The Bronze Age in Europe
The Bronze Age in Europe
Bronze was brought to Europe by roving Mycenaean merchant fleets. The island of Crete was a center for the expansion of the bronze trade to Europe. With few metal deposits of its own, Crete became a crucial center of trade. In the ruins of the vibrant civilization of ancient Crete, bronze weapons, tools, mirrors, and even razors are found.
The Mycenaeans created the finest bronze weapons.
Their traders reached the island of Sicily and surrounding
islands. On the Italian mainland, their bronze-age culture
encountered the culture moving south from the metallurgical
centers along the Danube River in Central Europe. Bronze
implements of Mycenaean design are found in ruins there. They
reached the peninsula of Spain (also known as Iberia) about 2000
B.C. The stone-tool using population was eager for bronze tools.
The merchants discovered tremendous mineral deposits in Spain,
including gold, silver, iron and copper. Sailing around the
Iberian peninsula, the Mycenaeans also settled in what is now
Portugal.
The Danube River provides a trade route from the east into Central Europe. Bronze reached the Danube valley as early as 2400 B.C. Troy was a gateway to this trade. The Erzgebirge, or "Bronze Mountains" of Bohemia (now the Czech Republic) provided both copper and tin ores to the new civilization. The Unetician culture, near the modern city of Prague, developed a bronze industry about 1600 B.C. The Uneticians also traded in salt from Austria, amber from the Baltic, and gold from nearby deposits.
Bands of traders called the Bell-beaker Folk, after their distinctive bell-shaped pottery drinking vessels, carried bronze to the British Isles. No one knows who these traders were, but their activities intensified the ancient industrial boom of the bronze age. They spread westward through England, and their distinctive bronze knives and axes have been found in County Wicklow, Ireland.
Cornwall, on the southwest coast of England, had deposits of copper and tin. The Bell-beaker Folk may have participated in the building of Stonehenge, in the southwest tip of Cornwall. They, in turn, were replaced by newly arrived Unetician merchants and warriors. In Wessex, in southwest England, the Uneticians used British tin and copper, and Irish gold to create a glittering civilization at the end of the Age of Bronze.
Geology
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