Bronze Age

From Traditional Witchcraft Wiki Project

The Bronze Age was a period in the civilization's development when the most advanced metalworking (at least in systematic and widespread use) consisted of techniques for smelting copper and tin from naturally occurring outcroppings of ore, and then alloying those metals in order to cast bronze. The Bronze Age is the 2nd stage of the three-age system for prehistoric societies, the 1st being the Stone Age, and the 3rd being the Iron Age. In that system, it follows the Neolithic in some areas of the world. In many parts of sub-Saharan Africa, the Neolithic is directly followed by the Iron Age.

Origins

The place and time of the invention of bronze are controversial, and it is possible that bronzing was invented independently in multiple places. The earliest known tin bronzes are from Iran and Iraq and date to the late 4th millennium BC, but there are claims of an earlier appearance of tin bronze in Thailand in the 5th millennium BC. Arsenical bronzes were made in Anatolia and on both sides of the Caucasus by the early 3rd millennium BC. Some scholars date some arsenical bronze artefacts of the Maykop culture in the North Caucasus as far back as the mid 4th millennium BC, which would make them the oldest known bronzes, but others date the same Maykop artefacts to the mid 3rd millennium BC.