part0008

With the Neolithic Revolution firmly under way, the Bronze Age began. This was when humans learned to melt copper and tin together into bronze, a brand-new, super-strong metal. Bronze could fill a multitude of roles that were previously filled by copper, bones, wood, or rocks. It was a game changer for the communities of early Europe, and it had the potential to revolutionize farming, food preparation, weaponry, and warfare.

The new technology spread easily. The Mediterranean Sea was a source of much cultural inspiration thanks to its proximity to North Africa, Europe, and West Asia. Seafaring peoples from Egypt, Morocco, Turkey, Greece, and Italy built canoes and then galley ships, which were capable of making long-distance voyages across the sea. They met one another at their urban capitals and port towns of Piraeus, Heracleion, and Paphos to trade copper, tin, grains, vegetables, fish, pottery, and stone receptacles. The Greeks already had copper, but they needed supplies of tin to create the new alloy, and therefore, their relationship with other members of the Mediterranean was more important than ever.

Unlike the western and northern farming villages of Europe, with each only home to 100 people at most, many towns of early Greece had as many as 2,000 people. [10] , [11] These were fortified towns, surrounded by strong stone walls to keep out potential enemies from within and outside Greece. [12] Even as bronze tools and decorative pieces overtook the ancient land of Hellas (the early name for Greece), stone remained incredibly important to its civilization. Stone walls held back violent conquering tribes and provided homes for families, and stone was also still used for tool-making.

Ancient Hellenes of the Bronze Age had lived in large communities long enough to know that outsiders posed a constant threat to their safety and valuable goods. With that mindset, metalworkers cast strong spears, knives, solid shields, helmets, and chest plates to protect soldiers tasked with keeping their cities safe. The weaponry and defensive items also came in handy when city leaders found themselves in land disputes with nearby chieftains and landowners.

On the island of Crete nearby, the Minoan people were responsible for most of the seafaring technology and trade routes of that corner of Europe and West Asia. They flourished during the Bronze Age thanks to their crucial position at the marine crossroads of so many different peoples. At their cultural height, the Minoans built palaces four stories in height, installed complex plumbing systems, and created their own written language. They may well have led the world into the Classical Antiquity Age if it hadn’t been for the eruption of Santorini in about 1600 BCE. [13] The damage, death, and devastation following the eruption proved impossible to overcome, and the Minoans disappeared from the archaeological record. Their DNA, however, is still present in the genetic data obtained from modern Greeks. [14]

At this time, Britain, France, and Germany got to work forging bronze farming tools with which to plow and sow the soil more effectively. The invention of the plow had a significant and very positive impact on European agriculture, and it was thanks to the new, strong, and durable metal that those ancient, simplistic devices did the job required of them. Now, with heavy axes and sharp blades, clearing the land of its woods and forests became less exhausting and burdensome. Not only could fields be cleared quicker, but they could now be maintained better. Breaking into the topsoil and aerating it—a process necessary to prepare the soil for seeds—was much less laborious with a bronze plow at the ready. With these advancements, crop yields increased.

Agriculture began to completely reshape the face of the land. Woods were felled and replaced with distinct strips of seasonal crops. In regions where the soil was covered by a layer of shale or chalk, these rock formations were painstakingly scraped from the ground and pushed into heavy, long mounds that served as property borders. Their urban centers remained relatively small compared to those of Greece, but cities did indeed begin to dot the landscape and swell into the countryside.

In Britain, the Bell Beaker culture appeared in about 2500 BCE among an influx of Western European migration. [15] The Beaker culture, for short, is an archeological name for the people who used the beaker-style pottery. These beakers were widest at the top, the opposite of jug-style pots which have full bellies and small openings at the top. These types of pottery were often found in graves, which is where much of the archeological information of the era has been gathered from.

During this age, communities of people now buried their dead loved ones in the earth individually, often placing small items alongside the body. These items included flint blades, pots of porridge, and the defining beaker-style pottery. The individuals’ graves were marked by earthen mounds, wooden structures, or boulders. The latter came to define the people of Bronze Age Britain and Western Europe in the minds of historians as much as the beakers they used defined them for archaeologists.

Giant stone structures appeared during this time in Britain. The stones were quarried from a variety of locations, including modern Wales and the Marlborough Downs, which probably provided the giant stones needed to create what might be the most famous megalith of all, Stonehenge. [16] The details behind the construction of Stonehenge have been lost to the ages, but the structure still stands to commemorate the civilization which built it—and it’s not the only building that harkens back to the Bronze Age. Not far away, in the village of Avebury, dozens of massive boulders mark the ancient path into the community, encircling a prehistoric community center studded by even more stones. At the farthest circle, a hill creates the outer border for the town.

Stone and wooden henges were built in Ireland, Britain, France, Wales, and Scotland by a widespread culture which probably used them as religious temples and possibly even astronomical calendars. Though the people who built these amazing structures don’t seem to have had a writing system to use for the historical record, they’ve left enough of themselves behind to denote a sense of community, family, hierarchy, and growing spirituality. At its height, the Beaker culture stretched all the way from Portugal to Poland, and DNA research shows that they almost completely overwhelmed the previous cultures of the British Isles.

While megaliths, stylized pottery, and massive tombs characterized the European Bronze Age, population increases and widespread diversification would epitomize the next phase of the continent’s cultural evolution. Language, political organization, and urbanization were about to become very important.