• What is the Bronze Age?
• Beginning of the Bronze Age
• Characteristics of the Bronze Age
• Stages of the Bronze Age
• Bronze Age Economics
• End of the Bronze Age

We explain what the Bronze Age was in prehistory, its stages, economy and other characteristics. Also, its beginning and end.

The ability to manipulate metals improved the quality of human life.

What is the Bronze Age?

It is known as the Bronze Age to the period of the Prehistory that followed the Copper Age or Chalcolithic, and which preceded the Iron age. Together with these other two ages it forms what is also called the Age of metals, in which human being learned to manipulate various metals to make instruments with which to improve your quality of life.

This is a fundamental period in the history of the humanity. As its name implies, it was characterized by the discovery of bronze: a alloy from copper and tin.

As is often the case when we speak of prehistoric periods, the Bronze Age does not have a definite beginning and end date, but approximate dates, which often respond only to the history of certain regions of the world.

For example, the handling of bronze began around 4,000 BC. C. in the Middle East, around the year 3,000 a. C. in the Asia minor and in Ancient Greece, and in Central Asia only in 2,000 BC. C.

In fact, in China bronze began to be used only in 1800 BC. C., as part of the changes introduced by the Shang Dynasty.The same happens with its term, dated around the year 1,200 a. C.

It should be noted that, in many historical classifications, the Copper Age is not properly considered as a separate stage from the Bronze Age, but as its very beginnings.

Often both are handled as a single unit, which would mark the true beginning of the Metal Age, after the end of the Neolithic. This also has to do with the fact that there was no formal separation between the two ages, but rather that one constitutes an improvement of the other.

Beginning of the Bronze Age

The first records of the use of bronze in prehistory occurred in ancient Sumeria, around the 4th millennium BC. There it played an important role in the manufacture of weapons and utensils, throughout the history of its great empires: Sumer, the Akkadian Empire and later Babylon.

This civilization, considered by many as the cradle of humanity, already knew by that time the wheel, the plow, navigation, the astronomy, the math and the writing. In other words, prehistoric (prior to writing) and historical (after writing) features coincide in it.

The use and treatment of bronze later spread to some of the great ancient empires, such as the Egyptian (from the proto-dynastic period, although it never completely replaced stone due to a shortage of minerals), Ancient China (where it formed important part of the local culture).

In other cultures, such as the Indus Valley, Japan and other Asian peoples, it is difficult to separate the arrival of bronze and iron, which occurred almost simultaneously.

For its part, in Europe the use of bronze came through the Aegean Sea, in three distinct periods: the Cycladic (from the Cycladic islands), the Helladic (in mainland Greece) and the Minoan (in Crete). All this towards the middle of the III millennium BC. C.

On the other hand, in prehistoric America there was no great knowledge of bronze, although there is evidence that during the Middle Andean Horizon and in the Tiahuanaco culture it was used around 600 AD. C. a series of alloys of copper, arsenic and nickel, which would be a kind of copper.

Characteristics of the Bronze Age

During the Bronze Age the first forms of writing were created.

It is paradoxical that the discovery of bronze is the one that gives name to this period, when it was just one innovation more within an important set of changing features of civilization. In that sense, the name of the Metal Age is a bit focused on technology.

Other important features of the Bronze Age were:

• There was an important development in the art and the sculpture, appearing the first nudes in polished rock and the first erotic engravings in bronze. In this period the megalithic monuments of the so-called Cyclopean architecture were made.
• The exploitation of bronze allowed an intensification of the Commerce, especially with the mining regions, which in turn brought with it important dynamics of cultural exchange.
• In some civilizations, the first forms of writing, such as the Sumerian cuneiform, were created on clay tablets.
• The Minoan civilization fell to the Mycenaean, and their victory was largely attributed to the use of weaponry made from bronze.

Stages of the Bronze Age

The Bronze Age is usually classified into three well differentiated stages, which are:

• Ancient or early bronze. Temporarily located between the year 3,500 and 2,000 a. C., was characterized by the appearance of the first bronze weapons, which coexisted with those of copper and stone, depending on the availability of tin.
• Medium or full bronze. Temporarily located between 2,000 and 1,600 BC. C., marks the beginning of the predominance of bronze, both for weapons, utensils and ornaments, so that metal was already part of daily life.
• Final bronze. Temporarily located between the years 1,600 and 1,200 a. C., witnessed the contact between fully historical civilizations (with spelling) and other still prehistoric (without spelling), as well as the beginning of the funeral cremation and the construction of the large fields of urns. At the end of this period, the great empires fell against the peoples of the sea.

Bronze Age Economics

The peoples who used bronze had an important military advantage.

The Bronze Age was characterized by a noticeable increase in the wealth of the towns, as well as the commercial exchange. However, there were also important war or conquest events, in which those peoples gifted with the handling of bronze always had an important advantage.

The appearance of writing and mathIn this sense, they are evidence of the important economic and commercial development, which required a certain sense of accounting or the written identification of the assets, both possible sources of origin of the writing.

However, the Bronze Age also saw the emergence of new peoples and great migrations, which significantly altered the cultural and commercial landscape of Europe and the Middle East, especially in the eastern Mediterranean region. The fall of entire civilizations and of ancient powerful empires, brought with it a major Crisis of the final bronze.

End of the Bronze Age

The Bronze Age culminates in the midst of a crisis that produced the arrival of the "Peoples of the sea", as mentioned in the Egyptian documents of the time. This is known thanks to the fact that writing had already been invented in many of the ancient civilizations.

The collapse of the Hittite Empire, the fall of Babylon, and the mysterious abandonment of the cities Mycenaean, are a symptom of the significant destabilization of the eastern Mediterranean and of a crisis produced by the violent arrival of the Phoenician, Philistine and Aramaic peoples, among others.

Finally, around the year 1,200 a. C., the Iron Age begins with the discovery of this metal and the invention of more sophisticated forms of metallurgy.