Why the Bronze Age Collapsed

Why the Bronze Age Collapsed worksinprogress.news

Historians like to blame drought, famine and invaders. But this can’t explain why the empires never came back.

91 points•AnodicElegy•1 day ago•55 comments•

#age #collapsed #bronze #bronze age #age collapsed #bronze age collapsed #historians #like

55 comments

Well, doesn’t the Harappan civilization make a mess out of all this? Tin was nearby, and there’s evidence of bronze artifacts in all kinds of houses across the cities, and in general less evidence of hierarchical power, and certainly nothing like the concentration you see in other Bronze Age civilizations. We don’t have the civilization surviving as is to the Iron Age, because it depopulated before iron smelting became common. But it’s odd to make the claim bronze had to lead to stratified societies. Clearly, not always.

GMoromisatoabout 3 hours ago

The claim (as I understand it) is that power was centralized because tin was rare--i.e., had to be imported via sophisticated trade routes, which presumably could be controlled by the state.

In an area where tin is abundant, individuals could easily forge their own bronze weapons, thus making it harder for the state to have a monopoly on high-tech weapons.

So I think the Harappan actually reinforce the theory.

The_Bladeabout 3 hours ago

> which presumably could be controlled by the state.

yes, kiln-roasted Linear B in Mycenaean palaces... built on a giant fault line (literally as well as figuratively)

Civ VII 2.0 should bring back Sid's palaces in monolith data centers like The Machine / Samaritan (note: i am only halfway through season 4)

falakiabout 1 hour ago

I agree. The author is stretching several assumptions to get to his conclusions. The sub-title suggests he has solved the "Bronze Age collapse" riddle but his statement can simply be considered one of many factors already pointed out in the literature -- not the main reason.

bee_riderabout 1 hour ago

I’m ignorant of the geology there, but Wikipedia says copper was available. If you are saying they had unusually easy access to tin, then they sort of had the ability to make bronze without the long-range trade. Is that right?

That would seem to support the theory in a way. If they could make bronze “in their back yard,” the same way that everyone else could make iron in the Iron Age, they would be sort of living in their own proto-iron-age, right? (In the sense that access to metallurgy was democratized). So if anything, it would provide some pretty strong support of the link between democratized metallurgy and more disperse power.

falakiabout 4 hours ago

Long before the so-called “iron age” started, humans knew of iron. There are iron artifacts from the 4th millennium BCE. Humans were fascinated by these small pieces of iron, which were found in meteorites and cherished and valued them. However, usable iron was rare and extremely sought after to the extent that we know it was more valuable than gold or silver. How did humans invent the first technique to produce metallic Iron from ore?

The story of Iron starts with the production of Bronze. Bronze is an alloy of 90% copper. Depending on what constitutes the other 10% we get different types of bronze. The most common type which kick started the bronze age around 3500 BCE in western Asia is tin bronze. Unlike copper ore, tin is hard to find but a small amount of it can significantly improve the quality of copper and make it usable and strong. Ancient smelters produced bronze by melting the natural copper ore mixed with tin ore in simple kilns. The resulting bronze was the primary metal used in tools and arts for more than 2500 years.

Iron is a common impurity in copper ores. We also know that iron ore can, and was, used as a flux in the process of smelting copper. In simple terms, a flux agent is a chemical that attracts oxygen to itself and protects the primary product, which is copper, from oxidizing in high temperatures. Therefore, across the ancient world, bronze smelters had been encountering molten iron when they raised the kiln temperature high enough. However, they discarded the resulting metal because its copper impurity made it too soft and inferior to bronze.

Around 1,200 BCE the collapse of bronze age civilizations in the near east due to a “perfect storm” of drought, famine, disease, immigration and war affected trade routes that brought tin ore to the western Asia. During this time of bronze shortage some smelters seem to have resorted to using the lower quality iron for tool making. They had observed that adding carbon to iron makes it much harder but prone to breaking. We have evidence of iron tools built with layers of soft and hard iron to achieve desired outcomes. Over time iron smelters experimented with different amounts of carbon impurity and achieved desired levels of hardness and strength.

falakiabout 4 hours ago

Some high-level observations about the story of Iron are helpful. First, Iron smelting was discovered independently in different parts of the world, but everywhere it was an evolution of the bronze smelting process. Second, the process took several centuries to evolve. The first iron pieces were considered bad bronze and discarded. When tin became rare the producers gradually increased the quality of the bad bronze. In all likelihood for centuries they did not recognize iron as a new metal but rather an improved “bad bronze” . The final notable observation of the story is who these inventors were. They were not the learned people of the ancient world. Rather they were artisans and laborers working in difficult conditions.

falakiabout 1 hour ago

The primary conclusion of the article are based on two fundamental assumptions:

1. Iron weapons did not exist before the "Bronze Age collapse." That is not borne by the evidence. Iron weapons came from the same centers and communities that used to produce bronze weapons. If these weapon makers were restricted to supply to power centers during the Bronze Age, why were they not restricted during the Iron Age?

2. Wide distribution of iron weaponry prevented formation of great powers after the "collapse". If true why and how were Assyrians and Persians able to build such large empires long after iron weapons were wide spread? Weapon distribution cannot be the primary explanation for why great powers did not form after 1200BC.

gmadsenabout 1 hour ago

The Iron Age includes 4th century BCE

pphyschabout 1 hour ago

Millennium and century are different.

tootieabout 3 hours ago

Why are you just summarizing part of the post and not even the most important part?

falakiabout 2 hours ago

This is part of an essay I am working on the nature of technological waves. I will publish on my personal blog.

doginasuitabout 4 hours ago

Where do I like and subscribe

The_Bladeabout 3 hours ago

Eric Cline, specifically 1177 BC

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eric_H._Cline

that the article or the top post here doesn't cite him is unforgivable

cjiwndowndkwdabout 3 hours ago

No need since it came from an AI.

GMoromisatoabout 3 hours ago

This was a fascinating article, and the theory that the availability of iron prevented big empires seems to make sense. But then I don't get how later big empires (e.g., Athenian Empire and eventually Roman Empire) formed. What changed that allowed big empires to form even in the presence of iron?

The_Bladeabout 2 hours ago

in theory, a delicate ecosystem built around Bronze collapsed. to make weak sauce Iron work you had to be a) very desperate and b) very clever. which scales for those who figure it out

the post in question doesn't even mention Ugarit. or Arsenic. i am genuinely pissed off at the original tome being passed off as genuine discourse:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ugarit

just pure charlatanry

Ar-Curunirabout 2 hours ago

The author in question is clearly not a charlatan. That they might have omitted discussing some of your favourite details in an overview article is not a sign of quackery.

ericmayabout 5 hours ago

Fun article. I think that there is a lot of interesting information here that would help explain what we saw with the Bronze Age Collapse, though I would submit that this is just another of the multiple factors that led to the collapse. Maybe a drought occurs, folks turn to iron weapons, and then take over another town or village for their resources, and so on.

This could lead to supply chain collapses and such. Maybe just general destabilization and raids and such sort of collapsed the larger empires. But at the same time, those larger empires would also have had access to iron, so why couldn't they by matter of numerical superiority, access to greater resources, tactics and military organization, and more simply, overwhelm smaller armies or bands utilizing the same technology and restore order or at least defend themselves?

I just started reading Conrad Black's historical series and in the Egyptian chapter and also the Assyria/Babylonia chapter he references the historical accounts where time and time again Egyptian forces led by the pharaoh would march into the broader Middle East to restore order. Why couldn't they continue to do that?

rawgabbitabout 4 hours ago

It could be the Bronze Age empires were based on violence and coercion. When the small polities had the means to defend themselves, the empires fell apart.

ericmayabout 4 hours ago

Well all of civilization and society is based on violence and coercion to some extent. I'm not sure that small tribes polities were any less violent than larger empires, and I'd generally have a bias that larger empires were more peaceful per-capita because if you are the king war is tiresome and threatening. Better to be at peace.

I'm also not sure about your suggestion. Yes small polities had the means to defend themselves, but the pharaoh's army is much larger and you're definitely going to die if he shows up and you fight back. So why wouldn't the pharaoh have shown up to put down a rebellion? Time and time again in the history of the region a king, pharaoh, or other despot would make examples of rebels, put down rebels, and march armies up and down the region to ensure fealty and assign minor lords to protect a region. They could have found the smelters and destroyed them or seized them, those working on it could have been killed.

I'm just not sure that this democratization of violence is the answer. Though it may be a key contributor. Curious about your thoughts or others. Incredibly fascinating topic.

noncomlabout 4 hours ago

Because pure iron, with no carbonization, is useless as a material for tools or weapons.

Carbonization was invented/discovered after the Bronze Age collapse, slowly over hundreds of years, exactly because they didn’t have access to bronze anymore.

bryanlarsenabout 4 hours ago

Despite being "useless", almost all early iron age weapons were iron, not steel nor bronze. They generally knew about steel, but could not control the carbonization well enough to outfit the whole army with it. Steel did not become widespread until the Roman era.

ericmayabout 4 hours ago

Are you suggesting that you disagree with the author's thesis and that iron wasn't a contributing factor or the major one?

silverFork1 day ago

Interesting : "some also alluded to the idea that iron had democratized violence"

delichonabout 5 hours ago

Tin was far more scarce than iron. Iron weapons aren't any better than bronze ones, just easier to source and make. This guy makes a case that iron weapons caused the Bronze Age Collapse.

https://x.com/s8mb/status/2103126253012226363

bluGillabout 5 hours ago

Don't confuse iron weapons with steel. Steel was much better than bronze, but they didn't know how to make steel and so examples were rare. (probably not unknown, making iron weapons does produce a small amount of steel and if you're careful you can separate that out and after a thousand or so iron swords you can make one steel sword. I've seen it suggested that this is where the stories of a legendary weapon comes from - probably not something we could ever know for sure.)

yathernabout 5 hours ago

Your twitter link is a summary of the linked article - from the editor-in-chief - in case someone else sees "this guy" and assumes it would be a different take than the one in the featured article.

mr_toadabout 4 hours ago

> Iron weapons aren't any better than bronze ones

Bronze is harder and more corrosion resistant, but forged iron (and especially iron that has been reforged) has a higher yield strength and is lighter, allowing longer lighter weapons. Compare the profile of bronze age and iron age swords in any museum and you can see that the bronze blades are shorter and wider that the iron weapons, and they would be considerably heavier.

cucumber3732842about 4 hours ago

>Iron weapons aren't any better than bronze ones

"Quantity has a quality all its own"

Read the full thread on Hacker News →

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