Climate Change Not a Cause of Bronze Age Collapse

Popular Archaeology ^ | Monday, November 17, 2014 | University of Bradford press release

[mrsmith]

IMO a good example of Bureaucracy: Destroyer of Civilizations!

Bureaucracy keeps everything running smoothly, until something changes.
Then it leads the society into a death-spiral of avoidance.

[SunkenCiv]

Probably unfunded pensions does it. ;’)

[Harmless Teddy Bear]

Bronze is actually harder then simple iron and more dense. Carbonized iron is slightly stronger the bronze if it was done right but much heavier.

The advantage of iron is that iron ore is very abundant. There is flipping iron ore everywhere. Bronze was better but you needed tin to mix with your copper. Tin is relatively rare and (AFAWK) was only mined two places in great abundance, in Briton and around the Black Sea.

[Harmless Teddy Bear]

Do you have an opinion on Scott Wolter’s “America Unearthed” episode where he suggested bronze age people came to a Lake Superior island to mine copper?

If it was tin he would have an argument. But copper was common in the Old World. They would be stupid to travel that far for something that was available in their own backyards.

[dangerdoc]

Thanks.