How Does a Continued Bronze Age Develop

Basically, how does human society develop with either an averted or muted Bronze Age collapse?

How does the balance of power in the Near East evolve as civilization spreads out from the fertile crescent?

How do Bronze Age powers adapt to nomadic migrations and what does the greater continuity of civilization do for the retaining of knowledge?

I don't know much of anything specific about the time period and asking these sorts of questions is usually a great way to jump into a topic.
 
I was reading recently that there may not have been a general Bronze Age collapse - rather that what was interpreted as a general collapse was instead a series of local collapses that were separated by generations or centuries - some of these collapses being perhaps very local - only effecting single cities, rather than the whole region.

Of course, one of the theories for why iron working really spread is that the Minoan collapse disrupted trade networks meaning that in could not be imported from the far west anymore, meaning that iron, that depended on only one very common ore, gained an advantage.

If true, this would mean that delaying the Minoan or (if it indeed happened) the general collapse might mean that bronze is heavily used for longer.

fasquardon
 
Your problem is going to be resource scarcity. Remember, the Med civilizations were already trading as far away as Britain to get the tin needed for their bronze. I suspect that they can't continue a WHOLE lot longer without switching to iron.
 

Faeelin

Banned
Your problem is going to be resource scarcity. Remember, the Med civilizations were already trading as far away as Britain to get the tin needed for their bronze. I suspect that they can't continue a WHOLE lot longer without switching to iron.

England has managed to continue producing tin to this day, so I'm not sure this is a huge problem.
 

Deleted member 93645

Your problem is going to be resource scarcity. Remember, the Med civilizations were already trading as far away as Britain to get the tin needed for their bronze. I suspect that they can't continue a WHOLE lot longer without switching to iron.
Bronze Age civilizations were already using iron, and Iron Age civilizations still used bronze. The British/Cornish tin industry prospered into and after the Iron Age. In fact the last mine was closed in 1998.

Bronze Age civilizations weren't less advanced than the first Iron Age ones. They just happened to be destroyed shortly before that technological transition. And perhaps the collapse and its destruction of trade was the catalyst that made iron more cost effective than bronze.

If the late Bronze Age empires persisted, they would eventually have expanded their use of iron, and abandoned chariots when other forms of cavalry became more effective on the battlefield. Just as later medieval empires adopted gunpowder when it was available.

Basically, how does human society develop with either an averted or muted Bronze Age collapse?

How does the balance of power in the Near East evolve as civilization spreads out from the fertile crescent?

How do Bronze Age powers adapt to nomadic migrations and what does the greater continuity of civilization do for the retaining of knowledge?

I don't know much of anything specific about the time period and asking these sorts of questions is usually a great way to jump into a topic.
Without the Bronze Age collapse, the Hittites and Egyptian empires survive. If the Phoenicians become influential at all, they are vassals to Egypt. Eventually, perhaps the Hittites and Egyptians cause their own mutual destruction as Rome and Persia did, but it would take some time. But as the centuries go by, they could perhaps settle their differences and destroy Assyria.

Aramaic may or may not still become the predominant language of Mesopotamia, it depends on the interactions between the three empires of the Near East.
 
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You might be interested in info from these threads- they dealt with a worldbuilding question I had about a theoretical Bronze Age based civilisation and how far they'd be able to get mettalurgically.
 
England has managed to continue producing tin to this day, so I'm not sure this is a huge problem.

Actually, the tin mines were exhausted so far as pre-industrial technology went. I'm not sure exactly when. But the advance of technology allowed the mines to start back up again about 300 years ago.

That said, I think the Cornish mines could yield enough tin to keep supplying Europe until iron supplants bronze anyway.

fasquardon
 
I was reading recently that there may not have been a general Bronze Age collapse - rather that what was interpreted as a general collapse was instead a series of local collapses that were separated by generations or centuries - some of these collapses being perhaps very local - only effecting single cities, rather than the whole region.

Of course, one of the theories for why iron working really spread is that the Minoan collapse disrupted trade networks meaning that in could not be imported from the far west anymore, meaning that iron, that depended on only one very common ore, gained an advantage.

If true, this would mean that delaying the Minoan or (if it indeed happened) the general collapse might mean that bronze is heavily used for longer.

fasquardon
The timing is usually a little off, hadn't Crete recovered before the rest of the Mediterranean had it's collapse.
 

Faeelin

Banned
Actually, the tin mines were exhausted so far as pre-industrial technology went. I'm not sure exactly when. But the advance of technology allowed the mines to start back up again about 300 years ago

I'm honestly not sure what you're talking about, since tin was mined from 1500 through the 19th century in Cornwall.
 
Bump for world trade consequences.

Posters have said that the trade for the Bronze Age's eponymous material ranged as far north as Britain. To be blunt, that sounds kind of strange, to have people of the time having trade networks that far reaching at a time when one the corners of the civilized world was in Tuscany.

Edit: I should probably make that a question.

How does a more localized or simply nonexistent BrAC affect the apparently well developed trade networks that I presume closed down as times became more chaotic?
 
Bump for world trade consequences.

Posters have said that the trade for the Bronze Age's eponymous material ranged as far north as Britain. To be blunt, that sounds kind of strange, to have people of the time having trade networks that far reaching at a time when one the corners of the civilized world was in Tuscany.

Edit: I should probably make that a question.

How does a more localized or simply nonexistent BrAC affect the apparently well developed trade networks that I presume closed down as times became more chaotic?

Late Bronze Age trade reached from modern day India to Britain (Though I might be misremembering the Britain part. Though I think Britain was connected to the med very early). Especially the Western trade routes will propably see local rulers along the way slowly start adapting Eastern Med innovations. I'm unsure on how those trade routes ran, so I don't know where they would arise.

But for local chieftains/kings/whatever the rulers were called connecting to the diplomatic and economic networks of the Eastern Med will be very advantageous. Though they will take a while to be fully absorbed into the 'family' (Rulers prior to the Bronze age collapse usually adressed one another in family terms, at least in formal correspondence. So a king might adress and equal king as 'brother' despite no family ties existing, while the Pharaoh might adress both of those kings as 'son' due to his higher status)

So Eastern Med civilisation will slowly spread out to the West, propably with some twists being introduced along the way as local traditions fuse with them.

Though I admit my knowledge of the era is sketchy at best, and a lot can go different along the way. Another problem is that we still have gaps in out knowledge of the era (Such as no way of reading Minoan or Indus valley writing. Hence we have no clear idea what those two civilisations were like culturally. As far as I know at least)
 
Late Bronze Age trade reached from modern day India to Britain (Though I might be misremembering the Britain part. Though I think Britain was connected to the med very early).

The Middle East absolutely was getting tin from Cornwall. We can tell by isotopic analysis of bronze found in the ME. (Or maybe it was analysis of un-smelted ore found in ME sites... Not 100% sure.)

To be blunt, that sounds kind of strange, to have people of the time having trade networks that far reaching at a time when one the corners of the civilized world was in Tuscany.

The further the distance the less "bandwidth" there was to carry information, so Tuscany was close enough that a significant amount of information could be carried. Britain was so far away that only a very small amount of information, some people and a good amount of goods flowed between it and the ME.

Britain wasn't part of the civilized world, but certainly part of the "known" world.

fasquardon
 
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Basically, how does human society develop with either an averted or muted Bronze Age collapse?

How does the balance of power in the Near East evolve as civilization spreads out from the fertile crescent?

How do Bronze Age powers adapt to nomadic migrations and what does the greater continuity of civilization do for the retaining of knowledge?

I don't know much of anything specific about the time period and asking these sorts of questions is usually a great way to jump into a topic.

The Bronze Age collapse does not mean an immediate switch to iron. The switch to iron was caused by resource scarcity, as several posters mentioned. And by that point, civilization is no longer limited to the Fertile Crescent.

As for powers adapting to nomadic migrations, it depends on which polity we're talking about. Egypt took in various tribes quite readily (Medjay, Kushites, Asiatics [Arameans/Canaanites]). Assyria and Babilon were less accomodating
 
The Bronze Age collapse does not mean an immediate switch to iron. The switch to iron was caused by resource scarcity, as several posters mentioned. And by that point, civilization is no longer limited to the Fertile Crescent.

The scarcity of bronze is only a theory. Bronze objects show no signs of scarcity in the record which suggests that the shortage wasn't for any kind of extended period. I suspect that that whatever shortage occurred was very temporary, perhaps only a few years, just long enough to encourage experimentation with iron.
 
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