Technology · c. 3300–3000 BCE
Bronze comes into wide use
Anatolia and Mesopotamia (Kestel tin mine, southern Türkiye)
Metalworkers found that adding arsenic or, better, tin to copper made a harder alloy, bronze. Arsenical bronze came first (the Maykop culture of the North Caucasus used it by the mid-4th millennium BCE), and by about 3000 BCE the Bronze Age had begun across much of the Old World, from Mesopotamia and Egypt to the Indus.
Because tin is rare, bronze depended on long-distance trade; Kestel in southern Türkiye was mined for tin from about 3250 BCE.
Why it mattered
Bronze tools and weapons were tougher than copper ones, and the hunt for tin and copper tied distant regions together in the first long-distance metal trade networks.
Elsewhere
A tin-bronze foil from Pločnik in Serbia may date to c. 4650 BCE, though its dating is disputed. In China bronze-working took hold later, with early centres in the north-west by c. 2500–2300 BCE and large-scale casting at Erlitou.
Related
- The world in 3000 BCE: The First Kings chapter
- Egypt is unified previous moment · c. 3150–3100 BCE
- Caral, first cities of the Americas next moment · c. 2600–2000 BCE