Bronze and The Bronze Age

Published by
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Oxbow Books and the individual authors, 2000
ISBN 1 84217019 8
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Cover: Three Bronze Age daggers from (left to right) Myrsinochorion (Aegean), Lyon (France) and Fossombrone
(Italy). These daggers can befound in previous volumes of Priihistorische Bronzejunde (Vl/ 11, VII5 and Vl/lO). The
world map is from Mountain High maps copyright 1993 Digital Wisdom, Inc.
Printed in Great Britain at
The Short Run Press
Exeter
1. Bronze and the Bronze Age

Christopher Pare
The term 'Bronze Age' has been in use since the

birth of modem archaeology, and one would expect
the concept to be well understood. Strangely, this is
not the case, and there is no consensus on how to use
the term. This is surely because the Three Age System
is thought not to be a profitable subject for modem
research. But if the Three Age System is obselete,
why is it so widely used? Is there, after all, something
which makes the Bronze Age fundamentally differ
ent from other'Ages'? Andrew Sherratt (1993; 1994)
is the most convincing contemporary exponent of
the 'Bronze Age Hypothesis', and his work, together
with studies by Kristian Kristiansen (e.g. 1987),
provides the best introduction to the questions
discussed below.
To approach these questions, the first step must
be a discussion of the definition of the Bronze Age,
and in particular its start and finish . Peter Northover
once used the following definition (1988:44): "Bronze
Age is a loaded terminology with a conventional
meaning that varies from region to region. Here it
defines that period when coppers and copper alloys
were predominant for all metal products save those
of precious metals ." Northover should be com
mended for making his use of the term explicit;
however, his definition is surely too broad for general
use, and could include any period before the Iron
Age using copper - smelted or unsmelted, native,
'pure' or intentionally alloyed. It is surely advisable,
in archaeological usage, to reserve the term bronze
for intentional alloys of copper with tin ; this would
include ternary alloys such as Cu-Sn-As (arsenical
bronze) or Cu-Sn-Pb (lead bronze) . With this ter
minology, the Bronze Age is easier to define: simply
by the predominant use of bronze in the production
of tools, weapons and other important artefacts.
Indeed, this is the method generally used to define
the transition to the Iron Age, for example in the
well-known developmental stages described by A.
Snodgrass (1980: 336 f.), based on 'working iron':
"The criterion used ... is that of 'working iron',

that is, iron used to make the functional parts of
the real cutting and piercing implements that form
the basis of early technology.... Using this criterion
of working iron, we can discern three broad stages
in the development of an iron technology; they
are I think applicable to every area of Eurasia ...
In stage 1, iron may be employed with some
frequency, but it is not true working iron ... In the
main, its employment is for ornament, as is
appropriate for the expensive commodity which
we know it to have been in many cases. ...
In stage 2, working iron is present but is used less
than bronze for implements of practical use.
In stage 3, iron predominates over bronze as the
working metal, although it need not, and usually
does not, completely displace bronze even in this
role.
... Simple proportion alone is used to distinguish
between stages 2 and 3. It might be thought that
such an abstract criterion could have had little
economic or industrial significance for the period
in question. Yet study of many ancient cultures
shows a fairly abrupt change, at a certain point,
from a predominant use of bronze to a pre
dominant use of iron, within the strict field of
working metal."
The crucial feature of this process of technological
development, which makes it widely - perhaps
universally - useful as an indicator of cultural
change, is that the transition to an iron-based
technology (stage 3) is normally abrupt, as Snodgrass
noted. This is quite different to the adoption of tin
bronze which can either be abrupt or gradual,
depending on the region involved.
This difference in the take-up of bronze and iron
can be explained, at least in part, by the availability
of workable iron, copper and tin ores. Whereas iron
ores are common in many parts of the ancient
CHRISTOPHER PARE
world, bronze does not occur naturally. Tin depo

sits are rare - indeed absent in many parts of the
world. Although much more common than tin,
copper ores are unevenly distributed in Europe and
the Near East. They are also quite varied, the type
of ore affecting both the ease of metal extraction
and the quality of the copper produced. Some ores,
for example, contain copper with quite high levels
of associated elements (e.g. arsenic or antimony)
and, when smelted, these can produce so-called
'unin ten tional' alloys with properties which match
low-tin bronzes (see for example Northover 1989).
The contrast to the Bronze/Iron transition is clear.
Iron is much easier to come by than copper and tin,
and has technological qualities which differ mark
edly from bronze. Adopting a bronze technology,
on the other hand, requ ires access to reliable supplies
of copper and tin, which are liable to come from
distant sources; and, in some cases, the properties of
tin bronze did not represent a dramatic improvement
on available arsenical or antimonal coppers. So it is
no surprise that the Copper /Bronze transition does
not have the 'universal' abrupt nature of Bronze/
Iron . We might, for example, predict that a region
with easy access to tin, and only relatively pure
copper, would adopt bronze with alacrity. If, on the
other hand, tin is hard to come by, then the transition
to bronze might proceed more slowly, especially if
there is a plentiful supply of a good alternative raw
material such as arsenical copper.
Despite these adverse factors, bronze did come to
be adopted as the dominant metal for a wide range
of products (tools , weapons, metal vessels, orna
ments) all over Europe. For me, this is the essence of
the 'Bronze Age', and for that reason I recommend
a simple definition of the term: the span of time in
which bronze was the predominant material in
metallurgical production. 'Predominant' could, for
example, be defined as >75% of metal artefacts, and
'bronze' could be defined as any intentional copper
alloy with >4% Sn, but the parameters used are not
of crucial importance - in Europe, at least, much
higher proportions of objects, with much higher
concentrations of tin, became standard. However, it
does seem advisable to differentiate between high
and low tin alloys: in some cases very small amounts
of tin (e.g. 0.5-1.0% Sn) could be added, probably to
facilitate the processing of copper, for example to
lower the melting point and to increase the fluidity
for casting. For example a text of the mid 3rd
millennium BC from Ebla records the production of
a copper alloy with 0.79% Sn (Miiller-Karpe 1989:
183). As Cleuziou and Berthoud(1982: 15) explained,
a use of tin for this kind of alloying is not very
different from the use of As, Sb or Pb; high tin
alloying (e.g. 6-14% Sn) produced a very different
kind of metal. Even from these preliminary com
ments, it is obvious that the Copper/Bronze tran

sition is not a simple matter, and specialists in
archaeometallurgy have become quite circumspect
in their interpretations.
Despi te the complexity of the subject, a diffusionist
view of the start of the Bronze Age remains deeply
rooted, even in the specialist literature. This is
encouraged by maps such as Fig. 1.1, published in
1976 by A. Gallay and M.-N. Lahouze, or Fig. 1.2, a
diagram purporting to show the spread of tin bronze
from south-east to north-west Europe between ca.
2500 BC and ca. 1600 BC, published by A. Sherratt in
1993. The diffusionist view is further encouraged by
conventional chronological terminology: in south
east Europe the Early Bronze Age begins at the end
of the 4th millennium BC, and in north-west Europe
at the end of the 3rd millennium BC:
Aegean:
ca. 3100 BC (e.g. Manning 1995;
Bulgaria:
Carpathian Basin:
C and NW Europe:
ea. 3100 BC (e.g. Weninger 1992)

ea. 2500 BC (e.g. Forenbaher 1993)
ea. 2300/2200 BC (e.g. Needham
Maran 1998)
1996; Rassmann 1996)
This gives the impression of a cultural gradient

down which influences can gradually diffuse from
the Near East, to south-east, central and finally
north-west Europe. However, people often forget
that the traditional terminology for the Early Bronze
Age is purely a matter of convention and largely
arbitary definition.
In Central and western Europe the Early Bronze
Age is generally held to start after the Bell Beaker
phenomenon. In south-east Europe, in the absence
of Beakers, the Early Bronze Age is simply an
extension of the west Anatolian and Aegean Early
Bronze phases. Finally, in the Carpathian Basin, we
find that cultures previously thought to be con
temporary with Reinecke Br A in Central Europe are
today, as a consequence of radiocarbon calibration,
known to begin considerably earlier. A good example
of this crucial change is illustrated by a chronological
table published by 1. Bona (1992: 40 f.), in which EBA
I (Vucedol C/Zok, Mako, early Nyfrseg) is dated to
the 19th century BC, even though the same publica
tion includes a summary of calibrated HC dates
clearly indicating that these cultural groups reach
back to the mid 3rd millennium BC (Raczky et al.
1992: 47, table 2; for the radiocarbon chronology of
the Early Bronze Age in the Carpathian Basin see
now O'Shea 1992; Forenbaher 1993). A similar
development has taken place in Romania: 30 years
ago, A. Vulpe assigned the 'Transition Period' to the
three or four centuries before or around 2000 BC;
then followed the Early Bronze Age ea. 2000-1700
BC and the Middle Bronze Age ea. 1700-1300 BC
(1970: 6). A few years later, he raised the start of the
BRONZE AND THE BRONZE ACE
-'.
" CV
\W
......~
..................
Fig. 1.1. The spread of tin bronze technology from the Near East to Europe, according to A. Gal/ay and M.-N.
Lahouze 0976: 157,fig. 4: 'siade 5, maftrisedu bronze'). - The radiocarbon dates are uncalibrated. - The technology
was first discovered in Mesopotamia (3000 bc,ca.37th century BC), then spread to Anatolia and the Aegean (2500
bc,ca.31st century BC), south-east Europe (2000 be, ca. 25th century BC) and central and western Europe (1700 be,
ca. 2000 BC). - Gal/ay and Lahouze's dates have been calibrated using the OxCal v.2.01 programme. - Gal/ay and
Lahouze 0976: 158) also note two areas with early evidence for bronze: the British Isles (towards 2100 be) and
Macedonia (before 2000 be), which could represent autonomous centres of innovation.
'Transition Period' to ea. 2700 BC, but the start of the

Early Bronze Age remained at ea. 2000 BC or a little
before (1976). Today, according to calibrated 14C, the
start of the 'Transition Period' is dated even earlier
( ea. 3500 BC), and the start of the Early Bronze Age
(Glina III-Schneckenberg B)now seems to have taken
place around the mid 3rd millennium BC.
The conventional structures and terminologies for
the Early Bronze Age were created before the
scientific revolution in archaeology which led to the
assembly of large quantities of chemical analyses,
and multiple high quality 14C dates. But even today,
in possession of this hugely improved empirical

foundation, it is not necessarily easy to interpret the
earliest stages in the adoption of copper and its
alloys. The study of copper and early bronze metal
lurgy in Europe was revolutionised by the work in
the 1950s and 1960s of the SAM (Studien zu den
Anfangen der Metallurgie) team, based in Stuttgart
(Iunghans et al. 1960; 1968; 1974). This massive
project, involving the analysis of about 22,000 metal
objects, is without doubt the single most important
research contribution. But the interpretations and
conclusions drawn by the SAM team, and other
CHRISTOPHER PARE
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Fig. 1.2. Illustration published by A. Sherratt (1993: 16, fig. 4) showing the spread of tin-bronze from south-east
to north-west Europe between ea. 2400 and 1600 BC.
scholars in the following decades, have often been

rendered obselete by the radiocarbon revolution and
the arrival of dendrochronological dates, happening
in parallel with the take-off in production of metal
analyses . This means that the corpus of metal
analyses has been subjected to a continuous process
of reinterpretation in the last decades, as chrono
logical sequences have been reshuffled and refined.
Considerable care must be taken when reading
earlier publications, in which it is often not immedi
ately apparent if relative or absolute dates are based
on traditional historical methodology (cross-dating),
uncalibrated or calibrated 14c. Unfortunately, this
problem also applies to the first systematic study of
our subject, 'On the production of tin bronze in the
early metallurgy of Europe', by K. Spindler (1971),
based mainly on the 21,170 SAM analyses available
at that time. The mass of available analytical data is
still far from being fully digested and synthesised.
The question of the reliability of analytical results
requires a brief comment. Projects comparing ana-
lyses from different laboratories, using different

analytical methods, have shown that reliability has
improved over the past decades (see for example
Northover & Rychner 1998). Nevertheless, even
today it is difficult to interpret the conflicting
analytical results which are sometimes published,
for example the widely varying results of Optical
Emission Spectography, Electron Microprobe Ana
lysis, Neutron Activation Analysis and X-Ray Fluor
escence on metal artefacts from Kastri, Syros (Muhly
1991: 362). Apart from variations in the results of
different analytical procedures, we must also bear
in mind the non-uniform distribution of elements,
including tin, in copper alloy artefacts. An even
more important source of inaccuracy is the analysis
of strongly mineralised or oxidised metal samples,
especially when this factor is not clearly described
by analysts. I have mentioned these archaeometal
lurgical problems in order to make clear that isolated
analyses of poorly preserved objects are generally
difficult to interpret. Obviously, this is much more .
BRONZE AND THE BRONZE AGE
important for the earliest stages of metallurgical

innovation. In the case of tin bronze, for example,
the earliest artefacts will probably always be some
what controversial; on the other hand, the question
of the adoption of a fully bronze-using technology,
when we often have hundreds or even thousands of
analyses at our disposition, is much less susceptible
to the problems of analytical inaccuracy.
In the following pages, after a brief introduction
to the development of early metallurgy'", two main
subjects will be discussed: the earliest introduction
of tin bronze alloys, and the transition to metal
production based on the predominant use of tin
bronze. The latter subject will be reviewed in more
detail, in the light of our improved analytical and
chronological data, to address the question of the
nature of the European Bronze Age.
THE COPPER AGE BACKGROUND
Research on the earliest copper alloys (mainly with

arsenic, antimony and/or tin) is at the same time
one of the most crucial and one of the most difficult
fields in Chalcolithic and Bronze Age studies. The
past two decades have seen dramatic advances in
our knowledge, and models have been put forward
which have profound implications - particularly
for the 3rd millennium BC.
Artefacts made from native copper appear on
archaeological sites from the late 8th millennium BC
in south-east Turkey (e.g. Cayoni; Tepesi, Muhly
1989), and from the 7th millennium BC in Mesopo
tamia (e.g. Tell Maghzaliyeh, Ryndina & Yakhontova
1985). The mace-head from Can Hasan lIB in
southern Anatolia demonstrates casting in the early
6th millennium BC (French 1962), but good evidence
for the intentional smelting of copper ores (furnaces
and slags), appears in the archaeological record
much later, towards the end of the 5th millennium
BC, at sites such as Norsuntepe, Degirmentepe, Tal
i-Iblis, Seh Gabi and Tepe Ghabristan. The increased
occurrence in copper artefacts of arsenic and other
impurities such as iron, likewise indicating copper
ore smelting, is well documented in the Near East in
the late 5th millennium BC (late Ubaid) at sites such
as Mersin XVI-XVII, Norsuntepe, Susa I and Tepe
Yahya V (Pemicka 1990: 45 ff.), but much earlier
evidence from the 6th millennium BC at Yarim Tepe
has also been mentioned (Merpert & Munchaev 1987:
17; Muller-Karpe 1989: 181; Gale et al. 1991: 50 f.). At
the same time, there is a marked increase in the
number and size of copper artefacts being produced,
for example the 55 copper axes dating from the late
5th millennium BC from Susa (Talion 1987: 311 H.;
Muhly 1988:8). True alloys (mainly Cu-As and more
rarely Cu-Ag, Cu-Pb, Cu-Sb and Cu-As-Pb), in
which the added elements markedly change the

properties of the copper, first appear in the Near
East in the 4th millennium BC, for example at Nahal
Mishmar in Palestine (Bar-Adon 1980) and Ilipmar
IV in north-west Anatolia (Begemann et al. 1994).
Arsenic is relatively common in copper ores and,
according to most authors, the appearance of ar
senical copper can be explained by preferentially
obtaining copper from ores which have higher
concentrations of arsenic. In the case of finds like
Nahal Mishmar, with high levels of arsenic or
antimony, specialist opinions differ, some authors
believing that the alloys were produced by smelting
copper ores (e.g. Pemicka 1990:48 ff.), others arguing
that alloys with more than 4% As were made by eo
smelting with arsenic-containing minerals (e.g.
Tylecote 1991).
In south-east Europe, artefacts made of 'pure'
copper appear in the late 6th millennium BC,
considerably later than in the Near East. However,
after a preliminary horizon with copper ornaments
and light implements, the following millennium saw
the swift growth of copper production, most notably
of heavy implements (Vinca-Plocnik lIB), which
culminated in a veritable boom in the Late and
Final Chalcolithic at the turn of the 5th/4th millen
nium BC (KodZadermen-Gumelnita-Karanovo VI),
and the spread of the 'pure' copper heavy implement
complex to the north and north-east, for example
to the Tripolye, Tiszapolgar, Bodrogkeresztur and
Balaton cultures (see for example Strahm 1994: 10
ff.; Pernicka 1990: 49 ff.; Pernicka et al. 1997). It
seems reasonable to assume that the horizon of
heavy copper implements corresponds with the start
of extraction at mines such as Ai Bunar and Rudna
Glava around the second quarter or middle of the
5th millennium BC (for a review of the evidence,
see [ovanovic 1988);as in the Near East, the inception
of smelting would go hand-in-hand with increased
production of copper artefacts. However, it is often
claimed that the vast majority of heavy implements
is made of native copper (but note the difficulty of
distinguishing native copper from pure smelted
oxide or carbonate ores, see Maddin et al. 1980;
Muller-Karpe 1989: 181; Gale et al. 1991: 54 f.), and
recently it has even been argued that this earliest
mining activity was aimed at malachite, for use as
a semi-precious stone in jewellery, not at ores for
metal production (Pemicka et al. 1993; but see the
discussion in Gale et al. 1991: 53 ff.). It remains to
be seen how this controversy will be resolved; it
seems likely, however, that some of these early
artefacts, at least, were made from smelted copper
(ibid .: 51 f.). In south-east Europe the Final Chal
colithic and Proto Bronze Age (first half of the 4th
millennium BC) saw a marked change in the organ
isation of metal production: in E. N. Chernykh's
CHRISTOPHER PARE
terminology the replacement of the Carpatho-Balkan

by the Circum-Pontic Metallurgical Province (Ch er
nykh 1992; Pernicka et al. 1997: 54 H.). After the
'boom' in copper production in south-east Europe,
some areas (e.g. the Varna and Kodzaderrnen
Cumelnita-Karanovo VI groups) seem to have
experienced a collapse of production (ibid.). The
new metallurgical tradition, beginning in the early
4th millennium BC, was based on arsenical copper,
perhaps earlier in south-east Europe, but quickly
copied north of the Alps, for example in the
Mondsee, Altheim and Pfyn cultures (Pernicka 1990:
51; Strahm 1994; Vajsov 1993).
These changes in metallurgy have been incorpor
ated into more general developmental schemes, for
example by J. D. Muhly (1988: 9 f.): "The intensive
mining activity ... resulted in the depletion of the
oxide (and carbonate) copper ores of the Balkans by
Late Eneolithic times, resulting in a great drop in
metal production. With this metal shortage came a
period of experimentation and innovation resulting
in the first production of arsenical copper. The search
for new sources of copper eventually led to the
exploitation of the massive deposits of sulfide ores
and a shift in the main centers of metallurgical
development from the Danube Basin and the Car
pathians to the Alps and the ore mountains of
Czechoslovakia, both areas rich in copper sulfide
ore deposits." Christian Strahm, too, sees an im
portant distinction between the 'transitional' arsen
ical copper technology and the so-called 'A uf
bauphase' (Foundation Phase) of the 3rd millennium
BC, the latter based on the exploitation of complex
sulphide ores, especially Fahlerze. According to
Strahm, the technology for smelting complex copper
ores spread from the Carpathian Basin not only to
the Corded Ware and Bell Beaker cultures north of
the Alps, but also to central Italy (Rinaldone),
presumbaly reaching southern France (Fontbuxien)
by the early 3rd millennium BC (Strahm 1994). It is
significant that both Christian Strahm and Barbara
Ottaway have recognised a 'hiatus' between the early
arsenical copper production in the first half of the
4th millennium BC (Mondsee-Altheim-Pfyn north
of the Alps, TRB C on the north European plain) and
the more developed metallurgy (Strahm's 'A uf
bauphase') of the Bell Beaker and Corded Ware
cultures (Ottaway 1989; Strahm 1994). The 'Auf
bauphase', with its mining and smelting of complex
sulphide ores, is the context in which tin alloying
was introduced.
A very important general scheme for the historical
development of metallurgy has been presented in a
number of publications by E. N. Chernykh (most
recently: 1992). In Chernykh's scheme, the Copper
Age Carpatho-Balkan Metallurgical Province was
replaced in the Early and Middle Bronze Age by the
Circum-Pontic Metallurgical Province (ca . mid 4th

to mid 2nd millennium BC). This was only eclipsed
in the Late Bronze Age, by the emergence of regional
metallurgical traditions: the European, the Caucasian
and the Eurasian Metallurgical Provinces. Cher
nykh's work, involving the reconstruction of Metal
lurgical Provinces, Metallurgical Zones, and Metal
lurgical and Metalworking Focal Areas, represents
a crucial advance in our understanding of the subject.
However, within the broadly convincing picture of
metallurgical development, one aspect surely re
quires revision. A European Metallurgical Province
is certainly already apparent by the early 2nd
millennium BC, at the time of the widespread
adoption of tin bronze, and probably even in the 3rd
millennium BC, at the time of Strahm's 'Aufbauphase'.
We will return to this question later in the article.
THE EMERGENCE OF TIN
Pernicka (1998) has recently summarised his

thoughts on the introduction of tin bronze, basing
his conclusions on an impressive series of detailed
studies in south-east Europe, the Aegean and the
Near East. According to Pernicka (ibid .: 137 f.)
metallic tin was discovered at the start of the
Bronze Age. Tin was probably first smelted from
tin-stone, an oxide ore (Sn0 2) , perhaps discovered
as a by-product of panning for alluvial gold. In
contrast to other early alloys, such as arsenical or
antimonal copper, from the start Cu-Sn alloys were
produced by melting together metallic copper and
tin; this is thought to be much more likely than
the smelting of copper/tin ores or the addition of
tin ores (e.g. tin-stone) to molten copper (Pernicka
1998; but see Charles 1980: 174 f.; Gale et al. 1985:
155).
Following the early appearance of copper-tin
alloys at Mundigak, Afghanistan, in the second half
of the 4th millennium BC (Stech & Pigott 1986: 47;
see also Cleuziou & Berthoud 1982), tin bronze first
appeared in the Near East at around 3000 BC or the
start of the 3rd millennium BC in Anatolia and
northern Mesopotamia (e.g. Tell al-Judaidah, Braid
wood & Braidwood 1960: 300 H.; Tepe Gawra layer
VIII, Waetzoldt 1981: 374; Muhly 1985: 281; Moorey
1994: 297 H.). A few bronze objects are known from
the early 3rd millennium BC (e.g. Kish, Miiller-Karpe
1989: 184, fig. 5), but regular use starts in the middle
of the millennium, as shown most clearly by the
'Royal' graves of Ur (Early Dynastic IIIa, ca. 26th
century BC) and the hoards of Troy IIg. There is a
scatter of contemporary mid 3rd millennium finds
of tin bronze reaching from the Aegean in the west
to Susa in the east'", suggesting that this technology
was a common cultural phenomenon, involving
intensive contacts and exchange between the indi

vidual regions (Pernicka 1998: 138 H.).
Pernicka summarises his conclusions as follows
(1998: 140 f.): "Die Ausbreitung erfolgte nicht
zufallig - bald hier, bald da -, sondern nach einem
klaren Muster mit einer relativ grofsen Ursprungs
region. Zumindest im Westen der Alten Welt hatten
die sich entwickelnden Regionen Bertihrung mit
anderen, in denen Zinnbronze schon langer bekannt
war. Es ist deshalb sinnvoll, die Ausbreitung der
Zinnbronzetechnologie als einheitlichen Prozef zu
betrachten, der die Umwandlung der menschlichen
Gesellschaft von einem einfachen zu einem hoheren
Organisationsgrad begleitet." Pernicka emphasises
that this view is opposed to the model developed
by C. Renfrew, which posited the autonomous
invention of tin bronze in the north-east Aegean as
one of the primary factors causing profound social
change. Renfrew's view, according to Pernicka, is
contradicted by the results of Lead Isotope analysis,
which shows that the great majority of copper and
bronze objects from sites like Troy, Poliochni and
Kastri could not have been made from local ores.
Therefore the metallurgical boom in the north-east
Aegean was caused by 'stimulation' from the Near
East (Muhly & Pernicka 1992: 312 ff.): importation
to the Troad of copper alloyed with tin - probably
as finished artefacts - from the Near East (Pernicka
1987: 703). He concludes as follows (1987: 705):
"Wichtigstes Ergebnis der Artefaktenanalysen ist
der Nachweis, daf die EinfUhrung der Zinnbronze
im trojanischen Kulturkreis nicht auf eine lokale
Entwicklung zurtickgefiihrt werden kann, sondern
daf zumindest das zu deren Herstellung notwen
dige Zinn uber sehr weite Entfernungen, moglicher
weise aus Zentralasien herantransportiert werden
mufite."
As for the reasons behind the introduction of
bronze in the Near East, Pernicka (1998: 135 f.) notes
that arsenical copper can match the properties of
tin bronze. However it has crucial disadvantages,
mainly the difficulty in controlling the amount of
arsenic in an alloy: it was impossible to measure
precisely the arsenic content of an ore, and the
volatility of arsenic makes it difficult to produce
objects with more than 5% As. Indeed, 97.1% of the
objects analysed by the SAM project have less than
3% As, so arsenical copper rarely reached the
hardness of a typical 10% tin bronze. He also draws
attention to the adoption of tin bronze mainly in
'wealthy' cultural contexts (in Anatolia for example
at settlements like Troy IIg and Poliochni 'giallo',
and the 'princely graves' from Horoztepe, Alaca
Huyuk, Ahlathbel, Kayapmar and Mahmatlar),
often in the form of prestige objects made using
advanced casting techniques (for tin bronze in
Anatolia, see Yener et al. 1996). So the introduction
of tin bronze was not just a diffuse transfer of raw

material and knowledge, it was the result of trade
over long distances (idem 1990: 53; see also Stech &
Pigott 1986: 52 H.).
An international trade in tin (or tin bronze),
controlled by large city-states, began by the mid 3rd
millennium BC. Before this horizon there are only a
few isolated finds of tin bronze objects in south-east
Europe, such as the knife from Velika Gruda (Primas
1996: 94, fig . 7.1, M2 with 7.6% Sn). Objects like this
are often interpreted as evidence for an experimental
phase in the history of alloying technology. However,
Pernicka believes that experimentation is made
unlikely by the rarity of tin ores, and their infrequent
association with copper ores, suggesting that isolated
finds like Velika Gruda can probably be interpreted
as deriving from the international trade in the Near
East (1990: 53). He adds that the spread of tin bronze
into south-east Europe is impossible to follow at
present, owing to the imprecise chronology of the
region, but he entertains the possibility that bronze
was introduced in south-east Europe at roughly the
same time as in the Aegean. Finally, he notes that tin
bronze spread to the rest of Europe about 500 years
after its adoption in the Near East and the Aegean;
the tin bronze alloying technology not only spread
to the west, but also to the east, to the Indus Valley,
via the Iranian highlands and Central Asia (1998:
138 H.).
J. D. Muhly and E. Pernicka agree w ith H. Mc

Kerrel (1978: 19) that " ... there can be no question of
any major Near Eastern source [of tin] which was
exploited in the Bronze Age and yet remains still to
be discovered", and they note that the "sources of
tin remain the great enigma of Bronze Age archae
ology" (Muhly & Pernicka 1992: 315). In the Aegean
(including Crete), the East Mediterranean (including
Cyprus) and Western Asia (including the Caucasus)
there are no workable sources of tin ore (Muhly
1985; Muhly & Pernicka 1992: 314 f.; Pernicka 1998:
137; 142 f.). Among the various claims for Old World
tin sources, Pernicka (e.g. 1998: 142 f.) argues strongly
against Sogukpmar (north-west Anatolia), Suluca
dere and Kestel (both in the Taurus mountains); the
case of Kestel is most controversial (see, for example
Hall & Steadman 1991; Pernicka et al. 1992; Muhly
1993; Yener & Goodway 1992; Yener & Vandiver
1993a .b; Willies 1992; 1993). The situation in Europe,
where both tin-stone (Sn0 2) and stannite (CuleSnS4)
occur in some quantity, is quite different. The most
prolific tin sources in Europe are in Cornwall and
the Ore Mountains (Erzgebirge, on the border
between Saxony and Bohemia); important deposits
are also known from Brittany and the Massif Central
in France, and the north-west Iberian peninsula (Per
nicka 1998: 137; 142 f.). Less well documented sources
in Tuscany (Monte Valerio) and southern Sardinia
10
CHRISTOPHER P ARE
Early Helladic
(n
= 139)
30
125
124
123
25
20
'"
~
"c:
15
.....0"
0
la
5
7 . 8
10
1I
12 13
14 14+
0.5
4+
8+
As (%)
Sn (%)
Middle Helladic
(n = 34)
15
"j
".,
"-
".,
10
"
coc:
.....'"
coc:
....."
la
>.
>.
10
JI
12
Sn (%)
13
14
15
16
17
0.5
As (%)
Fig. 1.4. Histograms of the tin and arsenic contents of copper alloy objects in Early Helladic and Middle Helladic
mainland Greece. For references to the metal analyses included in the histograms, see Table 1.1.
objects have over 5% Sn, two have 3-5% Sn and no

less than seven contain below 0.5% Sn (Varoufakis
1973) .
Crete also seems to have used only small amounts
of tin during the Early and Middle Bronze Age.
Apart from the 28 EM and MM analyses published
recently by Mangou & Ioannou (1998), at least 90
further analyses have been published from Archanes,

Charnaizi, Fortetsa, Hagia Triadha, Katsambas, Kala
thiana, Koumasa, Krasi, Lebena, Marathokephalon,
Mochlos, Myrtos, Phaistos, Platanos, Porti, Pyrgos,
Salarne, Tekes and Traostalos (Slater 1972 [1 object] ;
Branigan 1974: 150 H. [82 objects]; Varoufakis 1995
[7 statuettes]). Only 7% of these analyses indicate
Early Helladic
Macedonia
1
Mandalo
23
Petralona hoard
PetraIona district 4
1
Seratse
2
Servia
McGeehan-Liritzis 1996
Mangou & Ioannou 1999
Ibid.
Heurtley 1930: 144; 1939: 253 f.
[ones 1979
Thessaly
Petromagoula
SeskIo
9
1
McGeehan-Liritzis & Gale 1988

Ibid.; Maran 1998: 264, note 1069
Phocis
Ay. Marina
Dickinson 1977: 114
Euboea
Tharounia Cave
'Euboea'
Manika
5
1
23

Phelps et al. 1979
Sampson 1985: 306; Stos-Cale et al. 1996
Boeotia
Eutresis
Lithares
5
10
Goldman 1931: 285

Kayafa et al., this volume
Attica
Aghios Kosmas
Rouf
Mylonas 1959: 78
Petrikaki 1980: 173
Peloponnese
Corinth
Lema Ill-IV
Tsoungiza
Voidokoilia
'Peloponnese'
1
25
7
5
1
Caley 1949: 60 H.
Ibid.
Kayafa 1999: table 3
Phelps et al. 1979
Ionian Sea
Levkas
11
McGeehan-Liritzis 1996: 365
Middle Helladic
Attica
Eleusis
Peloponnese
Argos
Ayios Stephanos
Lema V
Malthi
Nichoria
Voidokoilia
Mylonas 1932: 146 f.; Dickinson 1977:

114
1
5
10
2
12
3
VollgraH 1906: 40; Dickinson 1977: 114

Kayafa 1999: table 8; R. E. [ones (pers.
comm.)
Kayafa 1999: tables 33-34; Stos-Gale et
al., in press
Mangou & Ioannou 1999; Kayafa 1999:
table 3
Table 1.1. Metal analyses of Early and Middle Helladic

copper-based objects. The numbers refer to the number
of samples analysed.
more than 5% Sn, compared to 86% with less than
2% Sn. However, J. D. Muhly (1991) has mentioned
nine further tin bronze artefacts analysed by the
SAM project'", including two daggers from Krasi
which might date to EM I. Even if some or all of
them can be assigned with confidence to the Early
Middle Minoan period, they will not significantly
alter our general conclusion, based on ea. 120 pub
lished analyses, that tin bronze was only used rarely
in Crete before the start of Late Minoan. A change in
11
alloying practice clearly took place during the 16th

and 15th centuries BC. In the Unexplored Mansion
at Knossos (LM 11) 60% of the analysed objects contain
more than 5% tin(6); and in Sellopoulo, tomb 4 (LM
II-I1IA), all the copper alloys contained over 5% tin
(Catling & [ones 1976). In both Crete and mainland
Greece, tin bronze was the dominant metal used
from the mid 15th century BC onwards (LM I1IA/
LH IlIA). Whereas the use of tin only seems to have
started to increase in Crete in the Late Minoan period,
from around the 17th century BC onwards, on the
mainland bronze already seems to have played a
significant role from the start of the Middle Helladic
period.
In the course of our discussion of Aegean metals,
we have come across two different models of supply.
On the one hand, there was a limited, and perhaps
short-lived, influx of so-called 'Fremdmetalle', prob
ably entailing the exchange of bronze (copper alloyed
with tin) over long distances, presumably organised
as a form of sea-borne or caravan trade. On the
other hand, the regular and predominant production
of tin bronze, at least by LH/LM IlIA, indicates the
existence of a reliable supply of tin, alloyed with
local sources of copper. The earliest indication of the
tin trade is the famous tin bangle from Thermi IV
(Begemann et al. 1992: 224 ff.), and according to the
Lead Isotope data imported tin was probably alloyed
with local sources of copper at Manika in EH III
(Stos-Gale et al. 1996: 56, table 3, "Cycladic copper")
and at Lema V in Middle Helladic (Kayafa et al., this
volume, "Rhodopi, Lavrion?").
It is interesting to compare the situation in Cyprus,
illustrated by the following quotations: In Middle
Cypriot 11 (ca. 1800-1725 BC), "practically all copper
and arsenical copper objects are made from Cypriot
copper. Only a few MC 11 tin bronzes occur, but
those appear to be made of non-Cypriot copper"
(Stos-Gale et al. 1991: 344) ... "The transition from
Middle to Late Cypriot times is marked clearly by
the increase and dramatic improvement of Cypriot
metallurgy. There is a move from the import of small
amounts of foreign bronze in Middle Cypriot times
and the first, halting, steps in local manufacture to
the full blown Late Cypriot manufacture of tin bronze
in Cyprus, using foreign tin but Cypriot copper"
(Gale & Stos-Gale 1989: 254). It seems, then, that a
reliable tin supply was first established in Cyprus
around the start of the Late Bronze Age (ca. 1600
BC); interestingly, deliberate alloying with tin also
becomes 'universal' around this time in Palestine
(Northover 1988: 50; see also Philip 1991; Rosenfeld
et al. 1997).
The long-distance tin trade seems to have been
able to supply Mesopotamia and central and western
Anatolia in the 3rd millennium BC (Frangipane 1985:
221, fig. 3; 226 'period 3'). In the first half of the 2nd
12
CHRISTOPHER PARE
millennium BC, the tin supply was still very uneven

in the Near East and East Mediterranean (ibid.: 222,
fig. 4), but an important change does seem to have
occurred around the start of the Late Bronze Age in
Cyprus and the Levant, when much larger quantities
of tin must have been obtained on a regular basis,
possibly indicating the start of trade with new
trading partners or new sources of metallic tin .
Romania, Bulgaria and Yugoslavia

A convenient link between the metallurgy of the
Aegean, the Balkans and the Carpathian Basin is
provided by the shaft-hole axes from Petralona,
Poliochni ' rosso: and Thebes (Maran 1989: 131, fig.
1,2.6.7). These come from contexts of Early Helladic
Il/III or Ill, and belong to a large family of similar
axes, studied in detail by A. Vulpe (1970); Pol iochni
and Petralona may be linked to Vulpe's Izvoarele
series and the Veselinovo Il type, the Thebes axe to
Vulpe's Patulele type. As J. Maran (1989) has shown,
the axes are important for linking chronological
systems between the Carpathian Basin and the
Aegean, and suggest the rough contemporaneity of
Early Helladic Ill, the first part of the Romanian
Middle Bronze Age (Monteoru IC 3-IC 2) and Rein
ecke Br AI. The shaft-hole axes are important for
two further reasons: they represent a relatively large
proportion of metal objects known from the Early
and Middle Bronze Age in south-east Europe, and
their metallurgical compositions have been in
tensively analysed - especially the Romanian (SAM
project) and Bulgarian (E. N. Chernykh) examples.
According to A. Vulpe, the early shaft-hole axes
cast in open bivalve moulds (e. g. the Baniabic, Fajsz,
Corbasca, Durnbravioara and Veselinovo I types)
are all made of either pure or arsenical copper. The
only exception is the Dumbravioara axe from the
Early Bronze Age (Schneckenberg phase) settlement
of Sfintu-Cheorghe, with 1."45% tin. Pure or arsen
ical copper is also predominant in the first part of
the Middle Bronze Age/Monteoru IC3-IC2 (Veselin
ovo Il, Izvoarele, Patulele, Monteoru I and Padureni
I types); the only exceptions are the Padureni I axe
from Halchiu, and two Patulele axes with up to
0.4% tin. It is only in Monteoru IC 2-IA/Br A2
(Padureni Il, Monteoru Il, Hajdusamson, Balsa.
Apa-Nehoiu types) that use of tin bronze becomes
more general, but even now there are hoards like
Sinaia (26 axes with 1.15-3.5% Sn) and Borlesti (five
axes with 0.04%, 0.63%, 5.1%, 5.8% and 7.8% Sn),
which indicate that alloying was by no means
standardised. However, in the second part of the
Romanian Middle Bronze Age (Monteoru Il/Br B
C) almost all the axes are alloyed with tin .
For the Romanian axes, it is clear that the use of
tin increased markedly during the Middle Bronze
Age, and became predominant in the Apa-Hajdu

samson horizon (Monteoru lA/Br A2b). Indeed,
Vulpe notes that the earlier Middle Bronze Age
bronze axes only contained between 0.9% and 4%
Sn, with the later examples reaching up to 7% Sn.
South of the arc of the Carpathians, the adoption of
tin bronze may have happened slightly later: this is
suggested by the cemeteries of Sarata Monteoru,
where graves of phase lA (Apa-Hajdusamson hor
izon) contain bronze objects with 2.7-5.7% Sn,
whereas those of phase IlA (Br B) have 5.8- ea. 10%
Sn (Vulpe 1976: 155).
Tin bronze was clearly extremely rare in Romania
before the Middle Bronze Age. In the hoard of 10
neckrings from Deva, dated to the transition from
the Early to the Middle Bronze Age, only two contain
tin (0.31/0.34% Sn, 0.26/0.67% As); the other eight
contain 1.3-1.7% As. According to Vulpe, apart from
the Early Bronze Age axe from Sfintu-Cheorghe.
mentioned above, there is only one earlier find: the
ochre-grave burial from Clavanesti (tumulus 1, grave
11) with two bronze buttons (3.4% Sn) and a spiral
ring (1.55% Sn), which presumably dates before the
start of the Early Bronze Age .
In the case of Bulgaria, we are able to base our
discussion on the important research results pub
lished by E. N . Chernykh (1978). In general, tin
bronze seems to have been quite rare in the earlier
parts of the Bulgarian Bronze Age: in the Early and
Middle Bronze Age only 10% of 144 analysed objects
were of tin bronze, compared to 57% of arsenical
copper (Greeves 1982). This contrasts with the Late
Bronze Age, when tin bronze was practically the
only alloy used, although 29 out of the total 549
analysed objects were found to be of 'p ure' copper
(ibid.). However, even in the Late Bronze Age,
Pernicka et al. (1997: 138) note that the wide range of
tin contents, between 1.1% and 12.3%, indicates there
was no strict control over the alloy composition.
For the Early Bronze Age, the most important site
is Ezero, with up to 4 m of stratified deposits (for 14C
dating evidence, see Weninger 1992: 420 H.). In Ezero
A (layers 13-9, ca. 3100-3000 BC) there are 14 rather
simple metal objects, four made from 'pure' copper,
the rest from copper with low concentrations of
arsenic, in Ezero B (layers 6-1 , ea. 2900-2500 BC) the
19 metal objects are still made of either 'pure' (five)
or arsenical copper, but now with rather higher
concentrations of arsenic. The only tin bronze artefact
is an unstratified pin (4.5% Sn) from the surface of
the settlement (Chernykh 1978: pl. 28,43). The most
important site from the end of the Early Bronze Age
(EBA 3), post-dating Ezero, is Novozagora, where
the analysed metal objects were again of arsenical
copper. Ninety-nine analyses are available from the
Early Bronze Age lake -side settlement of Ezerovo Il
(Chemykh 1978:analyses 11883-11982), five of which
13
have :2:2% Sn, including one object with 4% Sn and

another with 6% Sn; but the reliability of the results
is somewhat questionable, as the metal is reported
to be affected by saline contamination (Greeves 1982:
540; Pernicka et al. 1997: 126). For the Middle Bronze
Age, the Emenska Pest cave provides the largest
collection of metal objects: the 12 analyses all show
the use of Cu-Sn-As; the average tin content is 5.3%
Sn, with values ranging widely between 0.8% and
15% Sn (Chernykh 1978: analyses 10912-10925).
Apart from the two objects from Ezerovo with
4% and 6% Sn, the unstratified pin from Ezero, a
flat axe with 8% Sn from Cradesnitsa (Chernykh
1978: pl. 27, 13), and the shaft-hole axes discussed
below, the Emenska Pest cave is the only Bulgarian
site of the Early and Middle Bronze Age with tin
bronzes (ibid.: pls 27, 3.5; 28, 3.5.8.12.13.39.40; 29,
1.22). All the flat axes, knives, awls, chisels etc.
from other sites analysed by Chernykh were made
of copper or arsenical copper. This suggests that
tin bronzes were still relatively rare in Bulgaria in
the Middle Bronze Age; metallurgy changed mar
kedly in the Late Bronze Age, when large numbers
of tin bronzes are known.
Shaft-hole axes can again be taken as an example
for alloying practices. Ezero B shows that simple
open bivalve moulds (Chernykh's type 1) were used
in the first half of the 3rd millennium BC for
producing axes of Veselinovo I type. Closed bivalve
moulds (Chernykh's type 4) came into use in the
Middle Bronze Age, producing tools like the Padur
eni axe from Emenska Pest, similar to the axe from
Poliochni 'rosso' mentioned above (Chernykh 1978:
pl. 25, 5). A summary of Chernykh's results is
illustrated on Fig. 1.5. It is immediately clear that
the axes made from open bivalve moulds (types
T.2, T.4, T.6, T.8) are made from 'pure' or arsenical
copper (all <0.15% Sn). Among the axes made in
closed bivalve moulds, 'pure' and arsenical coppers
remain in use (T.12, T.16, T.20: all <0.5% Sn), but
arsenical copper with tin and tin bronze appear for
the first time. Tin bronze first seems to be used in
the early Middle Bronze Age, for example for axes
of types T.10 and T.14, related to the Veselinovo Il
type axes in finds like Ostrovul Corbului hoard Il.
Nevertheless, it is clear that tin bronze was by no
means the predominant alloy used for shaft-hole
axes, with the exception of type T.22 (Apa-Nehoiu)
of the Apa-Hajdusarnson horizon?'.
Chernykh (1977) has also provided a wider view
of alloying in shaft-hole axes, in a series of four
maps (Fig. 1.6; see also Fig. 1.7). Fig. 1.6, a-b shows
the alloying practices at the time of the Early Bronze
Age axes produced in open bivalve moulds (Cher
nykh's mould types 1 and 2; axes of types Baniabic,
Veselinovo I, Fajsz, Corbasca etc.). Arsenical copper
is predominant in Bulgaria and the Caucasus;
Cu
As
SnJAs
Sn
As ~ 0.4% As ~ 0.5% As ~ 0.5% As ~O.4%
Sn:O; 0.4% Sn ~ 0.4% Sn ~ 0.5% Sn ~ 0.4%
G-:
U7,
(1:
0:
G:o
IT:
IT
I?
I?
EBA 2
EBA 3
MBA I
TI4
~"
.~
[-rro
TI8
MBA2
0
2+1 ?
1'22
Fig. 1.5. Summary of metal analyses of shaft-hole axes

from Bulgaria. - T2-T22 refer to the types as defined by
E. N. Chernykh . - Cu = 'pure' copper, As = arsenical
copper, Sn/As =copper with both arsenic and tin contents
greater than 0.5%, Sn = tin bronze. - After Chernykh
1978: 146 i, table [[[.6.
further north 'pure' copper seems to have been the
main material used. Fig. 1.6, d shows that arsenical
copper was still widely used in Bulgaria and the
Caucasus around the time of the Apa-Hajdusamson
C=J
I
I~
:J
10
CJ
~c==::J
12
- 'v
c:::::J
16
c;:J
~ O
~ O
n
:r:
18
~ ~ Ic
c::::=:=J
20
24
23
l~
8J c:;J
c;::J
~ D
:N
~
38
~
~
6. 1~
I
i
' '' '
'-"
~
~
"0
:r:
m
:N
""0
>
:N
~42~
~
46
~o
~
48
~
25
~
28
13
r - -
~ o
~
27
~
14
11
c::J
6.
6.
G=J
......
c::=t
c;;:J
la
'l
<::;:j
~ O
c=::::J
51
e'
I I~
~ ~CiL]
6.C7J~~
Fig. 1.6. Summary of metal analyses of shaf t-hole axes from the Caucasus, the north Pontic steppes, the Volga-Ural region and the Carpatho-Balkan region. - Empty
symbols: not analysed. - Vertical line: 'pure' copper. - Cross: arsenical copper. - Black symbols: tin bronze. - After Chernykh 1977.
15
N Pontic
Caucasus
100
90
Volga-Ural
0=0
0= 35
Balkans
Carpathians
0=27
0=3
0=8
80
70
Axe types
1-8
60
50
(%)
40
30
20
10
0-l..L_...LlLL..L.L-_--l
100
90
--I.l....---I.
----JL..l....-----J..l...L...:.....:..l_ _
0=0
0= 8
0=17
..u...._...L.L...:~:l...__...J
0=12
0=7
80
70
Axe types
9-18
60
50
(%)
40
30
20
10
0...L.-_---'-L.L....LL_ _'-
----'-l..----l
...J..l._--u..:.....:;.-"'-'-_ _-L.L..._....L.J..."-"-"-'-_----J
100
90
0=78
80
70
Axe types
19-37
60
50
(%)
40
30
20
10
0...L.-_---'-L.L....LL_-JL..l...-_.J..J....<:....<....t."'--_---'-l..----l..L....:..""-"J...
100
90
0=76
0= 3
80
70
Axe types
38-62
60
50
(%)
40
30
20
10
O-+---+L.L...""'-Y'--..,f---+-'-'--'r----+l..----lr--~
Cu
CuAs CuSn
Cu
CuAs CuSn
Cu
CuAs CuSn
Cu
CuAs CuSn
Cu
CuAs CuSn
Fig. 1.7. Histograms of metal analyses of shaft-hole axes from the Caucasus, the north Pontic steppes, the Volga
Ural region and the Carpaiho-Balkan region (cf. Fig. 1.6). - Cu = 'pure' copper, CuAs = arsenical copper, CuSn =
tin bronze. - After Chernykh 1977: 36, table 2; 49, table 4.
horizon; however, tin bronze predominates in the
Carpathian Basin, and makes an appearance not
only in Bulgaria, but also in the Caucasus and to
the north, between the Volga and the Urals. Fig.
1.6, c is rather less easy to in te rp ret, as La te

Chalcolithic, Early Bronze Age and early Middle
Bronze Age axe types have all been included on the
map . For example, the north-west Balkan copper
16
CHRISTOPHER PARE
axes of Kozarac type are shown, even though they

can be linked to the Vucedol and Ljubljana cul
tures'". Nevertheless, Fig. 1.6, c repeats the general
distinction between areas with arsenical copper axes
(eastern Balkans, Caucasus, now also the steppes)
and areas with 'pure' copper axes (western Balkans,
western Carpathian Basin, steppes and Volga) . The
seven tin bronze analyses in the Carpatho-Balkan
region indicate the adoption of this alloy for pro
ducing some axes in the early part of the Middle
Bronze Age.
According to Chernykh's results for the axes
shown on Fig. 1.6, d, 80% of the axes in the
Carpathian Basin were made of tin bronze, compared
to 35% in the Balkans, 26% in the Volga-Ural region
and only 3% in the Caucasus (Fig. 1.7 - axe types 38
62). This scarcity of tin in the Early and Middle
Bronze Age Balkans is also indicated by Chernykh's
summary of alloying practices in Bulgaria, shown
on Fig. 1.8, indicating that tin bronze was less
common than arsenical copper and arsenical copper
with tin in the Middle Bronze Age, a situation which
was reversed in the Late Bronze Age.
Apart from the shaft-hole axe evidence reviewed
above, there are a few other more or less reliable
finds of tin bronze from the Vucedol and Baden
cultures (Vinkovci, Velika Gruda, Brekinjska, Oku
kalj), the Proto Bronze Age (Kacica, Velika Humska
Cuka) and even the Late Chalcolithic (Smjadovo,
Zaminec) (Pernicka 1990: 52 f.; Pernicka et al. 1993;
1997; Primas 1996: 104 f.; Durman 1997: 11 f.). A
marked increase in the use of this alloy, however,
is first evident around the last quarter of the 3rd
millennium BC, at the start of the Romanian and
Bulgarian Middle Bronze Age, and the Cetina
culture in the western Balkans. Another major
development takes place around the time of the
Apa-Hajdusarnson horizon (ca. 17th-16th centuries
BC), with regular use of tin bronze in the area
between the Tisza and Prut (Fig. 1.6, d).
The Carpathian Basin

David Liversage (1994) has contributed a very
useful review of early alloying practices in the
Carpathian Basin, based on ca. 2,500 SAM analyses.
His results were summarised in a series of histo
grams, showing changing tin content from the start
of the Early Bronze Age to the Late Bronze Age '"
(Fig. 1.9). The first Early Bronze Age horizon is
marked by cemeteries of the Nitra group in south
west Slovakia, corresponding roughly to Br Ala
(Fig. 1.9, a). It is clear that bronze was hardly used
at all; 98% of the analyses contained less than 1%
tin . The next histogram (Fig. 1.9, b) is mainly based
on finds from Br A1b, from later cemeteries of the
Nitra group and Gemeinlebarn phases 1-2. Again
Copper type VIII

Pb ;>: 0.03%
Bi ;>: 0.002%
Copper type VI
Pb < 0.03%
Cu
As
Cu
MBA 2
MBA I
EBA3
EBA2
EBA I
Fig. 1.8. Summary of E. N. Chernykh 's results showing

the change of copper types and alloys in the Bulgarian
Early and Middle Bronze Age. - Cu = 'pure' copper, As
= arsenical copper, Sn/As = copper with both arsenic
and tin contents greater than 0.5%, Sn = tin bronze.
After Chernykh 1978: 168, fig. 86.
the great majority of samples (89%) has less than

1% tin; however, there is now a scatter of analyses
reaching up to a small peak at 10% Sn. Fig. 1.9, c
shows the use of tin during the 'classic' Unetice
phase, or Br A2a, with analyses again coming from
south-west Slovakia and from Gemeinlebarn (phase
3). The tin distribution is now clearly bimodal, with
almost 30% 'unalloyed' and the rest climbing to a
clear peak around 10% Sn. The following pair of
histograms derives from hoards of Br A2b in Trans
danubia (Tolnanemedi series, Fig. 1.9, d) and north
east Hungary and Transylvania (Hajdusamson
series, Fig. 1.9, e). Both show a small minority of
unalloyed objects, and the mass containing 4-10%
Sn . The last histogram illustrates tin use in the
Middle Bronze Age, or Br B-C (Fig. 1.9, f), with an
almost perfectly normal unimodal tin distribution
around a peak at 6-7% Sn.
In view of the variety of data utilised by Liversage,
including cemeteries and hoards from a wide area,
it is worth looking at one well-studied site in more
detail: the chronology of the cemetery of Gemein
lebarn has been worked out by F. Bertemes (1989)
and the analytical data summarised by Liversage
(1994: 80 f.; 81, table xvii) , The Gemeinlebarn phases
can roughly be paralleled with the Reinecke /Ruck
deschel system, as follows 1 (Br Ala), 2 (Br A1b), 3
(Br A2a), 4 (Br A2b).
Phase <1% Sn
~1 %
1
2
3
5 (100%)
44 (83%)
11 (23%)
0(0%)
0(0%)
9 (17%)
8 (15%)
36 (77%)
35 (75%)
0.101%
1.370%
7.257%
0(0 %)
6 (100%)
5 (83%)
8.483%
Sn
~4 %
Sn
Average Sn Analyses
n=5
n = 53
n = 47
n=6
The Gemeinlebarn cemetery follows the trends

illustrated by Liversage's more general histograms.
An increase in tin, however, happens rather earlier
17
:~ 1 1
40i
20
n = 197
~s-,
I! JU
!I
5
I! 35 .
J:
i': l . . """"" ,
o
60
<\
0 <I
9 10 1I 12 13 14
10 I1 12 13 14
10 I I 12 13 14
Sn (% )
10 II 12 13 14
25
n = 126
n = 37
20
[
[
)5
[
u,
Sn( %)
~:: ~.
~
n = 157
15
15
10
u,
30
:. i : ~ i ! i d " "
o
<I I
<I I
Sn (%)
10 I 1 12 13 14
Sn(% )
25
25
20
20
n = 332
z
~
~
c-,
15
15
u,
10
10
"'"
<l
10 11 12 13 14
Sn( %)
<\
Sn(%)
Fig. 1.9. Histograms showing the tin content of copper and copper alloy objects in the Carpathian Basin. - a) earlier
part of Br Al. - b) later part of Br Al. - c) earlier part of Br A2. - d) hoards of the Tolnanemedi group. - e) hoards
of the Hajdusamson group. - j) hoards of the Middle Bronze Age. - After Liversage 1994: 76 [; figs 2-4; 6-8 .
than in south-west Slovakia; in Gemeinlebarn 3,

for example, 75% of the samples contain over 4%
Sn, compared to 55% in the cemeteries of Hur
banovo, Nesvady and Matuskovo, which are sup
posed to be roughly conternporary''?'. A marked
rise in tin is already apparent in Gemeinlebarn 2
(Br A1b), with eight of the 44 samples containing
more than 4% tin . Tin certainly seems to be more
strongly represented at Gemeinlebarn at this time
than in contemporary finds further to the south
east, at the Maros-Tisza confluence. The cemetery
of Mokrin, from the middle phase of the Maros
culture, for example, contains a number of 'Cypriot'
knot-headed pins, characteristic for Br A1b in the
Unetice and related cultures, and has 14C dates
clustered around 2000 BC (1824, 1953, 2034, 2034,
2035,2074 BC, see O'Shea 1992). According to the
44 analyses from Mokrin, tin was hardly used: the
average tin content for objects in the cemetery was
0.113%, and 95% of the objects have less than 1%

Sn (Liversage 1994: 81, table xvii).
This comparison between Mokrin and Gemein
lebarn would seem to argue against a spread of tin
bronze alloying from the south-east. Indeed, our
previous discussion of the metal analyses in Crete,
mainland Greece, Romania, Bulgaria and Yugoslavia
showed that tin bronze was adopted rather haltingly
in south-east Europe. It is interesting to note David
Liversage's comment that there was more tin in Bell
Beaker material than in either the Vucedol-Zok
culture in the Carpathian Basin or in the Nitra group
(1994: 96). For objects from Bell Beaker graves in
southern Germany, Austria and Czechoslovakia, the
average tin content is 0.354% (ibid. 1994: 80), in
cluding a handful of objects with surprisingly large
amounts of tin: Bohdalice (awl 2.5%- Sn), Ledce
(dagger 2.6% Sn) and Smolfn (dagger 5.1% Sn) in
Moravia, Bylany (dagger 6.1% Sn) in Bohemia, and
18
CHRISTOPHER P ARE
Pfutzthal (awl 10.5% Sn) in Sachsen-Anhalt (SAM

3238, 3248, 19935, 19936; Junghans et al. 1960: 194;
Schickler 1981: 437; see also Kuna & Matousek 1978:
79, fig. 9, Il, crosses) . According to Spindler (1971:
207 H.) 43% of analysed objects from Bell Beaker
contexts contain more than a trace of tin, compared
with only 7% from Corded Ware contexts. Never
theless, even in the Corded Ware culture objects
with relatively high quantities of tin do seem to be
represented, even though the reliability of associ
ation is not always beyond question: Altenburg (axe
5% Sn) and Ranis (bead 3% Sn) in Thuringia, Halle
Heide (spiral armlet 1.3% Sn) and Kirchscheidungen
KloBholz (pin 11.5% Sn) in Sachsen-Anhalt, and
Niederkaina, grave 7 (spiral 2.2% Sn) in Saxony
(Otto & Witter 1952: anal ysis 211, 212, 692; Otto
1953: analysis B; Schickler 1981: 436).
Even though it would appear to speak against
his belief in a spread of tin bronze alloying to Europe
from the south-east (Ana tolia, Aegean), Pernicka
admitted that early (Copper Age) tin bronzes seem
to be concentrated in the Corded Ware and Bell
Beaker cultures of Central Europe, but not in south
east Europe?" (Pernicka et al. 1997: 125).
60
40
20
11
Fig. 1.10 (right). Histograms showing the tin content of

copper and copper alloy objects in the area north of the
Alps. - Only objects with at least a trace of tin are
included on the histograms. - a) Br Al . - b) earlier part
of Br A2. - c) later part of Br A2 . - d) Middle Bronze
Age. - After Spindler 1971: 209, Diagram 1.
60
11
= 799
40
---
20
North of the Alps

Turning to the area north of the Alps, we are able to
draw on the important study by K. Spindler (1971).
As he was interested in the earliest appearance of
bronze, especially in small quantities, he organised
his data in a rather unfamiliar way; on his histo
grams, for example, he uses a logarithmic scale,
providing more information on low concentrations
of tin than high tin allo ys (Fig. 1.10). In contrast to
the Nitra group, the graves of the earliest Early
Bronze Age horizon (Br Ala) north of the Alps
contain hardly any metal objects, their place being
taken by artefacts made of stone, bone or shell.
Significant quantities of copper and its allo ys appear
first in Br A1b, particularly in the graves of the
Adlerberg, Singen and Straubing groups (Cerneinle
barn is also included in Spindlers analysis: Fig. 1.10,
a). About 520 analyses were available for this
horizon, roughly 200 of which had no tin at all, only
8% had more than 1% Sn, and less than 5% had more
than 4% Sn. A recently discovered grave of the early
Straubing culture from Buxheim, Upper Bavaria,
=320
11
11
60
11
=553
40
--_.
20
60
11
=229
511
(%)
19
contained 47 tin beads with a segmented shape

resembling Early Bronze Age faience beads (Moslem
& Rieder 1997). S. Moslem and K. H. Rieder pointed
out the similarity with the segmented tin beads from
Exloo, Prov. Drenthe, and Sutton Veney, Wiltshire
(Penhallurick 1986: frontispiece; 67, fig. 24; for other
tin objects in Europe, see Primas 1985) - suggesting
a north-west European origin for the Buxheim beads.
In Br A2a, metalwork becomes more widespread,
and is now also well represented in graves from
Moravia, Bohemia and central Germany. Spindler's
histogram for this phase (Fig. 1.10, b) is slightly
less easy to interpret, because he did not state how
many samples analysed contained no tin . However,
the 799 samples with at least a trace of tin indicate
a major change in alloying: 71% of the objects
contain more than 1% Sn and 50% have more than
4% Sn. Furthermore, Spindler notes that the tin
poor objects are mainly difficult to date, and the
securely dated objects are generally alloyed with
tin. In Br A2b (Fig . 1.10, c) all the samples have at
least a trace of tin, and only 3% of the analyses
contained less than 1% Sn. 88% of the objects have
more than 4% Sn . Finally, in the Middle Bronze
Age (Br B-C) 92% of the 229 analyses had more
than 4% Sn (Fig . 1.10, d) .
According to both Liversage and Spindler, it is
clear that for the triangle reaching from central
Germany in the north, to southern Germany and
south-west Slovakia in the south, the transition phase
to a full bronze-using metallurgy happened around
Br A2a, some time between the 20th and 18th
centuries BC. At this time, the distribution of tin
was generally bimodal, with roughly equal numbers
of artefacts containing above and below 4% Sn. It is
interesting to compare a pair of histograms pub
lished by Helle Vandkilde (Fig. 1.11), showing tin
distributions in the classic Unetice phase (Br A2a).
Whereas in the 'central' area with 'princely' graves
and rich hoards (middle Saale-Unstrut in Thuringia,
southern Sachsen-Anhalt; mapped on Schmidt &
Nitzschke 1980: 183, fig. 3) there are roughly equal
numbers of artefacts containing above and below
2% Sn (Fig. 1.11, a), in 'peripheral' regions (north
Bohemia, Spree-Neisse, Riesa-Dresden-Bautzen,
Berlin-Brandenburg and Mecklenburg-Pomerania)
the sampled objects are poorer in tin, with only 21%
containing more than 2% Sn (Fig. 1.11, b).
Vandkilde's important research on the transition
'From Stone to Bronze' (1996) has shown that in
Denmark the situation in Late Neolithic rr (roughly
comparable with Br A2a) was similar to that in the
'peripheral' Unetice regions (compare Figs 1.11, b;
1.12), although, with 34%, Denmark apparently has
slightly more artefacts with over 2% Sn. From Per.
lA (roughly comparable with Br A2b) onwards,
almost all copper is alloyed with at least 4% Sn.
50
n = 194
=625
25
"g"
50
C
<::
Lt
25
Tr-0.126
0.127-2.0 2.01-4.00 4.01-7.95
> 7.95
Sn( %)
Fig. 1.11 . Histograms showing the tin content of copper

and copper alloy objects in the I1netice culture. - a) the
classic I1netice culture centre around the Unsirut-Saale
in Thuringia. - b) the periphery of the classic I1netice
culture centre (north Bohemia, Spree-Neisse, Riesa
Dresden-Bauizen, Berlin-Brandenburg, andMecklenburg
Pomerania) . - After Vandkilde 1990: 125, fig . 10.
David Liversage (1994: 77, with fig . 5), discussing

the Late Neolithic metalwork from Denmark, drew
attention to the fact that the tin distribution was not
bimodal, most of the tin-containing objects having
tin concentrations between 1% and 7% Sn. He
concludes as follows: "This must mean either that
the Danish smiths were not interested in concen
trating their tin in a full bronze, or more probably
that objects of copper and bronze were being im
ported as separate commodities but were being
mixed locally or on the way northwards in the
recycling process. The northern metallurgists were
thus obviously less advanced than those of central
Europe. As copper and bronze were mixed the
bipolarity disappeared from the tin distribution."
20
CHRISTOPHER PARE
In Per la metalworking practices obviously changed

markedly, and for the first time standard bronzes
were used - either imported or alloyed locally from
imported copper and tin.
75
50
The British Isles

For the British Isles, we can base our review on an
important study of southern British Early Bronze
Age metallurgy by Needham et al. (1989), and a
new chronological summary by Needham (1996;
see also Gerloff 1996). Stuart Needham has divided
early British metalwork into a series of chronological
horizons, one for the Copper Age (Metalwork
Assemblages I-Il), dating to the mid-late 3rd millen
nium BC, and 11 for the Bronze Age. The Early
Bronze Age Metalwork Assemblages (MAs), and
date-ranges, where possible based on modern pre
cision 14C dates, are as follows:
25
o
75
LN 11 (n
= 169 )
50
III = ca. 2300-2050 BC
(Butterwick daggers, Migdale axes etc .)
25
IV = ca. 2050-1900 BC
(Aylesford hoards, Parwich grave etc.)
V = ca. 1900-1700 BC
(Wessex I grave series, Armorico-British daggers etc.)
O---L..I----,
VI = ca. 1700 BC onwards
(Wesse x II grave series, Carnerton-Snowshill daggers etc .)
75
Per. LA (n =61)
50
25
o- - - ' - - - - - - - , - - - - - - r - - - ,
75
Per. LB (n
= 194)
50
25
0-+----.----..,----.----,
o
Tr-0 .126
$n (% )
Fig. 1.12. Histograms showing the tin content of copper

and copper alloy objects in Late Neolithic and Early
Bronze Age Denmark. - After Vandkilde 1996.
Metalwork Assemblages I-Il are characterised

by copper, arsenical copper and occasional bronzes
(Fig. 1.13). The following horizon, however, shows
a marked change: now over half of the metal objects
contain 8-14% Sn, and the great majority (more
than 93%) have over 5% Sn . Needham & Kinnes
(1981: 133) have even argued for 'tinning' of
undecorated flat axes at this time, a technique
which is apparently most common among axes of
the Dunnottar and Migdale groups (however, see
also Close-Brooks & Coles 1980; Kinnes et al. 1979).
According to Needham et al. (1989: 392, fig . 3), the
transition from copper to bronze took place quite
rapidly during the life of MA Ill. In the subsequent
phases, there is only gradual change in alloying
practices, involving increasing amounts of tin: 8
12% in MA IV, 8-14% in MA V, and 10-16% in MA
VI.
The early adoption of tin bronze in Britain was
already noticed in a remarkable article by Hugh
McKerrel (1978). He drew atten tion to the fact tha t
the vast majority of thin-butted ' type B' axes, both
in Scotland (95%) and in Ireland (90%), contain over
5% Sn . He also pointed to a similar development in
metalwork from Bell Beaker graves, characterised
by arsenical copper in steps 1-4 (21 objects of
arsenical copper, three bronzes), and bronze in
steps 5-7 (1 object of arsenical copper, 21 of bronze).
And, using available 14C dates, he suggested a date
BR O NZ E AND TH E BRONZE ACE
MA I
20
(n = 5)
10
0
: MA n
20
: (n = 18)
la
0
: MA III
20
V'J
: (n = 59)
10
V'J
>-.
~
c:
.....
0
Z
20
: MA IV
: (n = 26)
la
0
:MAV
20
: (n
=48)
la
0
: MA VI
20
: (n = 120)
10
0
5
la
15
So (0/0)
Fig. 1.13. Histograms showing the tin content of copper

and copperalloyobjects in southern Britain in Metalwork
Assemblages (MA) i- VI . - After Needham et al. 1989 :
391 , fig. 2.
21
of ea. 2200 BC for this important change in metal

working practice. McKerrel 's arguments have,
therefore, been confirmed by the systematic modem
research of Needham et al. Although there is a
degree of fluidity about th e date-r anges of the
individual phases, there has for a long time been
consensus that the typical finds of MA III date well
before Wessex I (Needham 1996: 130). This is
important, in view of the fact that the Wessex I
series of graves can be paralleled fairly reliably with
Br A2a on the continent, for example with the aid
of finds in graves and hoards of the classic Unetice
phase in central Germany (Gerloff 1993; 1996).
McKerrel identified the most important conse
quence of the early and regular use of tin bronze
alloys, the question of the supply of Cornish tin to
distant parts of the British Isles (1978: 11): " ... the
distances involved are considerable; from Cornwall
to Aberdeenshire some eight hundred miles by sea
and from Cornwall to Northern Ireland perhaps
half this distance. Yet, to judge by the consistency
of high tin levels in the thin-butted Scottish axes,
this was not an occasional or intermittent activity.
Clearl y, within Britain, we do seem to have a
consistent, well organized, long-distance tin move
ment dating to around 2200 BC"
The characteristic feature which demonstrates a
"consistent, well organi zed, long-distance tin move
ment" is a unimodal, tight and normal distribution
of tin in copper objects. As we have seen, this is
encountered in Britain already in MA Ill-IV (Fig.
1.13), roughly corresponding with Br A1. On the
continent, the development sets in several centuries
later, chiefly in Br A2b, for example in Denmark
(Fig. 1.12), the area north of the Alps (Fig. 1.10, c),
and in the Carpathian Basin (Figs 1.6, d; 1.9, d-e).
This, too, was noticed by McKerrel; in view of the
long distances involved in supplying Scotland with
Cornish tin , he suggested, not unreasonably, that
Cornish tin may equally have been taken across
the English Channel to supply parts of continental
Europe (1978: 14): "After 2200 BC, there is a remar
kable change in the European situation and, as has
been noted above, the transition to total bronze use
in Britain takes place ap paren tly very rapidly; for
Scotland nearly all copper alloys after 2200 BC are
sound tin bronze. For central Europe and Italy from
2200 to 1800 BC, about one-third of all copper
based metal is good bronze. Thereafter, the pro
portion is very much higher. It is of course not yet
possible to clarify the origins of the continental tin
component, but, in view of the certain and extensive
British use of the metal and the distances involved
even within Britain, it is entirely conceivable that it
was British tin being used at this time on the
Continent."
Although, as we have seen, there does seem to be
22
CHRISTOPHER PARE
a consensus that tin bronze alloying became pre

dominant in Britain well before Wessex I, it should
be realised that the radiocarbon evidence is by no
means as clear as one would wish. This has been
pointed out by Fernandez-Miranda et al. (1995: 62):
for example the Migdale hoard (wooden bear core:
3665 75 BP) is not necessarily earlier than 2000 BC,
and Manor Farm burial 1 (human and animal bone:
3450 70 BP, 3270 80 BP) is almost certainly later
(for the 14C dates, see Needham 1996: 129). Owing to
wiggles in the calibration curve, radiocarbon dating
around 2000 BC will always be problematical, and
there is clearly a risk that the earliness of the
introduction of British tin alloying will be exag
gerated. Indeed, there are problems around the same
time in other parts of Europe. The five 14C dates for
the halberds from Melz, Kr. Robel, Mecklenburg,
hoard 11, conventionally dated to Per. lA/classic
Unetice'!", are earier than expected, with a date
before 2000 BC being most likely (Rassmann 1993:
pis 26-27; 1996: 205, fig. 7). However the Melz dates
are interpreted, they do not have much effect on our
study of the introduction of tin bronze alloying: in
Mecklenburg and Brandenburg true bronzes are
hardly represented at this time - the main exception
being halberds, which have an average tin content
of 7.56% in the 14 analysed examples from Mecklen
burg (ibid. 1993: 41; 246, table 7).
The precise absolute chronology of the introduc
tion of bronze to the British Isles must remain some
what uncertain. However, it is surely reasonable to
relate the transition from arsenical copper to tin
bronze with roughly contemporary changes
around 2000 BC - in the organisation of copper
mining and metals supply. According to the results
of recent research (see for example Craddock 1993;
1994; Ixer & Budd 1998; O'Brien 1996; 1999), during
the second half of the 3rd millennium BC Ireland
and much of western Britain was supplied with
arsenical copper from the mines at Ross Island in
County Kerry. This type of arsenical copper ('type
A') was still used for the production of the earliest
tin bronzes of the Killaha-Migdale horizon (see
Northover 1982; the suggestions of Budd et al. 1992
have not been followed by other specialists). Around
2000 BC the Ross Island mines fell into disuse, and
at the same time a large number of mining oper
ations began in south-west Ireland, north Wales
and north-west England . According to mineralogical
analysis, these new 'Bronze Age ' mines produced
relatively pure copper, which was then alloyed with
tin, presumably from Cornwall. Both strands of
study, the artefactual analyses of Needham et al.
(1989) and the mining research described above,
point to the same profound change in metallurgy in
the British Isles at the end of the 3rd millennium
BC.
The Iberian Peninsula

Evidence for the early use of tin bronze has recently
been published from Late Chalcolithic Bell Beaker
contexts in the northern Iberian peninsula (Alcalde
et al. 1998; Comendador Rey 1999). From the
extreme north-east, the rock shelter at Bauma del
Serrat del Pont (Gerona) has tin bronze from three
Chalcolithic layers (111 .1, 11.5, 11.4) as well as the
Early Bronze Age layer 11.3; the 14C and analytical
evidence is shown below:
Layer
" C (2 0)
Samples
nu
n.5
2783-2280 BC
2915-2583 BC
1
4
n.4
n .3
2889-2457 BC
2495-2030 BC
1
2
Tin
7.096% Sn
0%, 0.547%, 0.606%,
7.687% Sn
4.642% Sn
23.51%, 41.37% Sn
On the other side of the peninsula, at the site of

Guidoiro Areoso on the Illa de Arousa (Pontevedra)
in the extreme north-west of Spain, two awls with
21.52% and 21.86% Sn come from contexts dated to
2618-2458 BC (2 c). Most of the other Beaker
bronzes, including tanged daggers and Palmela
points, are not directly dateable; in France, how
ever, similar high dates (2873-2489 BC, 1 c) are
associated with a bronze dagger from a Beaker
context at the Abri du Capitaine (Basses Alpes). It
is quite clear, particularly from the Bauma del
Serrat del Pont, that alloying with tin was mastered
before the middle of the 3rd millennium BC in
northern Spain. On present evidence, this is earlier
than anywhere else in Europe, and it lends support
to the view that the Bell Beaker cultures played a
crucial role in the introduction of this metallurgical
technique.
It is less easy to demonstrate when bronze
became predominant in the Iberian peninsula'!",
although there is a consensus that tin alloying was
adopted earlier in the north than the south (Fer
nandez-Miranda et al. 1995: 68): "Una vez en la
Peninsula, la tecnologia del bronce continua el
avance lentamente de norte a sur, como rumiada
en el seno de grupos poco estructurados espacial
mente, requiriendo rnas de dos siglos recorrer el
camino que separa Navarra del Sureste." The
authors are referring to the important Bronze Age
site of Monte Aguilar in the Bardenas Reales
(Navarra), where 13 metal objects have been found
in layers A/V and B/VII, dated by 14C to ea. 1890
1750 BC, of which six are low-tin bronzes, and
seven are copper or arsenical copper. According
to Pernandez-Miranda et al., whereas tin bronze
appears in the second half of the Early Bronze Age
in the north, it is only introduced about two
hundred years later further south, during the
Middle Bronze Age (ca. 1700-1500 BC) - at roughly
the same time throughout La Mancha, the Bronce
23
Valenciano, the El Argar culture and the Balearic

islands.
Although, as we have seen from the Beaker
evidence, there must have been some knowledge of
bronze from the start of the Early Bronze Age , it did
not dominate production in the north till the Middle
Bronze Age (ca. 1700-1500 BC). In the northern
Meseta, for example, the site of Tolmos de Caracena
(Soria), with five HC dates between 1850 and 1520
BC, has produced eight metal objects, all of which
copper or arsenical copper. On the other hand, in
the central part of the peninsula, the site of Loma del
Lomo (Cogolludo, Guadalajara), dated by HC to
1670-1390 BC, has analyses from eight objects, six of
which are bronze with on average 11.7% Sn, the
other two being copper or arsenical copper (Fer
nandez-Miranda et al. 1995: 64). Further south,
Margarita Diaz-Andreu and Ignacio Montero (this
volume) have shown that in Prov. Cuenca bronze
starts to increase in importance during the Middle
Bronze Age (17th-16th century BC), but only
becomes dominant in the Late Bronze Age (15th
14th century BC; see Fig. 8.3). The same authors
state that bronze use started even later in La Mancha
and the area of the El Argar culture. Tin bronze was
absent in Mancha phases 1-11, and only two objects
are known from Mancha phase III (ca. 1700-1500
BC); bronze use presumably increased in the subse
quent Cogotas I culture (Martin et al. 1993: 33 H.;
Fernandez-Miranda et al. 1996).
Fernandez-Miranda et al. (1995) note tha t the
earliest bronze objects from HC-dated contexts of
the El Argar culture are from the site of Cerro de la
Campana (Murcia), dating to ea. 1700-1500 BC; here
there are equal numbers of tin bronzes and copper
objects. Ignacio Montero Ruiz writes that 20% of
Argaric tools and weapons were made of a copper
tin alloy, he notes that it is at present impossible to
determine precisely the start of alloying, but con
tinues (1993: 53): "The available evidence from other
areas of the Peninsula suggests that the appearance
of bronze may not be much earlier than the middle
of the 2nd millennium BC." The study by Hook et al.
(cl 1987: 171, fig . 5) also indicates that the big change
in metallurgy, with the transition to tin bronze, took
place after the El Argar culture.
Italy
In the absence of systematic modern studies, the
manner of the adoption of tin in Italy is impossible
to chart with any accuracy, and we can merely
summarise general trends. E. R. Eaton (1991) has
published evidence for a rather significant use of
tin bronze in the Copper Age (Remedello, Rinal
done and Gaudo cultures, beginning in the second
half of the 4th millennium BC, and Bell Beaker
culture, beginning in the first half of the following

millennium). In a sample of 110 analyses, no less
than seven contain more than 1% Sn (3 samples
with over 5% Sn, 4 with 1-5% Sn, 3 with ea. 0.5%
Sn) . In the sepulcral cave or Grotticella of Val
Frascarese, Prov. Genova, for example, there is a
tin bronze bead (ca . 16.4% Sn according to XRF
analysis) from a context with five I4C dates ranging
from 4340 60 BP (3103-2872 BC, 2 0) to 3920 60
BP (2501-2201 BC, 2 0) (Maggi & Formicola 1978;
Campana et al. 1996).
At the start of the Bronze Age there is a marked
change in metalwork in northern Italy where, in
the Polada culture, a wide variety of artefact types
was adopted from the region north of the Alps (for
a review of the types involved, see Hundt 1974).
This introduces an important division in metal
working in the Italian peninsula during the Early
and Middle Bronze Age: compared to the rich finds
of the lake-side and Terramare settlements of
northern Italy, southern Italy and Sicily remain
extremely poor in copper and bronze. In Sicily, for
example, the first object known by analysis to be of
tin bronze is from the 14th century BC, a sword of
the Thapsos culture at Caltagirone (Giardino 1997:
408; and pers. comm.).
Konrad Spindler (1971: 230 H.) assembled the
available SAM analyses of objects from Italy and
Sardinia, and assigned them to chronological phases
corresponding roughly to the following phases
north of the Alps: Br Alb-A2a (EBA 2-3), Br A2b
(EBA 4) and Br B-e (MBA):
>7.95% Sn
4.01-7.95% Sn
2.01-4 .00% Sn
<2.01% Sn
EBA 2-3
EBA 4
MBA
29%
38%
4%
29%
n = 52
37%
28%
15%
20%
n = 68
53%
35%
5%
6%
n = 94
According to this data, the development in alloying

is similar to that north of the Alps: tin bronze
production increased markedly at the time of the
earliest northern 'imports' from the north Alpine
Blechkreis (Br Alb), the tin distribution is bimodal in
EBA 2-3, became predominant in EBA 4, and finally
in the Middle Bronze Age there was standard tin
bronze production. However, in the 30 years follow
ing Spindler's publication, the chronology of Italian
Early Bronze Age metalwork has been the subject of
some controversy. On the one hand, the dating of
the early axes must be revised, following the
surprisingly early HC date of the Otztal glacier
mummy (L. H. Barfield, pers. comm.); on the other
hand, in modem chronological schemes much of
Spindler's EBA 4 material (e.g. hoards from Cascina
Ranza, Costa di Monticelli etc.) is now assigned to
24
CHRISTOPHER PARE
Br medio 1, which is associated in central and

southern Italy with early Mycenean pottery.
It is very likely that a new, systematic study of
all the available analytical evidence will provide a
less simplistic view of changes in metallurgy (eJ.
Fernandez-Miranda et al. 1995: 61). Peter North
over, for example, gives a tantalising glimpse of
regional variation in alloying practices (1988: 50):
"The Rinaldone industry [in Tuscany] with its As/
Sb composition ... is replaced by an industry using
5-8% tin bronzes allied to a copper type with up to
2% or more lead and zinc . The association of
finished axes and copper ingots shows that the alloy
was produced by alloying tin, perhaps from Tus
cany, with copper from a Cu/Pb/Zn source. The
Remedello industry [in northern Italy] on the other
hand is succeeded by two alloy types: in some areas,
particularly Lombardy, there is a low tin bronze
with 3-5% Sn, while to the east in Veneto and Friuli,
an imported As/Sb/ Ag/Ni composition is used, a
composition that can have attractive properties ...
Only at a later date is this material replaced by a
high tin bronze."
The suggestion that tin deposits in the eolline
metallifere may have supported a relatively pre
cocious bronze production in Tuscany gains even
more importance in the light of evidence for an
early trade in metals from the the island of Vivara,
off the bay of Naples. Excavations at the Punta di
Mezzogiorno and the Punta d'Alaca have brought
to light a large quantity of bronze objects, and
metalworking debris including crucible fragments
with tin bronze residues, associated with early Proto
Apennine B pottery and Mycenean pottery reaching
back to the MH/LH I transition (Giardino 1998). As
Claudio Giardino writes (ibid .: 158-161): "Since the
Campania area is wholly without metal resources,
the raw material must have come from other areas,
which could reasonably be assumed to be in the
areas on the Tyrrhenian Sea; the Gulf of Naples was
an important stopping point in the Tyrrhenian
routes. ... The Vivara settlement may have been the
most westerly point of a network of maritime traffic
ensuring the Eastern Mediterranean with a regular
metal supply. The island was the point of arrival for
a complex system of short and medium distance
'local' trade for collecting and transporting metal
from the mining areas, probably through various
intermediate stages." Giardino's conclusion that
Vivara articulated a trade in metals with the Aegean,
lasting from the mid 17th till the end of the 15th
century BC (LH I-IIIA1), seems difficult to avoid.
As the Vivara finds include many tin bronze objects,
but also crucibles, slags, copper alloy prills and a
piece of copper casting residue, the commodities
involved were presumably copper, tin and/ or
bronze, most likely from Tuscany.
RESULTS AND DISCUSSION
The definition of the Bronze Age

and the 'Bronze Age Hypothesis'
In the absence of an agreed definition, general usage
of the term Bronze Age is - not surprisingly
imprecise and often misleading. In my opinion, there
can only be one viable definition for the start of the
Bronze Age : an adaptation of Snodgrass' criterion
('working iron') for the start of the Iron Age, quoted
at the beginning of this article. The Bronze Age is the
period in which bronze was the material predomin
antly used to make the functional parts of those
major categories of cutting and piercing implements
which were fundamental for early technology.
Whereas the transition to the Iron Age seems to
have been 'abrupt' in most parts of the Old World,
this is certainly not universally true for the transi
tion to the Bronze Age. In many parts of the Near
East, for example, arsenical copper was still widely
used in the 2nd millennium BC. But in other areas,
such as Central and north-west Europe, there was a
relatively abrupt adoption of bronze as the main
working metal, and it remained predominant for
many hundreds of years. This suggests that whereas
the term Bronze Age may be almost irrelevant in
some areas, it may be both applicable and useful in
others.
When archaeologists use the term Bronze Age, it
can have merely a conventional meaning, for
example for classificatory or chronological purposes;
on the other hand there are more interesting uses,
chiefly as a stage in technological evolution or
culture-history (the 'Three Age System' combines
elements of all these uses and meanings). However,
evolutionary schemes are today decidedly out of
fashion, and the most widely (if not explicitly) held
view - in Europe at least - is probably what I call the
'Bronze Age Hypothesis' (an interesting version in
Kristiansen 1987: especially 46 f.). This proposes that
in the Bronze Age:
Bronze was fundamental both in economic
production and social reproduction.
It was therefore essential for societies to obtain
bronze (or copper and tin).
As the vast majority of societies did not have
local supplies of copper and tin, they were
obliged to participate in exchange networks
which linked them, directly or indirectly, with
distant sources of metal.
Consequently, and compared with earlier peri
ods, the Bronze Age was characterised by a
massive increase in exchange.
The exchange system lent itself to control by
emerging elites, which tend to be more noticeable
in the Bronze Age than in previous periods.
If this hypothesis is correct, for those cultures and

periods in which 'bronze was fundamental both in
economic production and social reproduction' the
Bronze Age was a time with a distinct character,
significantly different from anything before or after.
Europe and the Near East

Bronze was adopted very differently in Europe and
the Near East. In the Near East tin bronze was
introduced and disseminated in the context of an
elite long-distance exchange network, organised by
the cities of Mesopotamia. However, after the
sudden inception of bronze use in the mid 3rd
millennium BC, bronze was only taken up haltingly
in the Near East, as the histograms published by M.
Frangipane clearly demonstrate (1985: 219/ fig. 2/ b;
221/ fig. 3; 222/ fig. 4). In Europe, by contrast, there
were no cities to administer long-distance caravan
trade, and exchange was obviously organised in
completely different ways. Nevertheless, in quite
large areas of Central and north-west Europe there
was a relatively abrupt transition to total bronze
use : particularly in the British Isles (Fig . 1.13)/
Denmark (Fig. 1.12)/ and the region between central
Germany, Transylvania, Tuscany and the area north
west of the Alps (e.g. Figs 1.9; 1.10).
One of the reasons for the difference between
Europe and the Near East is the occurrence of tin:
workable tin deposits were, according to the present
state of research, either absent or extremely rare in
the Near East. Although there is general agreement
that workable sources of tin were rare throughout
the ancient world, there is considerable controversy
about individual cases (for good reviews of Euro
pean tin, see Roden 1985; Penhallurick 1986). It is
interesting that the most authoritative specialists in
archaeometallurgy are also the most sceptical about
tin sources. J. D. Muhly and E. Pemicka, for example,
argue strongly against Kestel and other mining
regions in Turkey, as significant sources of tin.
However, in Europe there are persistent claims for
minor tin workings, for example in Serbia (McGee
han-Liritzis & Taylor 1987; Taylor 1989: 84; Durman
1997)/ the Slovakian Ore Mountains (Schalk 1992:
158; 1998) and south-east Spain (Harrison 1974: 79
'near Cartagena). Muhly's earlier doubts about
prehistoric tin mining in the Bohemian/Saxon
Erzgebirge have been dispelled by the results of
recent excavations (Bartelheim et al. 1998; see also
Taylor 1983)/ and it is certainly not inconceivable
that future research will find evidence for Bronze
Age activity at previously unknown tin mines and
placer deposits. Nevertheless, whether five (Corn
wall/ Brittany, north-west Iberia, Erzgebirge, Tus
cany) or ten sources of tin were in use in Bronze Age
Europe, it remains true that for the vast majority of
25
cultural groups the metal was not locally available,

and had to be obtained by exchange. Many regions,
such as southern Scandinavia, were equally reliant
on external exchange for their supplies of copper.
In view of the difficulties involved in organising
and maintaining an exchange network for the supply
of copper and tin, even in Europe, the abrupt
adoption in large parts of Europe of a metallurgy
dominated by bronze is something of a mystery
which deserves serious discussion. It is essential to
understand that there was no techno-evolutionary
imperative which made this change unavoidable.
The Minoan palaces, for example, flourished with
very little bronze, and there is no reason why other
European cultures could not have survived quite
happily in the 2nd millennium BC without bronze,
for example using a variety of work-hardened
coppers with small quantities of arsenic, antimony
or lead . For this reason, the adoption of 'total bronze'
in Europe should be understood as a cultural choice,
not a product of technological determinism, even
though in many respects bronze may represent a
technological advance compared to stone or copper.
The natural consequence of this suggestion is
that the term Bronze Age has quite different mean
ings when applied to Europe and the Near East. In
each area, bronze was adopted for distinct and
unique cultural reasons.
The European Metallurgical Province

We have already suggested that the European
Metallurgical Province, in E. N. Chernykh's termin
ology/ emerged alongside the Circum-Pontic Metal
lurgical Province. The roots of this new European
metallurgical tradition can probably be traced back
to the early 3rd millennium BC, when evidence for
the mining of complex sulphide copper ores begins
in many parts of Europe; this is the 'Aufbauphase'
(Foundation Phase) in C. Strahm's developmental
scheme. During the late Chalcolithic there was also
a marked increase in the use of tin : this is most clear
for the Bell Beaker culture, but also seems to have
been true for the Corded Ware, Remedello and
Rinaldone cultures. Presumably there was some
knowledge (and use) of local tin deposits, for
example in Cornwall, north-west Iberia, Tuscany or
the Erzgebirge.
The adoption of bronze took place against this
background, in a development which I have at
tempted to illustrate on Fig. 1.14. For each area where
published data is available, I have noted the approxi
mate date of the transition to the full Bronze Age,
according to the above definition. The arrows on the
map are included to emphasise the chronological
gradient between the adoption of bronze in various
areas; they do not necessarily show the direction of
N
0\
n
:r:
;<l
-e
:r:
tT1
;<l
t:() "'l
'\:I
f;;
<S
' ",
\
1" " ,," ,
o
oI""""
500 m iles
500 kilometres
Fig. 1.14. Map showing probable dates for the transition to full bronze use in Europe. - The arrows indicate the chronological gradient between the
adoption of bronze in some areas.
'influences' involved in the expanding distribution

of bronze. The evidence used for Fig. 1.14 has been
described in the preceding pages, and it is clear that
for many areas we are lacking either good analytical
data or good chronological definition or both: for
quite large areas the available analytical data is
difficult to assess, owing to the lack of a clear
chronology (e.g. France), and even in the areas where
data is available, it is by no means uniformly reliable.
Nevertheless, it is possible to reconstruct the broad
outlines of the adoption of bronze in Europe, and
there is every reason to believe that future research
will be able to provide a much more detailed picture
of the process.
The earliest evidence for a full Bronze Age in
Europe is in the British Isles, where, according to the
work of Hugh McKerrel, Stuart Needham and
others, bronze swiftly replaced copper at some time
during the last quarter of the 3rd millennium BC, or
at least prior to 2000 BC (cf Fig. 1.13). Shortly after
this, at around 2000 BC, there seems to have been a
radical reorganisation of copper mining operations
in the British Isles . Obviously, to supply metal
workers in Britain, tin was already being obtained
in considerable quantities from Cornwall; it is
uncertain to what extent Cornish tin was reaching
the continent, although the segmented tin beads from
Exloo and Buxheim might hint at exchange over
long distances even at the end of the 3rd millennium
BC. Tin was probably being obtained from sources
in Brittany by the late 3rd millennium BC, but it is
uncertain at present exactly when bronze became
predominant in north-west France .
Alloying with tin was increasing rapidly in Central
Europe, north Italy and southern Scandinavia in the
first quarter of the 2nd millennium BC, at the time of
the phase Reinecke Br A2a (cf Figs 1.9; 1.10; 1.11;
1.12). In the subsequent chronological phase (by ea.
1800/1700 BC), a vast area between Denmark,
Transylvania, Tuscany and the north-west Alps was
using bronze for almost all non-precious metal
products (note that it is unclear when full bronze
was adopted in France and the Low Countries) . It
would be logical to assume that the transition to
bronze occurred earlier near putative tin-producing
regions (e.g. Tuscany or the Erzgebirge), but the
present state of chronology is insufficiently precise
to draw such detailed conclusions (but cf Fig. 1.11).
This was a crucial stage in the transition to the Bronze
Age in Europe: in a large area full 'Bronze Age'
production commenced around 1800/1700 BC, in
what seems to have been an inter-related develop
ment. Within this zone, an exchange network was
clearly functioning well enough to ensure reliable
supplies of copper and tin. By the mid 17th century
BC, the southernmost part of this 'netw ork' was
linked via Vivara to the early Mycenaean Aegean.
27
Owing to the lack of detailed information on

France and the Low Countries, it is uncertain how
the adoption of full bronze use spread from north
west to Central Europe. Our information is likewise
somewhat sketchy when we turn to southern and
eastern Europe; nevertheless, according to the
present consensus, it seems that full bronze use
was only adopted in the southern Iberian and Italic
peninsulae after the 15th century, and the same
seems to be true for Bulgaria and the north Pontic
steppes. Owing to its developed social and eco
nomic organisation, and wide-ranging trading
activity, the Aegean must obviously be treated as
an exceptional case, but even here full bronze
production only seems to have occurred from LH/
LM IIIA onwards.
The general picture which emerges is an expan
sion of full bronze use from 1) north-west, to 2)
Central, and 3) southern and eastern Europe. On
one level, this development clearly indicates a
growth, both in volume and range, of the exchange
networks supplying copper and tin for bronze
production. But the expansion of full bronze use
also required the adoption of a cultural norm in
which bronze was fundamental both in economic
production and social reproduction (cf the 'Bronze
Age Hypothesis'). It is this cultural norm which
lends the European Bronze Age its unique character.
Metallic currencies
The special feature of the European Metallurgical
Province was the relatively abrupt and complete
transition to full bronze production. In our review
of the evidence, particularly for Central and north
west Europe, we noted a Widespread change to full
bronze production between the last quarter of the
3rd and the first quarter of the 2nd millennium BC.
In view of the problems involved in obtaining tin,
it is surprising that tin bronze was used not only
for cutting and piercing implements such as axes,
daggers and awls, but also for decorative items
like jewellery. In fact, in the full Bronze Age ,
practically all metal artefacts were made of bronze;
exceptions include most ingots, and objects made
of precious metals such as gold and silver. This
exclusive use of bronze suggests that the reasons
behind its adoption were not simply its technical
advantages; if that were the case one would expect
it to have been used preferentially for implements
requiring the improved hardness and castability of
bronze.
It is more likely that bronze quickly came to have
a standard value, which led to the rapid decline in
use of other kinds of copper and copper alloy . The
golden brown colour of bronze was not only attrac
tive and well suited for making ornaments, but could
28
CHRISTOPHER PARE
also have been useful in assaying the quality of the

metal, in a way which is impossible for other copper
alloys, for example those containing small quantities
of arsenic, antimony or lead. Using this bronze
standard, artefacts would have a 'convertible' ma
terial value, and could be used as a kind of currency.
This idea has been suggested by Andrew Sherratt
and Step hen Shennan:
"The diversification of exchange systems required
an element of liquidity: a standard of exchange
that was convertible between different kinds of
goods, and which could balance the flows between
different areas - in other words a kind of proto
currency. To be acceptable between different
cultures and value systems, this had to be a
material which was generally desirable, but which
could change its form - easily and without loss
between different forms of local expression. It
must be neither too rare nor too common. Copper
on its own might potentially have come to play
such a role; but it was inhibited both by the limited
range of exchangeable goods, and by its own
limited range of finished forms. As Step hen
Shennan has argued ... it was only in the alloyed
form, as bronze, that it came to be such a medium.
... Bronze was more than a 'primitive valuable'
for use only in ceremonial prestations within
restricted spheres of exchange ... Instead, it was
an internally produced and valued material which
had both an inherent attractiveness and a variety
of useful forms ... it was capable of being reshaped
into other forms of object; but as a major display
material it carried its own connotations both as
adornment and through its association with bright
weapons and cutting tools. In conjunction with
livestock and textiles, it could circulate in local
exchange cycles ; but melted and recast, it could
be transferred between local typologies and the
regional ideologies they expressed. It was the
large-scale use of bronze which linked these
potentialities into actuality, and made bronze into
the primary material of the margin." (Sherratt
1993: 17)
"In the core areas [of Central Europe] the key to
the change was that copper and bronze under
went a process of commoditisation - they became
important as unit quantities of metal rather than
as restricted prestige items for social transactions,
and may indeed have functioned in some respects
as a proto-currency - as a means of exchange and
store of value.... In summary then, copper and
bronze represented wealth in the core area con
vertible, it is suggested, for a range of other goods
and materials, as well as being themselves con
vertible into tools and weapons." (Shennan 1993:
62 f.)
"The argument that copper and bronze became

commodities measured in standardised quanti
ties clearly has implications for the nature of
Bronze-Age transactions.... We may ... suggest
the development of commensurability between a
variety of different kinds of goods in terms of
metal ..." (ibid.: 65).
Important contributions to this debate have also
been published recently by M. Lenerz-de Wilde
(1995) and M. Primas (1997; Primas & Pernicka
1998). Whereas Primas : most important results
concern Middle and Late Bronze Age scrap hoards,
Lenerz-de Wilde concentrated mainly on a careful
analysis and interpretation of Osenring ingots; she
summarised her conclusions as follows:
"Die hier skizzierte Entwicklung vom Osenhals
ring als Schrnuck zur Barren- und gewichts
genormten Geldform, die begleitet oder abgelost
wird durch immer shirker fragmentierte Metalle,
stellt eine der klassischen Entstehungsformen von
Geld dar: Ein Gegenstand ist als Schrnuck weit
verbreitet und sehr beliebt, entwickelt sich so zum
store of value, zum begehrten Tauschobjekt und
schliefslich zum Tauschmittel. Anders ausged
ruckt ist dies die Kette: Schmuck - Ringgeld
Kummerforrn ('Zeichengeld')." (Lenerz-de Wilde
1995: 319)
Broadly speaking, it seems that in Europe a new
relationship to metals emerged in the late 3rd
millennium BC. The most obvious signs of this are
1) the thousands of copper Osenring ingots in Central
Europe, which seem to have been made to standard
weights for use as a sort of currency (see also Pare
1999: 478 f.), and 2) the adoption of standard bronze,
which gave artefacts a convertible material value.
The coincidence of these two developments is surely
not fortuitous . What use was this mass ive increase
in the supply of copper, in the form of Osenring
ingots, without alloying?
In Britain, it seems that following the earliest
horizon of tin bronzes using 'type A' copper (Mig
dale-Killaha phase), a new system of copper and tin
exchange developed around 2000 BC. 'Pure' copper
from a series of new mines came into circulation,
which could be alloyed with tin from Cornwall and
Devon. Owing to the restricted occurrence of tin,
there must have been an element of long-distance
trading, which may now have been controlled by
elites of the sort buried in the tumuli of the Wessex
culture. According to 14 C dates from the copper
mines, this new system of metals circulation prob
ably functioned throughout the Early and Middle
Bronze Age, roughly corresponding to the time
covered by the Wessex I and 11 graves.
In Central Europe, the mass prod uction of Osen
ring ingots seems to have commenced around the

time of the early Unetice culture (Br A1b). Copper
and tin production in the Saxon/Bohemian Erzge
birge must have started by the time of the classic
Unetice culture (Br A2a), and it is to this phase that
the rich Unetice hoards, and the 'princely' burials
such as Helmsdorf, Leubingen, Dieskau (Schmidt &
Nitzschke 1980) and Leki Mate are assigned. In this
case, too, the emergence of elites is generally
explained by their control of long-distance trade in
copper and tin (e.g. Gerloff 1996: 14). At a slightly
later date, the organisation of metals exchange could
have been administered by a series of concentrated
settlements, which are found over large parts of
Central Europe in Br A2: defended settlements in
the northern part of the Carpathian Basin (Veterov,
Mad'arovce, Fuzesabony. Otomani cultures), hill
forts in the area north of the Alps, and lake-side
settlements north-west of the Alps.
Around the transition from the Early to the Middle
Bronze Age, a radical change in the organisation of
metal circulation is indicated by the appearence of
hoards of scrap bronze in Central Europe (Buhl
Ackenbach horizon) . With the increased quantity of
copper, tin and bronze which was now in circulation,
it seems that the earlier high-level long-distance
(directional) trade in copper and tin was undermined
by a low-level short-distance (down-the-line) ex
change in scrap bronze'!", This has been described
in a number of articles by M. Primas, for example:
"Mit dem Einsetzen der Zirkulation und De
ponierung von Bronzebruchstucken und Roh
metall veranderte sich die Quellenlage fur beides
deutlich. Die gegen Ende der Fruhbronzezeit
aufkommende Horte mit diesen Materialklassen
setzen sich von den alteren Deponierungsmustern
in verschiedener Hinsicht klar ab. DaB wir hier
den Aufbau einer neuen Realwertordnung und
den Untergang des vorher erfolgreichen Systems
vor uns sehen, ist ziemlich evident." (Primas &
Pernicka 1998: 56 f.)
"The centuries following the Early Bronze Age
are now seen to be a period of fundamental
change. The pattern of hoard contents was
modified drastically between 1500-1300 BC ...
Scrap metal and ingots of various shapes began
to circulate regularly on an interregional scale .
Gold was now available in considerable quanti
ties. These features speak for the Widespread use
of weighed metal as a means of payment. At the
same time , the functional use of different alloys,
specialised tools ... and adequate working tech
niques became common practice and attest a more
professional handling of metal. ... raw material
shaped to flat or planoconvex ingots and the
circulation of scrap bronzes started simultan
29
eously at a time rightly designated an innovation

horizon." (Primas 1997: 123)
From this time onwards, there is increasing
evidence that fragmented bronze was hoarded and
exchanged, in the context of a 'Weighed Currency
Economy' (Pare 1999: 510 ff.).
This radical change in the organisation of the
exchange of copper, tin and bronze corresponds
with equally fundamental changes in other aspects
of life: the rise of the Tumulus culture, the end of
Tell settlements in the Carpathian Basin (David
1998) and the end of concentrated settlements (lake
side settlements and hillforts) in the area north of
the Alps (Pare 1996). Somewhat later, there seems
to have been a similar 'collapse' of the copper-tin
exchange system in Britain, with the decline in
operational activity in most copper mines and the
end of the Wessex culture, both happenning around
1400 BC. At about the same time, there is increasing
evidence for trade in scrap metal, both from wrecks
found in the English Channel (Muckelroy 1980;
1981) and from analytical research (e.g. Northover
1982).
Apparently, it was possible for local elites to
control copper and tin supplies during the earlier
part of the Bronze Age, but with the steadily
increasing amount of standard bronze in circulation,
the system of control was undermined and collapsed.
The exchange system which replaced it was based
on weighed fragmented bronze, which was collected
in hoards; the amount of bronze which could be
collected is illustrated by the hoard from Uioara de
Sus in Transylvania, which contained nearly 6,000
pieces with a total weight of 1,300 kg (Coles &
Harding 1979: 409).
The first evidence of the system of bronze ex
change based on hoarded scrap metal occurred in
the Biihl-Ackenbach horizon at the transition from
the Early to the Middle Bronze Age, in the 16th
century BC (variously called ' Br A2c', ' Br A3' or
' Br A /B') . Over the ne xt two or three centuries this
system seems to have been adopted over most of
the European Metallurgical Province, and in the
Urnfield period we find a vast number of hoards in
an area reaching between the Carpathians and the
Atlantic. By the 13th century BC, the expanding
European Metallurgical Province had evidently
reached the Aegean, in a process described in the
stimulating article by Sue Sherratt later in this
volume.
Diffusionism and the tin trade

Early studies of the start of the Bronze Age in Europe
were dominated by diffusionist models, often in
volv ing the agency of 'prospectors' travelling from
30
CHRISTOPHER PARE
the Near East in search of copper and tin. Indeed,

the start of the Central European Bronze Age was
originally defined by the appearance of new bronze
types introduced from the East Mediterranean:
"Zeitbestimmend waren fur den Beginn der
europaischen Bronzezeit Metallformen, deren
Herkunft aus dem Mittelmeerraum uneinges
chrankt angenommen wurde: Osenhalsring, tri
angulare Dolchklinge, Stabdolch, Schleifennadel
und die Nadel mit gelochter Halsschewellung.
Mit ihrer Hilfe wurde der Beginn der friihen
Bronzezeit in Mitteldeutschland in das 19. [ahr
hundert v. Chr. angesetzt." (Schickler 1981: 433)
Variations on this theme can be found, for ex
ample, in the works of Montelius, Dechelette and
Childe, but one of the most important milestones
was doubtless the detailed discussion by Claude F.
A. Schaeffer, published in 1949, which focused on
the Qsenring ingots found at Ras Shamra:
"ll semble done qu'au troisierne millenaire les
porteurs de torques avaient leur centre de dif
fusion initial dans les pays miniers par excellence
bordant au nord le Croissant Fertile. Vers la fin
du troisierne millenaire et au debut du second,
au cours ou a la suite d'une periode critique ayant
cause des destructions dans de nombreux centres
urbains de l' Asie Occidentale, nous les voyons
s'installer en Syrie septentrionale. lls contribuent
puissamment a l'essor de l'industrie du metal et
du bronze, notamment aRas Shamra et a Byblos.
A la meme periode, en Chypre aussi s'ouvre un
ere de prospection et de developpernent des
gisements cupriques. A la fin du troisierne mil
lenaire et au debut du second, les porteurs de
torques s'installent aussi en Palestine OU ils
repandent la technique du bronze. De Palestine,
ils ont penetre dans la vallee du Nil ..." (Schaeffer
1949: 109 H.) ... [after discussing how the porteurs
de torques reached Europe, ShaeHer continues
as follows] ... "Force est done d'admettre que les
porteurs de torques de Syrie, prospecteurs et
artisans en metal, ont pris la mer. En suivant les
cotes sud de l' Anatolie, les iles de l'Egee et les
rives de l' Adriatique, ils semblent s'etre avances
directement vers l'Europe centrale ou ils ont du
provoquer le prodigieux developpement des
mines et de l'industrie metallurgique de Boherne
et de Hongrie qui marque le debut du Bronze."
(ibid.: 115)
Although diffusionism, as a catch-all explanatory
model, has declined in popularity, it is still often
argued that tin bronze alloying spread from the
Near East to south-east, Central and northern
Europe: as we have seen, this is postulated by E.
Pernicka, and the idea is also reflected on an
illustration published by A. Sherratt (Fig. 1.2).

Indeed, there is nothing inherently wrong with this
suggestion. However, the diffusionist position was
seriously weakened by a later article by SchaeHer
himself, in which he reversed his earlier argument
for Near Eastern prospectors:
"Aujourd'hui, ou nous possedons des releves
topographiques et typologiques precis des plus
anciens bronzes detain, et ou leur datation
absolue est mieux assuree, le problems est a
reprendre. Nous avons vu ... que les centres de
fabrication des premiers objets, armes, outils et
parures, en bronze riche en etain des Porteurs de
torques se trouvaient non en Anatolie, dans le
Proche-Orient ou en Egypte, mais indiscutable
ment en Europe centrale. A la lumiere des rec
herches recentes, la these de l'anteriorite des
torques provenant du Proche-Orient, ainsi que
des armes, outils et parures auxquels ils etaient
associes, par rapport aux trouvailles analogues
de l'Europe centrale, doit etre abandonnee."
(SchaeHer 1978: 486) ... "C'est aux Porteurs de
torques de l'Europe centrale, par l'intermediaire
de leurs artisans les plus hardis venus s'installer
dans les grands centres de commerce sur les cotes
orientales de la Mediterranee, a Byblos, a Ras
Shamra-U gari t et ailleurs en Proche-Orient,
qu'etait done devolue la mission de propager la
technique d'une metallurgie avancee qui a marque
l'ouverture d'une nouvelle ere." (ibid.: 490)
In this new version of events, SchaeHer suggests
that specialist artisans from Central Europe travelled
to the Fertile Crescent, bringing with them a more
advanced technology of tin bronze production.
Central European specialists also play an active role
in a slightly earlier article by Konrad Spindler,
published in 1971; in this case, the tin sources of
Cornwall and the Iberian peninsula were discovered
by prospectors from Central Europe, Switzerland or
southern France:
"Die Zinnseifenlagerstatten der Pyrenaenhal

binsel werden ... von m6glicherweise schweizer
isch-sudfranzosischen Prospektoren entdeckt, die
beginnen, diese abzubauen und das Zinn in den
Rhoneraum zu verhandeln." (Spindler 1971: 240)
... "Mit der Betrachtung der metallurgischen
Erscheinungen auf den Britischen Inseln wird
deutlich, daB hier die Zinnbronze oHenbar eh er
bekannt wird als auf der Iberischen Halbinsel.
Vornehmlich werden wohl mi tteleuropaische
Prospektoren die kornischen Zinnfelder ... ent
deckt und fur eine weitreichende Belieferung des
Kontinentes mit Zinn gesorgt haben." (ibid.: 242)
This complex subject has been reviewed in an
important recent article by Sabine GerloH (1993), in
which she studied artefacts in Central Europe which

seem to suggest contacts with the East. Med~ter
ranean in the late 3rd and early 2nd millennium
BC and arrived at conclusions comparable to those
of SChaeffer (1978). The crucial difference in Ger
loff's account, however, is that she explains the
'contact finds' in the East Mediterranean and
Central Europe as the result of trade, not the
movement of specialist artisans such as the 'por
teurs de torques '. GerloH argued that the optimal
bronze alloy with ea. 10% tin was first adopted in
Central and especially western Europe (1993: 83;
84, fig . 11). She summarised her arguments as
follows:
" Der Vertrieb von atlantischem und auch erz
gebirgischem Zinn darf wohl auch in Zukunft
mit den oben genannten Kontaktfunden zwischen
dem 'barba rischen' Europa und den bronze
zeitlichen Hochkulturen des Mittelmeerraumes
in Verb indung gebrachtwerden." ... "Wir mussen
wohl davon ausgehen, daf diese Kontakte nicht,
wie in jiingster Zeit vielfach propagiert. wur~e,
auf den gelegentlichen Austausch und die z~fal
lige Dbertragung von Prestigegiite~n zuruc~
zufuhren sind, sondern daf es zu diesern Zeit
punkt schon bekannte und f:st etablie:te
Handelswege gab, die vor allem mit dem Vertneb
von Rohmaterialien in Verbindung gebracht
werden miissen." (GerloH 1993: 84 f.) ... "Folgt
man der Meinung, daf der Zinnhandel das
ausschlaggebende Moment fur die Fernver
bindungen zwischen dem zinnreichen Mittel- und
Westeuropa einerseits und den zinnarmen bronze
zeitlichen Hochkulturen des Mittelmeerraumes
andererseits war, konnen wir davon ausgehen,
daf zu Beginn der mitteleuropaischen Bronzezeit
wohl vornehmlich Zinn aus dem Erz- und wahrs
cheinlich auch aus dem Fichtelgebirge am Ende
des 3. und Anfang des 2. vorchristlichen [ahr
tausends in mehreren Schiiben uber die Donau
an die Westkiiste Vorderasiens gelangte. Im
zweiten Viertel des 2. Jahrtausends scheint sich
der Zinnhandel mit den mittelmeerlandischen
Hochkulturen mehr nach Westen verlagert zu
haben. Spatestens zu Beginn des 16. vorchrist
lichen [ahrhunderts, wenn nicht noch friiher,
wurde zum Zeitpunkt der friihesten m ykenischen
Schachtgraber vor allem atlantisches Zinn in ?en
Mittelmeerraum verhandelt. Dies gelangte nicht
iiber die Donau in den Vorderen Orient, sondern,
wie auch spater in klassischer Zeit, iiber den
westlichen Mittelmeerraum vor allem in den fruh
spatbronzezeitlichen griechischen Raum und wohl
auch noeh nach Zypern." (ibid.: 85 f.)
The idea of a tin trade supplying the Mycenaean

Aegean with tin from Cornwall and Brittany is far
31
from new, and is supported by influential archaeo

metallurgists such as J. D. Muhly:
"l have long argued for the possibility that, from
the late Middle Helladic period onward, begin

ning with the period of the Shaft Graves at
Mycenae, the Aegean world was making use of
northwest European sources of tin, especially
those in southwest England ... and Brittany ... To
argue for the use of Cornish tin at Late Bronze
Age Mycenae is not to have the Mycenaeans as
builders of Stonehenge. It is most unlikely that
anyone from the Aegean ever reached s~uth:m
England during the Late Bronze Age. Tin, like
amber, made its way across Europe through a
series of middlemen, perhaps as Diodorus Siculus
describes, albeit for a much later period ..."
(Muhly 1985: 287 f.)
The article by Gerloff represents the clearest and
most recent statement of what might be called the
ma xima list view of relations between Early Bronze
Age Europe, the Near East and the Aegean. Similar
ideas, more subtly expressed, are also to be found in
the fascinating World System approach of Andrew
Sherratt (1993: 22 H.). Basically, these authors
entertain the possibility that developments in the
Central and western European Early Bronze Age
were profoundly influenced by contact with the N:ar
Eastern and Mediterranean worlds . Two major
phases of influence are recognised: the first ea. 2300
1700 BC dominated by contact with the Near East
('Troy'), and the second, from the 17th century BC
onwards, dominated by long-distance trade with
the Aegean ('Mycenae').
CONCLUSIONS
The purpose of this article was to explore the

meaning of the term ' Bron ze Age'. During my
research on the Bronze Age/Iron Age transition
(for the first in a series of planned publications,
see Pare 1998), the simple question arose: how
important was bronze for Bronze Age societies?
Looking at the rich variety of bronze objects made
for functional use and for display, for example in
Central Europe between Reinecke Bronze A and
Hallstatt B, one could easily believe that bronze
was ' fund amen tal both for economic production
and social reproduction'; if so, obtaining, dis
playing and exchanging bronze became a vitally
serious 'game' which had to be played, at least by
aspiring socio-economic elites,
This belief has been reinforced by my work on
this article, which suggested that tin bronze was
adopted in Europe in a special way. The abrupt and
complete transition to full bronze use, first in north
32
CHRJSTOPHER PARE
west and then Central Europe, indicates that bronze

use and exchange became a cultural norm, part of a
value system in which 'standard bronze' came to be
used as a kind of currency. As this seems to be a
cultural phenomenon typical for Europe, it is ap
posite to use Chernykh's term 'European Metal
lurgical Province' to describe it. Fig. 1.14 illustrates
in a schematic fashion the expansion of full bronze
use within the European Metallurgical Province from
the last quarter of the 3rd millennium to the third
quarter of the 2nd millennium BC. Over this long
period, the bronze exchange network expanded, and
reached its greatest extent by the 13th century BC.
The Late Bronze Age hoards are clear evidence of
the continuing validity of the bronze currency until
its collapse at the Bronze Age/Iron Age transition,
which first occurred in the Aegean in the 11th century
BC, and can then be traced in other parts of southern
and south-eastern Europe around the second half of
the 10th century BC, and in Central Europe at ca. 800
BC.
Some approaches to the question of the start of
the Bronze Age have been outlined above. It is
difficult to believe that prospectors could have
contributed anything to this process: specialist tin
miners almost certainly did not exist in the Near
East or the Aegean, and there was already limited
knowledge of tin ores and copper-tin alloys in
Europe before the mid 3rd millennium BC. This
seems to have been most prevalent in Central and
western Europe, especially in the Bell Beaker cul
ture.
Long-distance trade in tin is extremely unlikely
in the late 3rd millennium BC: before supplying
the Near East with tin, there must have been a
functioning supply network somewhere in Europe,
and this was only just being established in the
British Isles at this time. An 'intern ational' tin trade
becomes more likely after the first quarter of the
2nd millennium BC, when a functioning supply
network seems to have existed, serving a vast area
between the British Isles, southern Scandinavia, the
Carpathian Basin and Tuscany (Fig. 1.14). Indeed,
good evidence for a long-distance trade in tin, with
the early Mycenean Aegean, is first encountered in
the 17th century BC on the island of Vivara.
As we have suggested, the crucial change in the
late 3rd mill ennium BC involved a new relationship
to metals, particularly noticeable in Central and
north-west Europe. This involved both a massive
increase in the supply of copper (and its com
modification as Osenring ingots), and the beginning
of a long-distance trade in tin, for the production
of bronze. It is not clear to me why this should
have happened precisely at this time. However,
Sabine Gerloff and Andrew Sherratt have recently
drawn attention to the signs of contact between the
East Mediterranean and Central Europe (faience

beads, the slitted spearhead from Kyhna, and Schlei
fennadeln in Europe, Osenring ingots from Ugarit,
Byblos etc.), and the same horizon of 'influences'
has traditionally been held responsible for changes
at the start of the Bronze Age (cf. Montelius, Rein
ecke, Dechelette, Childe etc.) . It is not inconceivable
that new ideas about metallic currencies spread to
Europe at this time from the Near East (for tin and
silver, see Stech & Pigott 1986).
Acknowledgements
As a novice in the field of early bronze metallurgy,
I have relied heavily on the generous support of a
number of colleagues. I am particularly grateful for
information and advice from the following: Law
rence Barfield (Birmingham), Paul Garwood (Bir
mingham), Claudio Giardino (Rome), Richard [ones
(Glasgow), Maria Kayafa (Birmingham), Veronica
Liritzis-Maxwell (Glasgow), Iosef Maran (Heidel
berg), Ignacio Montero (Madrid), Michael Muller
Karpe (Mainz), Peter Northover (Oxford), Mark
Pearce (Nottingham), Graham Philip (Durham) and
Sophie Stos-Gale (Oxford).
Notes
1. In writing these introductory paragraphs, I have drawn
heavily on publications by Ernst Pernicka: see for

example Pernicka 1987; 1990; 1998; Pernicka et al. 1993;
1997 .
2. In a slightly earlier publication, Pernicka (1990: 52)
suggested that a true tin bronze technology was adopted

in Mesopotamia about 100-200 years earlier than in
north-west Anatolia, but according to the latest 14C
dating evidence (Korfmann & Kromer 1993: 168, fig.
23), Troy IIg should be roughly contemporary with the
start of regular use of tin bronze in Mesopotamia .
3. Veronica Liritzis-Maxwell has kindly drawn my atten
tion to a forthcoming study of important discoveries
from Giali (Nissyros) : V. M. Liritzis Maxwell & A.
Sampson, forthcoming. 'Tin at the end of the Neolithic:
the case of Giali', in P. Northover & C. Slater (eds),
Founders, Smiths and Platers (in press).
4. Apart from the examples from Aghios Kosmas, Levkas
(R7), Lithares and Manika, the other tin bronzes included
in Table 1.1 and Fig. 1.4 are somewhat unreliable:
According to Veronica Liritzis-Maxwell (pers. comm .)
the chr onology of the axe from Levkas grave R9 (7.8%
Sn) is somewhat uncertain. For Levkas, see the forth
coming article by V. M. Liritzis Maxwell & N. H. Gale,
'The Ionian enigma: the metalwork from Levkas recon
sidered', Annual of the British School at Athens, in press
(2000). - According to J. Maran (1998: 264, note 1069) the
chisel from Sesklo with 2.24% Sn does not definitely
belong to EH Ill; the chronology of the tweezers from
Aghios Kosmas is also uncertain (ibid. 268). - The chisel
from the Tharounia Cave (13.09% Sn) is presumably
heavily mineralised, as the Atomic Absorption analysis
recorded only 50.28% Cu. - As for the chisel from the
Petr alona District, with 7.85% Sn (Mangou & Ioannou
5.
6.
7.
8.
9.
10.
11.
1999: 89, table 2), it is not clear from the publication

whether its Early Helladic date is secure. - Early tin
bronzes have also been reported from two other sites in
Macedonia, but the early analyses were non-quantitative:
Axiochori (Vardar6phtsa) : Davies 1927; Perivolaki
(Saratse) : Heurtley 1930: 144.
The nine analysed objects come from Krasi, Mochlos,
Palaikastro and Platanos. These were not included in
the 'corpus' of analyses published by K. Branigan (1974:
147 H., Appendix I), and have not been included in my
summary of tin concentrations.
68% of the 22 objects analysed by Gale and Stos-Gale
(1985: 61) and 58% of the 106 objects (not including
waste and copper wire) analysed by Catling and [ones
(1977).
Chernykh (1978) has published the following data for
shaft-hole axes of types T.l0, T.14, T.18 and T.22. - no:
four analyses, including one with more than 5% Sn.
T.14: eight analyses, including three above 5% Sn.
T.18: eight analyses, including three above 5% Sn ,
T.22: three analyses, all between 9% and 13% Sn .
For a discussion of the analyses of the hoards of Crica,
Kozarac, Vinkovci, Vranovici, Donja Lohinja and Duna
kornlod (average 0.001% Sn), see Liversage 1994: 80; 81,
table xv ii; 95 f.; 96, fig . 27. Ibid. 80: "If they are
representative these 67 analyses show that at the time of
the Vuc edol z Zok culture bronze was essentially un
known in the Carpathian Basin, and even the slightest
contamination with tin was very rare." - Only one tin
bronze Kozarac axe is known to me, from Staro Selo near
[erinin Grad in Serbia, with 1.82% Sn (Pernicka et al.
1993: 48, pl , 11,4; Primas 1996: 104). Interestingly, the
axe is almost identical to the silver shaft-hole axe from
the rich tumulus grave at Mala Gruda (Vucedol culture).
In the western Balkans, tin bronze shaft-hole axes first
appear in the Early Bronze Age Cetina culture (Citluk,
'Vel ike Gromile' and Vedrine, 'Rareva Comila', see
Zeravica 1993: 26, nos 82-83; 30; 128).
Fig . 1.9 only shows the Early and Middle Bronze Age
histograms. - The chronological terminology used here
is based on the 'pin chronology' devised by W. Ruck
deschel (1978). Br Alb corresponds to early Unetice. Br
A2a to classic Unetice. Br A2b to the Apa-Hajdiisam
son horizon; hoards of Buhl-Niederosterwitz / Acken
bach-Buhl type are assigned to the the end of the Early
Bronze Age or the Early /MiddJe Bronze Age transition
(Br A /B, sometimes referred to as 'Br A2c' or 'Br A3').
E. Schalk (1998: 203 H.) argues for a dynamic local
metallurgy in the Hernad valley, using metals, including
tin, from the Slovakian Ore Mountains. In the earliest
phase of the cemetery of Hernadkak (phase 1, roughly Br
Ala), there is one analysis demonstrating the use of
copper alloyed with 11.4% Sn . However, a standard tin
bronze was never achieved during the life of this
cemetery: in phase 3, the average tin content is 3.82% Sn,
with only three of the 13 analyses containing more than
4% Sn . For Hernadkak, see idem 1992. - Note, however,
that the conventional chronology of the Nitra group, and
Schalk's early chronology for the Kost'any group, has
recently been questioned by Slawomir Kadrow (1997).
Using "C dates, Kadrow suggests a date for earl y Nitra
11 and Mokrin, a horizon characterised by widespread
cultural contacts (e.g. faience beads), in the first half of
the 20th century BC; early Kost'any (Kosice I) and later
Nitra 11 would then follow between ea. 1950/1900 and
1800 BC.
See also Spindler (1971: 217 f.): " Auffa llig ist aber, daB
33
bei relativ gut belegter Gleichzeitigkeit von Glocken

bechern und Schnurkeramik einerseits und von Vucedol
und Laibach andererseits die mitteleuropaischen Crup
pen mehr Zinnbronzen aufweisen als di e sudosteuro
paischen."
12. The terminology for these phases is somewhat confusing:
Rassmann's Per . lA (north-east Germany) is contempor
ary with Vandkilde's Late Neolithic II (Denmark);
Rassmann's Per. lE corresponds to Vandkilde's Per. lA.
- See Rassmann 1996: 200.
13. Unfortunately, the author was not able to obtain a copy
of an important publication of research results on early
metallurgy in the Iberian Peninsula: Delibes, G. &
Montero, I. (eds) 1999. Las primeras etapas meialurgicas
en la Peninsula lberi ca. H. Estudios regionales. Madrid,
Instituto Unversitario Ortega y Gasset.
14. The following paragraphs emphasising the importance
of the scrap bronze trade owe much to the stimulating
article by Sue Sherratt (this volume).
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Bronze and The Bronze Age

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1. Bronze and the Bronze Age

The term 'Bronze Age' has been in use since the

"The criterion used ... is that of 'working iron',

world, bronze does not occur naturally. Tin depo

ments, it is obvious that the Copper/Bronze tran

ca. 3100 BC (e.g. Manning 1995;

ea. 3100 BC (e.g. Weninger 1992)

1996; Rassmann 1996)

This gives the impression of a cultural gradient

BRONZE AND THE BRONZE ACE

'Transition Period' to ea. 2700 BC, but the start of the

in possession of this hugely improved empirical

IIRONI.E ACE (1'11111111115 CIIIIII,e)

long d istance exchange

z-pl cce moulds

PIT -GRA vrs

scholars in the following decades, have often been

lyses from different laboratories, using different