What Caused the End of the Bro

Bronze Age is the time in the development of any human culture, before the introduction of iron, when most tools and weapons were made of bronze. Chronologically, the term is of strictly local value, for bronze came into use, and was again replaced by iron, at different times in different parts of the world. It generally succeeds a culture’s Copper Age. Bronze is a shiny gold color when new, which made it popular for objects such as jewelry. Bronze was used for weapons such as spearheads, swords, and knives.

A plausible explanation for the Iron Age is a shortage of bronze. This theory argues that a bronze shortage gripped the eastern Mediterranean in the eleventh and tenth centuries BC. What caused the bronze shortage? Bronze is an alloy that is usually made up of 85-95% copper, with the other 5-15% made up of mainly tin or arsenic, thou

Archaeological discoveries since 1960 have upset traditional theories concerning the origins of copper and bronze technologies. It had been thought that the use of bronze had originated in the Middle East, but discoveries near Ban Chiang, Thailand, indicate that bronze technology was known there as early as 4500 bc. This preceded the working of bronze in the Middle East by several hundred years. Bronze objects have been found in Asia Minor that date from before 3000 BC. At first this alloy was used sparingly, mostly for decorative purposes; the tin needed to make it was not available in the region. Regular imports of tin from Cornwall in Britain during the 2nd millennium bc, however, made possible wider use of bronze in the Middle East, and it was eventually utilized for tools and weapons. In the late Bronze Age (from 1600 to 1200 BC) Iron is introduced and becomes a working metal in some regions – even in that period bronze remained the dominant metal for weapons and tools.

Waldbaum, “The First Archeological Appearance of Iron,” 82

The Bronze Age came to a close early in the twelfth century B.C. with one of the worst calamities in history: over a period of several decades, destruction descended upon key cities throughout the Eastern Mediterranean, bringing to an end the Levantine, Hittite, Trojan, and Mycenaean kingdoms and plunging some lands into a dark age that would last more than four hundred years. In this attempt to account for the destruction of this era the traditional explanations such as- earthquakes, migrations

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