Bronze Age
From The Art and Popular Culture Encyclopedia
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The term Bronze Age refers to a period in human cultural development when the most advanced metalworking (at least in systematic and widespread use) included techniques for smelting copper and tin from naturally-occurring outcroppings of copper and tin ores, creating a bronze alloy by melting those metals together, and casting them into bronze artifacts. These naturally-occurring ores typically included arsenic as a common impurity. Copper/tin ores are rare, as reflected in the fact that there were no tin bronzes in western Asia before 3000 BC. The Bronze Age is regarded as the second part of three-age system for prehistoric societies though there are some cultures that have extensively written records during the Bronze Age. In this system, it follows the Neolithic in some areas of the world. On the other hand, in many parts of sub-Saharan Africa, the Neolithic is directly followed by the Iron Age. In some parts of the world, a Copper Age follows the Neolithic and precedes the Bronze Age.
