BRONZE AGE The Bronze Age is the name commonly applied to that stage of human culture during which the alloying of copper with tin in regular proportions became a widespread practice, and the mate rial thus obtained was used for tools and weapons as a supple ment to or a substitute for stone. Its end begins when iron was first used for these purposes. The term has no absolute chronological value, but marks a period of civilization through which the peoples of Europe, Egypt, many parts of Asia, as well as some parts of Central America, passed at one time or another. At the beginning of the bronze age metal was relatively scarce, though more so in some places than in others, so stone tools were used for many purposes, while the poorer folk had to be content with the cheaper material for all their needs, and those who had bronze implements apparently remelted old ones to get material for new ones. Thus it happens that in many regions, especially in the north-west of Europe, flint tools and weapons were for a time made in imitation of those of bronze, and only sporadic finds of early bronze implements occur during the earlier phase of the bronze age. It is considered, however, that a region had entered the bronze age as soon as that metal had made its appearance there, however rare its use may have been. Thus the overlap of the different materials is considerable. Stone was used throughout the bronze age, and hoes and other flint implements were not uncommon during the earlier centuries of the iron age.
It is generally believed that bronze was first used about 2000 a.c., or perhaps a little earlier, and that the knowledge of this alloy spread rapidly to most parts of Europe and the adjacent parts of Asia and Africa. Some of the outlying areas, however, and those remote from trade routes, remained ignorant of the new material for several centuries, or, if aware of its existence, were too poor to obtain supplies. This seems to have been true for parts of south and central France, for Norway and for the north-east of Europe, while bronze did not appear in Switzerland until it arrived from Italy several centuries after it had been known in most of the coastal lands of Europe.
Use of Copper.—Copper had been known and freely used in the Near East from a very early date, and the knowledge of this metal spread thence to Crete, Greece and other parts of south-east Europe, as well as along the Mediterranean sea to south Italy, Sicily, Spain and Portugal. Thence it may have spread to Brit tany and perhaps to Denmark, but whether it then reached the British Isles is uncertain. Copper tools of an early type have been found in Britain and more commonly in Ireland, but it is uncertain at present whether it is safe to speak of a British copper age. It seems, on the evidence available at the moment, that bronze was the first metal to reach these shores. It was difficult to obtain tin in Ireland, and bronze tools may well have been copied in copper in that island.
Small traces of tin, probably due to the accidental presence of impurities in the ore, have been found in a few copper objects of very early date found in Mesopotamia, but there is no evidence that true bronze, intentionally alloyed, occurs there earlier than elsewhere. A fine adze-head, with a hole perforated to receive the shaft, has recently been found at Ur some feet beneath buildings of the 1st dynasty of that city. It is composed of an alloy of gold, silver and copper, with a trace of tin. It has been stated that the statue of Pepi I., a king of the 5th dynasty in Egypt, was made of bronze; this has recently been shown to be erroneous, for the statue is of copper, though a band added much later is of bronze. Again a rod of bronze was found in a tomb of the 6th dynasty at Medum, but, since this is the only example of bronze for which so early a date has been claimed, most authorities now believe that, owing to the carelessness of a workman, it must have fallen in from a higher layer. It has been claimed that the earliest tools and weapons found in Crete were of bronze, but recent analyses have shown that most of these were of copper, and the earliest daggers, proved to be of bronze, came from tombs that were in use as late as the first middle Minoan period. (See AEGEAN CIVI