially expla ...
eastwards, as this technology was well known for quite a while in western regions.


East Asia


China

In China, the earliest bronze artifacts have been found in the
Majiayao culture The Majiayao culture was a group of neolithic communities who lived primarily in the upper Yellow River region in eastern Gansu, eastern Qinghai and northern Sichuan, China. The culture existed from 3300 to 2000 BC. The Majiayao culture repre ...
site (between 3100 and 2700 BC). The term "Bronze Age" has been transferred to the archaeology of China from that of Western Eurasia, and there is no consensus or universally used convention delimiting the "Bronze Age" in the context of
Chinese prehistory The earliest known written records of the history of China date from as early as 1250 BC, from the Shang dynasty (c. 1600–1046 BC), during the reign of king Wu Ding. Ancient historical texts such as the ''Book of Documents'' (early chapter ...
. By convention, the "Early Bronze Age" in China is sometimes taken as equivalent to the " Shang dynasty" period (16th to 11th centuries BC), and the "Later Bronze Age" as equivalent to the " Zhou dynasty" period (11th to 3rd centuries BC, from the 5th century, also dubbed " Iron Age"), although there is an argument to be made that the "Bronze Age" proper never ended in China, as there is no recognizable transition to an "Iron Age". Significantly, together with the jade art that precedes it, bronze was seen as a "fine" material for ritual art when compared with iron or stone. Bronze metallurgy in China originated in what is referred to as the
Erlitou The Erlitou culture was an early Bronze Age urban society and archaeological culture that existed in the Yellow River valley from approximately 1900 to 1500 BC. A 2007 study of radiocarbon dating proposed a narrower date range of 1750 to 1530 B ...
() period, which some historians argue places it within the range of dates controlled by the Shang dynasty. Others believe the Erlitou sites belong to the preceding Xia () dynasty. The U.S. National Gallery of Art defines the Chinese Bronze Age as the "period between about 2000 BC and 771 BC", a period that begins with the Erlitou culture and ends abruptly with the disintegration of Western Zhou rule. There is reason to believe that bronze work developed inside China separately from outside influence. However, the discovery of Europoid mummies in Xinjiang has caused some scholars such as Johan Gunnar Andersson, Jan Romgard, and An Zhimin to suggest a possible route of transmission from the West eastwards. According to An Zhimin, "It can be imagined that initially bronze and iron technology took its rise in West Asia, first influenced the Xinjiang region, and then reached the Yellow River valley, providing external impetus for the rise of the Shang and Zhou civilizations." According to Jan Romgard, "bronze and iron tools seems to have traveled from west to east as well as the use of wheeled wagons and the domestication of the horse." There are also possible links to Seima-Turbino culture, "a transcultural complex across northern Eurasia," the Eurasian steppe, and the Urals. However the oldest bronze objects found in China so far were discovered at the Majiayao site in Gansu rather than at Xinjiang. The Shang dynasty (also known as the Yin dynasty) of the
Yellow River Valley The Yellow River or Huang He (Chinese: , Mandarin: ''Huáng hé'' ) is the second-longest river in China, after the Yangtze River, and the sixth-longest river system in the world at the estimated length of . Originating in the Bayan Ha ...
rose to power after the Xia dynasty around 1600 BC. While some direct information about the Shang dynasty comes from Shang-era inscriptions on bronze artifacts, most comes from oracle bones—turtle shells, cattle scapulae, or other bones—which bear
glyph A glyph () is any kind of purposeful mark. In typography, a glyph is "the specific shape, design, or representation of a character". It is a particular graphical representation, in a particular typeface, of an element of written language. A g ...
s that form the first significant corpus of recorded Chinese characters. The production of
Erlitou The Erlitou culture was an early Bronze Age urban society and archaeological culture that existed in the Yellow River valley from approximately 1900 to 1500 BC. A 2007 study of radiocarbon dating proposed a narrower date range of 1750 to 1530 B ...
in Henan represents the earliest large-scale metallurgy industry in the Central Plains of China. The influence of the Saima-Turbino metalworking tradition from the north is supported by a series of recent discoveries in China of many unique perforated spearheads with downward hooks and small loops on the same or opposite side of the socket, which could be associated with the Seima-Turbino visual vocabulary of southern Siberia. The metallurgical centers of northwestern China, especially Qijia in Gansu and Kexingzhuang culture in Shaanxi, played an intermediary role in this process. Iron has been found from the Zhou dynasty, but its use was minimal. Chinese literature dating to the 6th century BC attests knowledge of iron smelting, yet bronze continues to occupy the seat of significance in the archaeological and historical record for some time after this. Historian W.C. White argues that iron did not supplant bronze "at any period before the end of the Zhou dynasty (256 BC)" and that bronze vessels make up the majority of metal vessels through the Later Han period, or to 221 BC. The Chinese bronze artifacts generally are either utilitarian, like spear points or
adze An adze (; alternative spelling: adz) is an ancient and versatile cutting tool similar to an axe but with the cutting edge perpendicular to the handle rather than parallel. Adzes have been used since the Stone Age. They are used for smoothing o ...
heads, or "ritual bronzes", which are more elaborate versions in precious materials of everyday vessels, as well as tools and weapons. Examples are the numerous large sacrificial tripods known as dings in Chinese; there are many other distinct shapes. Surviving identified Chinese ritual bronzes tend to be highly decorated, often with the ''
taotie The ''Taotie'' () is an ancient Chinese mythological creature that was commonly emblazoned on bronze and other artifacts during the 1st millennium BC. ''Taotie'' are one of the " four evil creatures of the world". In Chinese classical texts such ...
'' motif, which involves highly stylized animal faces. These appear in three main motif types: those of demons, of symbolic animals, and abstract symbols. Many large bronzes also bear cast inscriptions that are the great bulk of the surviving body of early
Chinese writing Written Chinese () comprises Chinese characters used to represent the Chinese language. Chinese characters do not constitute an alphabet or a compact syllabary. Rather, the writing system is roughly logosyllabic; that is, a character generally rep ...
and have helped historians and archaeologists piece together the history of China, especially during the Zhou dynasty (1046–256 BC). The bronzes of the Western Zhou dynasty document large portions of history not found in the extant texts that were often composed by persons of varying rank and possibly even social class. Further, the medium of cast bronze lends the record they preserve a permanence not enjoyed by manuscripts. These inscriptions can commonly be subdivided into four parts: a reference to the date and place, the naming of the event commemorated, the list of gifts given to the artisan in exchange for the bronze, and a dedication. The relative points of reference these vessels provide have enabled historians to place most of the vessels within a certain time frame of the Western Zhou period, allowing them to trace the evolution of the vessels and the events they record.


Korea

The beginning of the Bronze Age on the peninsula is around 1000–800 BC. Initially centered around Liaoning and southern Manchuria, Korean Bronze Age culture exhibits unique typology and styles, especially in ritual objects. The
Mumun pottery period The Mumun pottery period is an archaeological era in Korean prehistory that dates to approximately 1500-300 BC. This period is named after the Korean name for undecorated or plain cooking and storage vessels that form a large part of the potter ...
is named after the Korean name for undecorated or plain cooking and storage vessels that form a large part of the pottery assemblage over the entire length of the period, but especially 850–550 BC. The Mumun period is known for the origins of intensive agriculture and complex societies in both the Korean Peninsula and the Japanese Archipelago. The Middle Mumun pottery period culture of the southern Korean Peninsula gradually adopted bronze production ( 700–600? BC) after a period when Liaoning-style bronze daggers and other bronze artifacts were exchanged as far as the interior part of the Southern Peninsula ( 900–700 BC). The bronze daggers lent prestige and authority to the personages who wielded and were buried with them in high-status megalithic burials at south-coastal centers such as the
Igeum-dong site Igeum-dong is a complex archaeological site located in Igeum-dong, Samcheonpo in Sacheon-si, South Gyeongsang Province, South Korea. This prehistoric archaeological site is important in Korean prehistory because it represents solid evidence tha ...
. Bronze was an important element in ceremonies and as for mortuary offerings until 100 BC.


Japan

The Japanese archipelago saw the introduction of bronze during the beginning of the Early
Yayoi period The started at the beginning of the Neolithic in Japan, continued through the Bronze Age, and towards its end crossed into the Iron Age. Since the 1980s, scholars have argued that a period previously classified as a transition from the Jōmon ...
(≈300 BC), which saw the introduction of metalworking and agricultural practices brought in by settlers arriving from the continent. Bronze and iron smelting techniques spread to the Japanese archipelago through contact with other ancient East Asian civilizations, particularly immigration and trade from ancient Korean peninsula and ancient mainland China. Iron was mainly used for agricultural and other tools, whereas ritual and ceremonial artifacts were mainly made of bronze.


South Asia

(Dates are approximate, consult particular article for details) ImageSize = width:800 height:50 PlotArea = width:720 height:25 left:65 bottom:20 AlignBars = justify Colors = id:age value:rgb(0.95,0.85,0.5) # id:filler value:gray(0.8) # background bar id:black value:black Period = from:-3300 till:-1000 TimeAxis = orientation:horizontal ScaleMajor = unit:year increment:500 start:-3300 ScaleMinor = unit:year increment:100 start:-3300 PlotData = align:center textcolor:black fontsize:8 mark:(line,black) width:15 shift:(0,-5) bar:India color:age from: -3300 till: -1550 shift:(0,7) text:
Bronze Age India The Bronze Age in the Indian subcontinent begins around 3000 BCE, and in the end gives rise to the Indus Valley Civilisation, which had its (mature) period between 2600 BCE and 1900 BCE. It continues into the Rigvedic period, the early part of ...
from: -3300 till: -2700 text: Early Indus from: -2700 till: -1900 text: Mature Harappan from: -1900 till: -1550 text: Late Harappa from: -1500 till: -1200 text:
Rigvedic The ''Rigveda'' or ''Rig Veda'' ( ', from ' "praise" and ' "knowledge") is an ancient Indian collection of Vedic Sanskrit hymns (''sūktas''). It is one of the four sacred canonical Hindu texts (''śruti'') known as the Vedas. Only one ...


Indus Valley

The Bronze Age on the Indian subcontinent began around 3300 BC with the beginning of the Indus Valley civilization. Inhabitants of the Indus Valley, the
Harappa Harappa (; Urdu/ pnb, ) is an archaeological site in Punjab, Pakistan, about west of Sahiwal. The Bronze Age Harappan civilisation, now more often called the Indus Valley Civilisation, is named after the site, which takes its name from a mode ...
ns, developed new techniques in metallurgy and produced copper, bronze, lead and tin. The Late Harappan culture, which dates from 1900 to 1400 BC, overlapped the transition from the Bronze Age to the Iron Age; thus it is difficult to date this transition accurately. It has been claimed that a 6,000-year-old copper
amulet An amulet, also known as a good luck charm or phylactery, is an object believed to confer protection upon its possessor. The word "amulet" comes from the Latin word amuletum, which Pliny's ''Natural History'' describes as "an object that protects ...
manufactured in Mehrgarh in the shape of wheel spoke is the earliest example of
lost-wax casting Lost-wax casting (also called "investment casting", "precision casting", or ''cire perdue'' which has been adopted into English from the French, ) is the process by which a duplicate metal sculpture (often silver, gold, brass, or bronze) i ...
in the world. The civilization's cities were noted for their urban planning, baked brick houses, elaborate drainage systems, water supply systems, clusters of large non-residential buildings, and new techniques in handicraft (carnelian products, seal carving) and metallurgy (copper, bronze, lead, and tin). The large cities of Mohenjo-daro and Harappa very likely grew to contain between 30,000 and 60,000 individuals, and the civilization itself during its florescence may have contained between one and five million individuals.


Southeast Asia

The Vilabouly Complex in Laos is a significant archaeological site for dating the origin of bronze metallurgy in Southeast Asia.


Thailand

In
Ban Chiang Ban Chiang ( th, บ้านเชียง, ) is an archaeological site in Nong Han district, Udon Thani province, Thailand. It has been a UNESCO World Heritage Site since 1992. Discovered in 1966, the site first attracted interest due to it ...
, Thailand, ( Southeast Asia) bronze artifacts have been discovered dating to 2100 BC. However, according to the radiocarbon dating on the human and pig bones in Ban Chiang, some scholars propose that the initial Bronze Age in Ban Chiang was in late 2nd millennium. In Nyaunggan,
Burma Myanmar, ; UK pronunciations: US pronunciations incl. . Note: Wikipedia's IPA conventions require indicating /r/ even in British English although only some British English speakers pronounce r at the end of syllables. As John Wells explai ...
, bronze tools have been excavated along with ceramics and stone artifacts. Dating is still currently broad (3500–500 BC). Ban Non Wat, excavated by Charles Higham, was a rich site with over 640 graves excavated that gleaned many complex bronze items that may have had social value connected to them. Ban Chiang, however, is the most thoroughly documented site while having the clearest evidence of metallurgy when it comes to Southeast Asia. With a rough date range of late 3rd millennium BC to the first millennium AD, this site alone has various artifacts such as burial pottery (dating from 2100 to 1700 BC), fragments of Bronze, copper-base bangles, and much more. What's interesting about this site, however, is not just the old age of the artifacts but that this technology suggested on-site casting from the very beginning. The on-site casting supports the theory that Bronze was first introduced in Southeast Asia as fully developed which therefore shows that Bronze was innovated from a different country. Some scholars believe that the copper-based metallurgy was disseminated from northwest and central China via south and southwest areas such as Guangdong province and Yunnan province and finally into southeast Asia around 1000 BC. Archaeology also suggests that Bronze Age metallurgy may not have been as significant a catalyst in social stratification and warfare in Southeast Asia as in other regions, social distribution shifting away from chiefdom-states to a heterarchical network. Data analyses of sites such as Ban Lum Khao, Ban Na Di, Non-Nok Tha, Khok Phanom Di, and Nong Nor have consistently led researchers to conclude that there was no entrenched hierarchy.


Vietnam

Dating back to the Neolithic Age, the first bronze drum, called the Dong Son drum, were uncovered in and around the Red River Delta regions of Northern Vietnam and Southern China. These relate to the prehistoric
Dong Son culture The Dong Son culture or the Lạc Việt culture (named for modern village Đông Sơn, a village in Thanh Hóa, Vietnam) was a Bronze Age culture in ancient Vietnam centred at the Red River Valley of northern Vietnam from 1000 BC until the ...
of Vietnam. Archaeological research in Northern Vietnam indicates an increase in rates of infectious disease following the advent of metallurgy; skeletal fragments in sites dating to the early and mid-Bronze Age evidence a greater proportion of lesions than in sites of earlier periods. There are a few possible implications of this. One is the increased contact with bacterial and/or fungal pathogens due to increased population density and land clearing/cultivation. The other one is decreased levels of immunocompetence in the Metal age due to changes in the diet caused by agriculture. The last is that there may have been an emergence of infectious disease in the Da But the period that evolved into a more virulent form in the metal period.


Myanmar


Europe

A few examples of named Bronze Age cultures in Europe in roughly relative order. (Dates are approximate, consult particular article for details) ImageSize = width:800 height:145 PlotArea = width:720 height:105 left:65 bottom:20 AlignBars = justify Colors = id:era value:rgb(1,0.85,0.5) # Period = from:-3300 till:-300 TimeAxis = orientation:horizontal ScaleMajor = unit:year increment:500 start:-3300 ScaleMinor = unit:year increment:100 start:-3300 PlotData = align:center textcolor:black fontsize:8 mark:(line,black) width:15 shift:(0,-5) bar:Europe color:era width:25 from: -3200 till: -600 shift:(0,15) text:
Bronze Age Europe The European Bronze Age is characterized by bronze artifacts and the use of bronze implements. The regional Bronze Age succeeds the Neolithic and Copper Age and is followed by the Iron Age. It starts with the Aegean Bronze Age in 3200 BC (succee ...
from: -3200 till: -2850 text: Aegean Bronze from: -2850 till: -2500 text:
Corded Ware The Corded Ware culture comprises a broad archaeological horizon of Europe between ca. 3000 BC – 2350 BC, thus from the late Neolithic, through the Copper Age, and ending in the early Bronze Age. Corded Ware culture encompassed a ...
from: -2500 till: -2150 text: Beaker from: -2150 till: -1600 text: Unetice from: -1600 till: -1250 text: Tumulus from: -1250 till: -750 text: Urnfield from: -1250 till: -600 shift:(40,0) text: Lusatian bar:Britain color:era from: -2700 till: -700 shift:(0,15) text:
Bronze Age Britain Bronze Age Britain is an era of British history that spanned from until . Lasting for approximately 1,700 years, it was preceded by the era of Neolithic Britain and was in turn followed by the period of Iron Age Britain. Being categorised as ...
from: -2700 till: -2500 shift:(0,2) text:Mount~Pleasant link:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mount_Pleasant_Phase from: -2500 till: -1900 text: Beaker from: -1900 till: -1500 text: Bedd Branwen from: -1500 till: -1300 shift:(0,3) text:Acton~Park link:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Acton_Park_Phase from: -1300 till: -1200 shift:(0,0) text:Knighton~Heath link:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Knighton_Heath_Period from: -1200 till: -850 text: Urnfield from: -850 till: -700 shift:(0,2) text:Ewart~Park link:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ewart_Park_Phase bar:Scand. color:era from: -1700 till: -500 shift:(0,15) text: Nordic Bronze Age from: -1700 till: -1500 text:Phase I from: -1500 till: -1300 text:Phase II from: -1300 till: -1100 text:Phase III from: -1100 till: -900 text:Phase IV from: -900 till: -700 text:Phase V from: -700 till: -500 text:Phase VI
:''The chosen cultures overlapped in time and the indicated periods do not fully correspond to their estimated extents.''


Aegean

The Aegean Bronze Age began around 3200 BC, when civilizations first established a far-ranging trade network. This network imported tin and charcoal to Cyprus, where copper was mined and alloyed with the tin to produce bronze. Bronze objects were then exported far and wide and supported the trade. Isotopic analysis of tin in some Mediterranean bronze artifacts suggests that they may have originated from Great Britain. Knowledge of navigation was well developed at this time and reached a peak of skill not exceeded (except perhaps by Polynesian sailors) until 1730 when the invention of the chronometer enabled the precise determination of longitude. The Minoan civilization based in Knossos on the island of
Crete Crete ( el, Κρήτη, translit=, Modern: , Ancient: ) is the largest and most populous of the Greek islands, the 88th largest island in the world and the fifth largest island in the Mediterranean Sea, after Sicily, Sardinia, Cypru ...
appears to have coordinated and defended its Bronze Age trade. Ancient empires valued
luxury good In economics, a luxury good (or upmarket good) is a good for which demand increases more than what is proportional as income rises, so that expenditures on the good become a greater proportion of overall spending. Luxury goods are in contrast to ...
s in contrast to
staple foods A staple food, food staple, or simply a staple, is a food that is eaten often and in such quantities that it constitutes a dominant portion of a standard diet for a given person or group of people, supplying a large fraction of energy needs and ...
, leading to famine.


Aegean collapse

Bronze Age collapse theories have described aspects of the end of the Bronze Age in this region. At the end of the Bronze Age in the Aegean region, the Mycenaean administration of the regional trade empire followed the decline of Minoan primacy. Several Minoan
client states A client state, in international relations, is a state that is economically, politically, and/or militarily subordinate to another more powerful state (called the "controlling state"). A client state may variously be described as satellite state, ...
lost much of their population to famine and/or pestilence. This would indicate that the trade network may have failed, preventing the trade that would previously have relieved such famines and prevented illness caused by malnutrition. It is also known that in this era the
breadbasket The breadbasket of a country or of a region is an area which, because of the richness of the soil and/or advantageous climate, produces large quantities of wheat or other grain. Rice bowl is a similar term used to refer to Southeast Asia; and C ...
of the Minoan empire, the area north of the Black Sea, also suddenly lost much of its population, and thus probably some capacity to cultivate crops. Drought and famine in Anatolia may have also led to the Aegean collapse by disrupting trade networks, and therefore preventing the Aegean from accessing bronze and luxury goods. The Aegean collapse has been attributed to the exhaustion of the Cypriot forests causing the end of the bronze trade. These forests are known to have existed into later times, and experiments have shown that
charcoal Charcoal is a lightweight black carbon residue produced by strongly heating wood (or other animal and plant materials) in minimal oxygen to remove all water and volatile constituents. In the traditional version of this pyrolysis process, cal ...
production on the scale necessary for the bronze production of the late Bronze Age would have exhausted them in less than fifty years. The Aegean collapse has also been attributed to the fact that as iron
tools A tool is an object that can extend an individual's ability to modify features of the surrounding environment or help them accomplish a particular task. Although many animals use simple tools, only human beings, whose use of stone tools dates bac ...
became more common, the main justification for the tin trade ended, and that trade network ceased to function as it did formerly. The colonies of the Minoan empire then suffered drought, famine, war, or some combination of those three, and had no access to the distant resources of an empire by which they could easily recover. The
Thera eruption The Minoan eruption was a catastrophic volcanic eruption that devastated the Aegean island of Thera (also called Santorini) circa 1600 BCE. It destroyed the Minoan settlement at Akrotiri, as well as communities and agricultural areas on nearb ...
occurred 1600 BC, north of Crete. Speculation includes that a tsunami from Thera (more commonly known today as Santorini) destroyed Cretan cities. A tsunami may have destroyed the Cretan navy in its home harbor, which then lost crucial naval battles; so that in the LMIB/LMII event ( 1450 BC) the cities of
Crete Crete ( el, Κρήτη, translit=, Modern: , Ancient: ) is the largest and most populous of the Greek islands, the 88th largest island in the world and the fifth largest island in the Mediterranean Sea, after Sicily, Sardinia, Cypru ...
burned and the
Mycenaean civilization Mycenaean Greece (or the Mycenaean civilization) was the last phase of the Bronze Age in Ancient Greece, spanning the period from approximately 1750 to 1050 BC.. It represents the first advanced and distinctively Greek civilization in mainlan ...
took over Knossos. If the eruption occurred in the late 17th century BC (as most chronologists now think) then its immediate effects belong to the Middle to Late Bronze Age transition, and not to the end of the Late Bronze Age, but it could have triggered the instability that led to the collapse first of Knossos and then of Bronze Age society overall. One such theory highlights the role of Cretan expertise in administering the empire, post—Thera. If this expertise was concentrated in Crete, then the Mycenaeans may have made political and commercial mistakes in administering the Cretan empire. Archaeological findings, including some on the island of Thera, suggest that the center of the Minoan civilization at the time of the eruption was actually on Thera rather than on Crete. According to this theory, the catastrophic loss of the political, administrative and economic center due to the eruption, as well as the damage wrought by the tsunami to the coastal towns and villages of Crete precipitated the decline of the Minoans. A weakened political entity with a reduced economic and military capability and fabled riches would have then been more vulnerable to conquest. Indeed, the Santorini eruption is usually dated to 1630 BC, while the Mycenaean Greeks first enter the historical record a few decades later, 1600 BC. The later Mycenaean assaults on Crete ( 1450 BC) and Troy ( 1250 BC) would have been a continuation of the steady encroachment of the Greeks upon the weakened Minoan world.


Balkans

Radivojevic et al. (2013) reported the discovery of a tin bronze foil from the Pločnik archaeological site securely dated to c. 4650 BC as well as 14 other artifacts from Serbia and
Bulgaria Bulgaria (; bg, България, Bǎlgariya), officially the Republic of Bulgaria,, ) is a country in Southeast Europe. It is situated on the eastern flank of the Balkans, and is bordered by Romania to the north, Serbia and North Maced ...
dated to before 4000 BC has shown that early tin bronze was more common than previously thought, and developed independently in Europe 1500 years before the first tin bronze alloys in the Near East. The production of complex tin bronzes lasted for c. 500 years in the Balkans. The authors reported that evidence for the production of such complex bronzes disappears at the end of the 5th millennium coinciding with the "collapse of large cultural complexes in north-eastern Bulgaria and Thrace in the late fifth millennium BC". Tin bronzes using
cassiterite Cassiterite is a tin oxide mineral, SnO2. It is generally opaque, but it is translucent in thin crystals. Its luster and multiple crystal faces produce a desirable gem. Cassiterite was the chief tin ore throughout ancient history and remains t ...
tin would be reintroduced to the area again some 1500 years later. The
Dabene Treasure The Dabene Treasure ( bg, Дъбенското съкровище) was unearthed in 2004 near the village of Dabene in the municipality of Karlovo, Plovdiv Province, central Bulgaria. The excavations were led by the archaeologist Martin Hristov ...
was unearthed from 2004 to 2007 near Karlovo,
Plovdiv Province Plovdiv Province ( bg, Област Пловдив: ''Oblast Plovdiv'', former name Plovdiv okrug) is a province in central southern Bulgaria. It comprises 18 municipalities (общини, ''obshtini'', sing. общинa, ''obshtina'') on a ter ...
, central
Bulgaria Bulgaria (; bg, България, Bǎlgariya), officially the Republic of Bulgaria,, ) is a country in Southeast Europe. It is situated on the eastern flank of the Balkans, and is bordered by Romania to the north, Serbia and North Maced ...
. The whole treasure consists of 20,000 gold jewelerry items from 18 to 23 carats. The most important of them was a dagger made of gold and
platinum Platinum is a chemical element with the symbol Pt and atomic number 78. It is a dense, malleable, ductile, highly unreactive, precious, silverish-white transition metal. Its name originates from Spanish , a diminutive of "silver". Platin ...
with an unusual edge. The treasure was dated to the end of the 3rd millennium B.C. The scientists suggest that the Karlovo valley used to be a major crafts center which exported golden jewelry all over Europe. It is considered as one of the largest prehistoric golden treasure in the world.


Central Europe

In
Central Europe Central Europe is an area of Europe between Western Europe and Eastern Europe, based on a common historical, social and cultural identity. The Thirty Years' War (1618–1648) between Catholicism and Protestantism significantly shaped the ar ...
, the early Bronze Age Unetice culture (2300–1600 BC) includes numerous smaller groups like the Straubing,
Adlerberg Adlerberg is a surname. People with this surname include: * Amalie Adlerberg (1808–1888), Russian/German nobility * Nikolay Adlerberg (1819–1892), Russian/Swedish nobility * Vladimir Adlerberg (1791-1884), Russian/Swedish nobility ;See also ...
and
Hatvan Hatvan is a town in Heves county, Hungary. Hatvan is the Hungarian word for "sixty". Etymology Hatvan is the Hungarian word for "sixty". It is a common urban legend that the town got this name because it is 60 km from Budapest, but in fact the n ...
cultures. Some very rich burials, such as the one located at
Leubingen The Leubingen tumulus (German: ''Fürstengrab von Leubingen'') is an early bronze age "princely" grave of the Leubingen culture, (which, after further finds at Auntjetitz became known as Auntjetitz or Unetice culture), dating to about 1940 BC. It ...
with grave gifts crafted from gold, point to an increase of social stratification already present in the Unetice culture. All in all, cemeteries of this period are rare and of small size. The Unetice culture is followed by the middle Bronze Age (1600–1200 BC)
Tumulus culture __NOTOC__ The Tumulus culture (German: ''Hügelgräberkultur'') dominated Central Europe during the Middle Bronze Age ( 1600 to 1300 BC). It was the descendant of the Unetice culture. Its heartland was the area previously occupied by the ...
, which is characterised by inhumation burials in
tumuli A tumulus (plural tumuli) is a mound of earth and stones raised over a grave or graves. Tumuli are also known as barrows, burial mounds or ''kurgans'', and may be found throughout much of the world. A cairn, which is a mound of stones built ...
(barrows). In the eastern Hungarian
Körös The Körös () or Criș () (German: ''Kreisch'') is a river in eastern Hungary and western Romania. Its length is from the confluence of its two source rivers Fehér-Körös (''Crișul Alb'') and Fekete-Körös (''Crișul Negru'') to its out ...
tributaries, the early Bronze Age first saw the introduction of the
Mako culture , better known by the mononym name Mako (sometimes stylised MAKO), is a Japanese voice actress, singer and a member of the band Bon-Bon Blanco, in which her prominent role is as the maraca player. She has also performed in a Japanese television ...
, followed by the Otomani and
Gyulavarsand culture Pilu ( hu, Nagypél) is a commune in Arad County, Romania, is situated on the Criș Plateau, in the north-western part of the county, at the western border of Romania. The commune stretches over and is composed of two villages, Pilu (situated a ...
s. The late Bronze Age Urnfield culture (1300–700 BC) is characterized by cremation burials. It includes the Lusatian culture in eastern Germany and Poland (1300–500 BC) that continues into the Iron Age. The Central European Bronze Age is followed by the Iron Age Hallstatt culture (700–450 BC). Important sites include: *
Biskupin Biskupin is an archaeological site and a life-size model of a late Bronze Age fortified settlement in north-central Poland that also serves as an archaeological open-air museum. When first discovered it was thought to be early evidence of a ...
( Poland) * Nebra ( Germany) *
Vráble Vráble ( hu, Verebély) is a small town in the Nitra District, Nitra Region, western Slovakia. Etymology The name derives from ''vrábeľ'' - a Slovak dialect name of sparrow (''vrabec''). Geography It is located in the Danubian Hills on the ...
( Slovakia) * Zug-Sumpf,
Zug Zug ( Standard German: , Alemannic German: ; french: Zoug it, Zugo rm, Zug New Latin: ''Tugium'')named in the 16th century is the largest town and capital of the Swiss canton of Zug in Switzerland. Its name originates from the fishing vocabulary ...
, Switzerland The Bronze Age in Central Europe has been described in the chronological schema of German prehistorian Paul Reinecke. He described Bronze A1 (Bz A1) period (2300–2000 BC: triangular daggers, flat axes, stone wrist-guards, flint arrowheads) and Bronze A2 (Bz A2) period (1950–1700 BC: daggers with metal hilt, flanged axes, halberds, pins with perforated spherical heads, solid bracelets) and phases Hallstatt A and B (Ha A and B).


South Europe

The Apennine culture (also called Italian Bronze Age) is a technology complex of central and southern Italy spanning the Chalcolithic and Bronze Age proper. The
Camuni The Camuni or Camunni were an ancient population located in Val Camonica during the Iron Age (1st millennium BC); the Latin name ''Camunni'' was attributed to them by the authors of the 1st century. They are also called ancient Camuni, to distingu ...
were an ancient people of uncertain origin (according to Pliny the Elder, they were
Euganei The Euganei (fr. Lat. ''Euganei'', ''Euganeorum''; cf. Gr. ''εὐγενής'' (eugenēs) 'well-born') were a semi-mythical Proto-Italic ethnic group that dwelt an area among Adriatic Sea and Rhaetian Alps. Subsequently, they were driven by the A ...
; according to Strabo, they were
Rhaetians The Raeti (spelling variants: ''Rhaeti'', ''Rheti'' or ''Rhaetii'') were a confederation of Alpine tribes, whose language and culture was related to those of the Etruscans. Before the Roman conquest, they inhabited present-day Tyrol in Austria ...
) who lived in Val Camonica—in what is now northern Lombardy—during the Iron Age, although human groups of hunters, shepherds and farmers are known to have lived in the area since the Neolithic. Located in Sardinia and
Corsica Corsica ( , Upper , Southern ; it, Corsica; ; french: Corse ; lij, Còrsega; sc, Còssiga) is an island in the Mediterranean Sea and one of the 18 regions of France. It is the fourth-largest island in the Mediterranean and lies southeast o ...
, the Nuragic civilization lasted from the early Bronze Age (18th century BC) to the 2nd century AD, when the islands were already Romanized. They take their name from the characteristic Nuragic towers, which evolved from the pre-existing megalithic culture, which built dolmens and
menhir A menhir (from Brittonic languages: ''maen'' or ''men'', "stone" and ''hir'' or ''hîr'', "long"), standing stone, orthostat, or lith is a large human-made upright stone, typically dating from the European middle Bronze Age. They can be found ...
s. The nuraghe towers are unanimously considered the best-preserved and largest megalithic remains in Europe. Their effective use is still debated: some scholars considered them as monumental tombs, others as Houses of the Giants, other as fortresses, ovens for metal fusion, prisons or, finally, temples for a solar cult. Around the end of the 3rd millennium BC, Sardinia exported towards Sicily a ''Culture'' that built small dolmens, trilithic or polygonal shaped, that served as tombs as it has been ascertained in the Sicilian dolmen of "Cava dei Servi". From this region, they reached Malta island and other countries of Mediterranean basin. The Terramare was an early
Indo-European The Indo-European languages are a language family native to the overwhelming majority of Europe, the Iranian plateau, and the northern Indian subcontinent. Some European languages of this family, English, French, Portuguese, Russian, Du ...
civilization in the area of what is now
Pianura Padana The Po Valley, Po Plain, Plain of the Po, or Padan Plain ( it, Pianura Padana , or ''Val Padana'') is a major geographical feature of Northern Italy. It extends approximately in an east-west direction, with an area of including its Venetic ex ...
(northern Italy) before the arrival of the
Celts The Celts (, see pronunciation for different usages) or Celtic peoples () are. "CELTS location: Greater Europe time period: Second millennium B.C.E. to present ancestry: Celtic a collection of Indo-European peoples. "The Celts, an ancient ...
and in other parts of Europe. They lived in square villages of wooden
stilt houses Stilt is a common name for several species of birds in the family Recurvirostridae, which also includes those known as avocets. They are found in brackish or saline wetlands in warm or hot climates. They have extremely long legs, hence the grou ...
. These villages were built on land, but generally near a stream, with roads that crossed each other at right angles. The whole complex denoted the nature of a fortified settlement. Terramare was widespread in the Pianura Padana (especially along the Panaro river, between Modena and Bologna) and in the rest of Europe. The civilization developed in the Middle and Late Bronze Age, between the 17th and the 13th centuries BC. The
Castellieri culture The Castellieri culture developed in Istria during the Mid-Bronze Age, and later expanded into Friuli, Dalmatia and the neighbouring areas. It lasted for more than a millennium, from the 15th century BC until the Roman conquest in the 3rd centur ...
developed in Istria during the Middle Bronze Age. It lasted for more than a millennium, from the 15th century BC until the Roman conquest in the 3rd century BC. It takes its name from the fortified boroughs (''Castellieri'', Friulian: ''cjastelir'') that characterized the culture. The
Canegrate culture The Canegrate culture was a civilization of prehistoric Italy that developed from the late Bronze Age (13th century BC) until the Iron Age, in the areas that are now western Lombardy, eastern Piedmont, and Ticino. Canegrate had a cultural dynamic ...
developed from the mid-Bronze Age (13th century BC) until the Iron Age in the
Pianura Padana The Po Valley, Po Plain, Plain of the Po, or Padan Plain ( it, Pianura Padana , or ''Val Padana'') is a major geographical feature of Northern Italy. It extends approximately in an east-west direction, with an area of including its Venetic ex ...
, in what are now western Lombardy, eastern Piedmont and
Ticino Ticino (), sometimes Tessin (), officially the Republic and Canton of Ticino or less formally the Canton of Ticino,, informally ''Canton Ticino'' ; lmo, Canton Tesin ; german: Kanton Tessin ; french: Canton du Tessin ; rm, Chantun dal Tessin . ...
. It takes its name from the township of
Canegrate Canegrate ( lmo, Canegraa ) is a ''comune'' (municipality) in the Metropolitan City of Milan in the Italian region Lombardy, located about northwest of Milan. The town gave its name to the Canegrate culture The Canegrate culture was a civiliz ...
where, in the 20th century, some fifty tombs with ceramics and metal objects were found. The Canegrate culture migrated from the northwest part of the Alps and descended to
Pianura Padana The Po Valley, Po Plain, Plain of the Po, or Padan Plain ( it, Pianura Padana , or ''Val Padana'') is a major geographical feature of Northern Italy. It extends approximately in an east-west direction, with an area of including its Venetic ex ...
from the Swiss Alps passes and the Ticino. The
Golasecca culture The Golasecca culture (9th - 4th century BC) was a Late Bronze Age/Early Iron Age culture in northern Italy, whose type-site was excavated at Golasecca in the province of Varese, Lombardy, where, in the area of Monsorino at the beginning of th ...
developed starting from the late Bronze Age in the
Po plain The Po Valley, Po Plain, Plain of the Po, or Padan Plain ( it, Pianura Padana , or ''Val Padana'') is a major geographical feature of Northern Italy. It extends approximately in an east-west direction, with an area of including its Venetic ex ...
. It takes its name from Golasecca, a locality next to the
Ticino Ticino (), sometimes Tessin (), officially the Republic and Canton of Ticino or less formally the Canton of Ticino,, informally ''Canton Ticino'' ; lmo, Canton Tesin ; german: Kanton Tessin ; french: Canton du Tessin ; rm, Chantun dal Tessin . ...
where, in the early 19th century, abbot Giovanni Battista Giani excavated its first findings (some fifty tombs with ceramics and metal objects). Remains of the Golasecca culture span an area of c. 20,000 square kilometers south to the Alps, between the Po,
Sesia The Sesia (Latin ''Sesites'' or ''Sessites'') is a river in Piedmont, north-western Italy, tributary to the Po. Geography Its sources are the glaciers of Monte Rosa at the border with Switzerland. It flows through the Alpine valley Valsesia a ...
and Serio rivers, dating from the 9th to the 4th century BC.


West Europe


Great Britain

In Great Britain, the Bronze Age is considered to have been the period from around 2100 to 750 BC.
Migration Migration, migratory, or migrate may refer to: Human migration * Human migration, physical movement by humans from one region to another ** International migration, when peoples cross state boundaries and stay in the host state for some minimum le ...
brought new people to the islands from the continent. Recent tooth enamel isotope research on bodies found in early Bronze Age graves around
Stonehenge Stonehenge is a prehistoric monument on Salisbury Plain in Wiltshire, England, west of Amesbury. It consists of an outer ring of vertical sarsen standing stones, each around high, wide, and weighing around 25 tons, topped by connecting h ...
indicates that at least some of the migrants came from the area of modern Switzerland. Another example site is
Must Farm Part of a Bronze Age settlement was uncovered at Must Farm quarry, at Whittlesey, near Peterborough, in Cambridgeshire, England. The site has been described as "Britain's Pompeii" due to its relatively good condition, including the "best-preserv ...
, near Whittlesey, which has recently been host to the most complete Bronze Age wheel ever to be found. The
Beaker culture The Bell Beaker culture, also known as the Bell Beaker complex or Bell Beaker phenomenon, is an archaeological culture named after the inverted-bell beaker drinking vessel used at the very beginning of the European Bronze Age. Arising from ar ...
displayed different behaviors from the earlier Neolithic people, and cultural change was significant. Integration is thought to have been peaceful, as many of the early
henge There are three related types of Neolithic earthwork that are all sometimes loosely called henges. The essential characteristic of all three is that they feature a ring-shaped bank and ditch, with the ditch inside the bank. Because the internal ...
sites were seemingly adopted by the newcomers. The rich
Wessex culture The Wessex culture is the predominant prehistoric culture of central and southern Britain during the early Bronze Age, originally defined by the British archaeologist Stuart Piggott in 1938.valleys. Large livestock farms developed in the lowlands and appear to have contributed to economic growth and inspired increasing forest clearances. The Deverel-Rimbury culture began to emerge in the second half of the Middle Bronze Age ( 1400–1100 BC) to exploit these conditions. Devon and Cornwall were major sources of tin for much of western Europe and copper was extracted from sites such as the Great Orme mine in northern Wales. Social groups appear to have been tribal but with growing complexity and hierarchies becoming apparent. The burial of the dead (which, until this period, had usually been communal) became more individual. For example, whereas in the Neolithic a large
chambered cairn A chambered cairn is a burial monument, usually constructed during the Neolithic, consisting of a sizeable (usually stone) chamber around and over which a cairn of stones was constructed. Some chambered cairns are also passage-graves. They are fo ...
or
long barrow Long barrows are a style of monument constructed across Western Europe in the fifth and fourth millennia BCE, during the Neolithic Europe, Early Neolithic period. Typically constructed from earth and either timber or stone, those using the latt ...
housed the dead, Early Bronze Age people buried their dead in individual barrows (also commonly known and marked on modern British Ordnance Survey maps as tumuli), or sometimes in
cist A cist ( or ; also kist ; from grc-gre, κίστη, Middle Welsh ''Kist'' or Germanic ''Kiste'') is a small stone-built coffin-like box or ossuary used to hold the bodies of the dead. Examples can be found across Europe and in the Middle East ...
s covered with
cairn A cairn is a man-made pile (or stack) of stones raised for a purpose, usually as a marker or as a burial mound. The word ''cairn'' comes from the gd, càrn (plural ). Cairns have been and are used for a broad variety of purposes. In prehi ...
s. The greatest quantities of bronze objects in England were discovered in East Cambridgeshire, where the most important finds were recovered in Isleham (more than 6500 pieces). Alloying of copper with zinc or tin to make
brass Brass is an alloy of copper (Cu) and zinc (Zn), in proportions which can be varied to achieve different mechanical, electrical, and chemical properties. It is a substitutional alloy: atoms of the two constituents may replace each other wit ...
or
bronze Bronze is an alloy consisting primarily of copper, commonly with about 12–12.5% tin and often with the addition of other metals (including aluminium, manganese, nickel, or zinc) and sometimes non-metals, such as phosphorus, or metalloids such ...
was practiced soon after the discovery of copper itself. One copper mine at Great Orme in North Wales, extended to a depth of 70 meters. At
Alderley Edge Alderley Edge is a village and civil parish in Cheshire, England. In 2011, it had a population of 4,780. Alderley Edge is northwest of Macclesfield and south of Manchester, at the base of a steep and thickly wooded sandstone escarpment, Alde ...
in
Cheshire Cheshire ( ) is a ceremonial and historic county in North West England, bordered by Wales to the west, Merseyside and Greater Manchester to the north, Derbyshire to the east, and Staffordshire and Shropshire to the south. Cheshire's county tow ...
, carbon dates have established mining at around 2280 to 1890 BC (at 95% probability). The earliest identified metalworking site (Sigwells, Somerset) is much later, dated by Globular Urn style pottery to approximately the 12th century BC. The identifiable sherds from over 500 mould fragments included a perfect fit of the hilt of a sword in the Wilburton style held in Somerset County Museum.


Atlantic Bronze Age

The
Atlantic Bronze Age The Atlantic Bronze Age is a cultural complex of the Bronze Age period in Prehistoric Europe of approximately 1300–700 BC that includes different cultures in Britain, France, Ireland, Portugal, and Spain. Trade The Atlantic Bronze Age ...
is a cultural complex of the period of approximately 1300–700 BC that includes different cultures in Portugal, Andalusia, Galicia, and the British Isles. It is marked by economic and cultural exchange. Commercial contacts extend to Denmark and the Mediterranean. The Atlantic Bronze Age was defined by many distinct regional centers of metal production, unified by a regular maritime exchange of some of their products.


Ireland

The Bronze Age in Ireland commenced around 2000 BC when copper was alloyed with tin and used to manufacture Ballybeg type flat axes and associated metalwork. The preceding period is known as the Copper Age and is characterised by the production of
flat axes Flat or flats may refer to: Architecture * Flat (housing), an apartment in the United Kingdom, Ireland, Australia and other Commonwealth countries Arts and entertainment * Flat (music), a symbol () which denotes a lower pitch * Flat (soldier), ...
,
daggers A dagger is a fighting knife with a very sharp point and usually two sharp edges, typically designed or capable of being used as a thrusting or stabbing weapon.State v. Martin, 633 S.W.2d 80 (Mo. 1982): This is the dictionary or popular-use def ...
, halberds and awls in copper. The period is divided into three phases:
Early Bronze Age The Bronze Age is a historic period, lasting approximately from 3300 BC to 1200 BC, characterized by the use of bronze, the presence of writing in some areas, and other early features of urban civilization. The Bronze Age is the second prin ...
(2000–1500 BC), Middle Bronze Age (1500–1200 BC), and Late Bronze Age (1200– 500 BC). Ireland is also known for a relatively large number of Early Bronze Age burials. One of the characteristic types of artifact of the Early Bronze Age in Ireland is the flat axe. There are five main types of flat axes:
Lough Ravel ''Loch'' () is the Scottish Gaelic, Scots and Irish word for a lake or sea inlet. It is cognate with the Manx lough, Cornish logh, and one of the Welsh words for lake, llwch. In English English and Hiberno-English, the anglicised spellin ...
( 2200 BC), Ballybeg ( 2000 BC), Killaha ( 2000 BC), Ballyvalley ( 2000–1600 BC), Derryniggin ( 1600 BC), and a number of metal ingots in the shape of axes.


North Europe

The Bronze Age in Northern Europe spans the entire
2nd millennium BC The 2nd millennium BC spanned the years 2000 BC to 1001 BC. In the Ancient Near East, it marks the transition from the Middle to the Late Bronze Age. The Ancient Near Eastern cultures are well within the historical era: The first half of the mil ...
( Unetice culture,
Urnfield culture The Urnfield culture ( 1300 BC – 750 BC) was a late Bronze Age culture of Central Europe, often divided into several local cultures within a broader Urnfield tradition. The name comes from the custom of cremating the dead and p ...
,
Tumulus culture __NOTOC__ The Tumulus culture (German: ''Hügelgräberkultur'') dominated Central Europe during the Middle Bronze Age ( 1600 to 1300 BC). It was the descendant of the Unetice culture. Its heartland was the area previously occupied by the ...
,
Terramare culture Terramare, terramara, or terremare is a technology complex mainly of the central Po valley, in Emilia, Northern Italy, dating to the Middle and Late Bronze Age c. 1700–1150 BC. It takes its name from the "black earth" residue of settleme ...
, Lusatian culture) lasting until 600 BC. The Northern Bronze Age was both a period and a Bronze Age culture in Scandinavian pre-history, 1700–500 BC, with sites that reached as far east as Estonia. Succeeding the Late Neolithic culture, its ethnic and linguistic affinities are unknown in the absence of written sources. It is followed by the Pre-Roman Iron Age. Even though Northern European Bronze Age cultures were relatively late, and came into existence via trade, sites present rich and well-preserved objects made of wool, wood and imported Central European bronze and gold. Many rock carvings depict ships, and the large stone burial monuments known as stone ships suggest that shipping played an important role. Thousands of rock carvings depict ships, most probably representing sewn plank built canoes for warfare, fishing, and trade. These may have a history as far back as the neolithic period and continue into the Pre-Roman Iron Age, as shown by the
Hjortspring boat The Hjortspring boat ( da, Hjortspringbåden) is a vessel designed as a large canoe, from the Scandinavian Pre-Roman Iron Age. It was built circa 400–300 BC. The hull and remains were rediscovered and excavated in 1921–1922 from the bog of ''H ...
. There are many mounds and rock carving sites from the period. Numerous artifacts of bronze and gold are found. No written language existed in the Nordic countries during the Bronze Age. The rock carvings have been dated through comparison with depicted artifacts.


Caucasus

Arsenical bronze Arsenical bronze is an alloy in which arsenic, as opposed to or in addition to tin or other constituent metals, is combined with copper to make bronze. The use of arsenic with copper, either as the secondary constituent or with another component s ...
artifacts of the Maykop culture in the
North Caucasus The North Caucasus, ( ady, Темыр Къафкъас, Temır Qafqas; kbd, Ишхъэрэ Къаукъаз, İṩxhərə Qauqaz; ce, Къилбаседа Кавказ, Q̇ilbaseda Kavkaz; , os, Цӕгат Кавказ, Cægat Kavkaz, inh, ...
have been dated around the 4th millennium BC. This innovation resulted in the circulation of arsenical bronze technology over southern and eastern Europe.


Pontic–Caspian steppe

The Yamnaya culture is a Late Copper Age/Early Bronze Age culture of the Southern Bug/
Dniester The Dniester, ; rus, Дне́стр, links=1, Dnéstr, ˈdⁿʲestr; ro, Nistru; grc, Τύρᾱς, Tyrās, ; la, Tyrās, la, Danaster, label=none, ) ( ,) is a transboundary river in Eastern Europe. It runs first through Ukraine and th ...
/
Ural Ural may refer to: *Ural (region), in Russia and Kazakhstan *Ural Mountains, in Russia and Kazakhstan *Ural (river), in Russia and Kazakhstan *Ual (tool), a mortar tool used by the Bodo people of India *Ural Federal District, in Russia *Ural econo ...
region ( the Pontic steppe), dating to the 36th–23rd centuries BC. The name also appears in English as Pit-Grave Culture or Ochre-Grave Culture. The
Catacomb culture The Catacomb culture (russian: Катакомбная культура, Katakombnaya kul'tura, uk, Катакомбна культура, Katakombna kul'tura) was a Bronze Age culture which flourished on the Pontic steppe in 2500–1950 BC.Par ...
, 2800–2200 BC, comprises several related Early Bronze Age cultures occupying what is presently
Russia Russia (, , ), or the Russian Federation, is a transcontinental country spanning Eastern Europe and Northern Asia. It is the largest country in the world, with its internationally recognised territory covering , and encompassing one-eight ...
and Ukraine. The
Srubnaya culture The Srubnaya culture (russian: Срубная культура, Srubnaya kul'tura, ua, Зрубна культура, Zrubna kul'tura), also known as Timber-grave culture, was a Late Bronze Age 1850–1450 BC cultureParpola, Asko, (2012)"Format ...
was a Late Bronze Age (18th–12th centuries BC) culture. It is a successor to the Yamnaya and the
Poltavka culture Poltavka culture () was an early to middle Bronze Age archaeological culture which flourished on the Volga- Ural steppe and the forest steppe in 2800—2200 BCE. The Poltavka culture emerged as an eastern outgrowth of the Yamnaya culture, n ...
.


Africa


Sub-Saharan Africa

Iron and copper smelting appeared around the same time in most parts of Africa. As such, most
African civilizations The terms African civilizations, also classical African civilizations, or African empires are terms that generally refer to the various pre-colonial African kingdoms. The civilizations usually include Egypt, Carthage, Axum, Numidia, and Nubia, ...
outside of Egypt did not experience a distinct Bronze Age. Evidence for iron smelting appears earlier or at the same time as copper smelting in Nigeria c. 900–800 BC,
Rwanda Rwanda (; rw, u Rwanda ), officially the Republic of Rwanda, is a landlocked country in the Great Rift Valley of Central Africa, where the African Great Lakes region and Southeast Africa converge. Located a few degrees south of the Equat ...
and
Burundi Burundi (, ), officially the Republic of Burundi ( rn, Repuburika y’Uburundi ; Swahili: ''Jamuhuri ya Burundi''; French: ''République du Burundi'' ), is a landlocked country in the Great Rift Valley at the junction between the African Gr ...
c. 700–500 BC and Tanzania c. 300 BC. There is a longstanding debate about whether the development of both copper and iron metallurgy were independently developed in sub-Saharan Africa or were introduced from the outside across the Sahara Desert from North Africa or the Indian Ocean. Evidence for theories of independent development and outside introduction are scarce and subject to active scholarly debate. Scholars have suggested that both the relative dearth of archeological research in sub-Saharan Africa as well as long-standing prejudices have limited or biased our understanding of pre-historic metallurgy on the continent. One scholar characterized the state of historical knowledge as such: "To say that the history of metallurgy in sub-Saharan Africa is complicated is perhaps an understatement."


West Africa

Copper smelting took place in West Africa prior to the appearance of iron smelting in the region. Evidence for copper smelting furnaces was found near
Agadez Agadez ( Air Tamajeq: ⴰⴶⴰⴷⴰⵣ, ''Agadaz''), formerly spelled Agadès, is the fifth largest city in Niger, with a population of 110,497 based on the 2012 census. The capital of Agadez Region, it lies in the Sahara desert, and is also ...
, Niger that has been dated as early as 2200 BC. However, evidence for copper production in this region before 1000 BC is debated. Evidence of copper mining and smelting has been found at
Akjoujt Akjoujt (Arabic: أكجوجت) is a small city in western Mauritania. It is the capital of Inchiri region. "Akjoujt" (ɑk'ʤuʤt) means 'wells'. The city's main industry is gold and copper mining. History Archeologists have discovered that as e ...
,
Mauretania Mauretania (; ) is the Latin name for a region in the ancient Maghreb. It stretched from central present-day Algeria westwards to the Atlantic, covering northern present-day Morocco, and southward to the Atlas Mountains. Its native inhabitants, ...
that suggests small scale production 800 to 400 BC.


Americas

The Moche civilization of South America independently discovered and developed bronze smelting. Bronze technology was developed further by the Incas and used widely both for utilitarian objects and sculpture. A later appearance of limited bronze smelting in West Mexico suggests either contact of that region with Andean cultures or separate discovery of the technology. The
Calchaquí The Calchaquí or Kalchakí were a tribe of South American Indians of the Diaguita group, now extinct, who formerly occupied northern Argentina. Stone and other remains prove them to have reached a high degree of civilization. Under the leadership ...
people of Northwest
Argentina Argentina (), officially the Argentine Republic ( es, link=no, República Argentina), is a country in the southern half of South America. Argentina covers an area of , making it the second-largest country in South America after Brazil, th ...
had bronze technology.Ambrosetti, El bronze de la región calchaquí, Buenos Aires, 190

accessed 28 March 2015.


Trade

Trade and industry played a major role in the development of the ancient Bronze Age civilizations. With artifacts of the Indus Valley civilization being found in ancient Mesopotamia and Ancient Egypt, Egypt, it is clear that these civilizations were not only in touch with each other but also trading with each other. Early long-distance trade was limited almost exclusively to luxury goods like spices, textiles and precious metals. Not only did this make cities with ample amounts of these products extremely rich but also led to an intermingling of cultures for the first time in history. Trade routes were not only over land but also over water. The first and most extensive trade routes were over rivers such as the
Nile The Nile, , Bohairic , lg, Kiira , Nobiin: Áman Dawū is a major north-flowing river in northeastern Africa. It flows into the Mediterranean Sea. The Nile is the longest river in Africa and has historically been considered the longest ri ...
, the
Tigris The Tigris () is the easternmost of the two great rivers that define Mesopotamia, the other being the Euphrates. The river flows south from the mountains of the Armenian Highlands through the Syrian and Arabian Deserts, and empties into the P ...
and the Euphrates which led to growth of cities on the banks of these rivers. The domestication of camels at a later time also helped encourage the use of trade routes over land, linking the Indus Valley with the Mediterranean. This further led to towns sprouting up in numbers anywhere and everywhere there was a pit-stop or caravan-to-ship port.


See also

*
Altyndepe (, sometimes Altyn Tepe, Turkmen "Golden Hill"), is a Bronze Age ( BMAC) archaeological site in Turkmenistan, near Aşgabat, inhabited first from c. 3200 to 2400 BCE in the Late Regionalization Era, and from c. 2400 to 2000 BCE in the Integrat ...
*
Dover Bronze Age Boat The Dover Bronze Age boat is one of fewer than 20 Bronze Age boats so far found in Britain. It dates to 1575–1520 BC, which may make it one of the oldest substantially intact ''boat'' in the world (older boat finds are small fragments, some l ...
*
Ferriby Boats The Ferriby Boats are three Bronze-Age British sewn plank-built boats, parts of which were discovered at North Ferriby in the East Riding of the English county of Yorkshire. Only a small number of boats of a similar period have been foun ...
* Hillfort *
Human timeline The timeline of human evolution outlines the major events in the evolutionary lineage of the modern human species, '' Homo sapiens'', throughout the history of life, beginning some 4 billion years ago down to recent evolution within ''H. sapien ...
*
Langdon Bay hoard Langdon may refer to: Places Australia * Langdon, Queensland, a neighbourhood in the Mackay Region Canada * Langdon, Alberta, a hamlet United Kingdom * Langdon, Cornwall, a hamlet * Langdon, Kent, a civil parish * Langdon, Pembrokeshi ...
* Middle Bronze Age migrations (Ancient Near East) *
Namazga Namazga-Tepe or ''Namazga-depe'', is a Bronze Age ( BMAC) archaeological site in Turkmenistan, some 100 km east of Aşgabat, near the border to Iran. Excavated by Vadim Mikhailovich Masson, Viktor Sarianidi, and I. N. Khlopin from the 1950s, ...
*
Oxhide ingot Oxhide ingots are heavy (20-30 kg) metal slabs, usually of copper but sometimes of tin, produced and widely distributed during the Mediterranean Late Bronze Age (LBA). Their shape resembles the hide of an ox with a protruding handle in each of th ...
*
Shropshire bulla The Shropshire bulla ("" is Medieval Latin for "a round seal", Classical Latin for "bubble, blob", plural bullae) is a Late Bronze Age gold pendant found by a metal detectorist in 2018 in Shropshire, England. Made primarily of gold, it is the e ...
*
Tollense valley battlefield The battlefield of the Tollense valley () is a Bronze Age archaeological site in the northern German state of Mecklenburg-Vorpommern at the northern edge of the Mecklenburg Lake District. The site, discovered in 1996 and systematically excavated s ...


Notes


References

* * Eogan, George (1983). ''The hoards of the Irish later Bronze Age'', Dublin: University College, 331 p., * Hall, David and Coles, John (1994). ''Fenland survey : an essay in landscape and persistence'', Archaeological report 1, London : English Heritage, 170 p., * Pernicka, E., Eibner, C., Öztunah, Ö., Wagener, G.A. (2003). "Early Bronze Age Metallurgy in the Northeast Aegean", In: Wagner, G.A., Pernicka, E. and Uerpmann, H-P. (eds), ''Troia and the Troad: scientific approaches'', Natural science in archaeology, Berlin; London : Springer, , pp. 143–172 * Piccolo, Salvatore (2013). ''Ancient Stones: The Prehistoric Dolmens of Sicily''. Abingdon (GB): Brazen Head Publishing, , * Waddell, John (1998). ''The prehistoric archaeology of Ireland'', Galway University Press, 433 p., * *


Further reading

* * * * * * * *


External links

*
Links to the Bronze Age in Europe and beyond
Commented web index, geographically structured (private website)
Bronze Age Experimental Archeology and Museum Reproductions

Umha Aois – Reconstructed Bronze Age metal casting

Umha Aois – ancient bronze casting videoclip
*
Aegean and Balkan Prehistory
articles, site-reports and bibliography database concerning the Aegean, Balkans and Western Anatolia * *
The Transmission of Early Bronze Technology to Thailand: New Perspectives

Human Timeline (Interactive)
Smithsonian,
National Museum of Natural History The National Museum of Natural History is a natural history museum administered by the Smithsonian Institution, located on the National Mall in Washington, D.C., United States. It has free admission and is open 364 days a year. In 2021, with 7 ...
(August 2016). ;Seafaring
Divers unearth Bronze Age hoard off the coast of Devon
{{Authority control Articles which contain graphical timelines Historical eras