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Bronze Age Europe

The European Bronze Age is characterized by bronze artifacts and the use of bronze implements. The regional Bronze Age succeeds the Neolithic and Copper Age and is followed by the Iron Age. It starts with the Aegean Bronze Age in 3200 BC and spans the entire 2nd millennium BC (including the Unetice culture, Ottomány culture, British Bronze Age, Argaric culture, Nordic Bronze Age, Tumulus culture, Nuragic culture, Terramare culture, Urnfield culture and Lusatian culture), lasting until c. 800 BC in central Europe.[1]

See also: Chalcolithic Europe and Prehistoric Europe

Arsenical bronze was produced in some areas from the 4th millennium BC onwards, prior to the introduction of tin bronze. Tin bronze foil had already been produced in southeastern Europe on a small scale in the Chalcolithic era, with examples from Pločnik in Serbia dated to c. 4650 BC, as well as 14 other artefacts from Bulgaria and Serbia dated to before 4000 BC, showing that early tin bronze developed independently in Europe 1500 years before the first tin bronze alloys in the Near East. This bronze production lasted for c. 500 years in the Balkans but disappeared at the end of the 5th millennium, coinciding with the "collapse of large cultural complexes in north-eastern Bulgaria and Thrace in the late fifth millennium BC". Tin bronzes using cassiterite tin were subsequently reintroduced to the area some 1500 years later.[2]

(Poland)

Biskupin

(Germany)

Nebra

Zug-Sumpf, , Switzerland

Zug

Slovakia

Vráble

Diffusion of metallurgy in Europe

Diffusion of metallurgy in Europe

Steppe expansions and migrations

Steppe expansions and migrations

Influence of the Bell Beaker culture

Influence of the Bell Beaker culture

Cultures of the Middle Bronze Age

Blue : Apennine culture, Yellow : Terramare culture, Brown : Tumulus culture, Red : Atlantic Bronze Age, Green : Nordic Bronze Age, Apple green : Cultures of Unetice tradition, Gray : Balkan cultures.

Europe in the Late Bronze Age

Europe in the Late Bronze Age

Chariot burial

Megalithic tomb

Old European hydronymy

Helladic period

Nordic Bronze Age

Argaric culture

Atlantic Bronze Age

Media related to Bronze Age Europe at Wikimedia Commons