Technological Metallurgical Production on the Bronze Age of Eurasia and Their Linkages with Social Processes

Abstract

AbstractThe paper is devoted to the basic regularities in the development of metallurgical production in the Eurasian Bronze Age and the differences in this development in particular areas. The growth of metallurgy was influenced by several factors. It based on socio-economic development that stimulated the growth of the metal consumption and transition to new types of ores, and then to new types of alloys. The additional factors were the availability of ore sources or the distance to them, the ore type, and technological borrowings outside or technological innovations from the migrating tribes. In several areas, the important factors were the emerging early states or a wide network creation of metal exchange and trade. The role of these factors was various in different periods and areas, and their interaction created diversity in the dynamics of this product development. But throughout the Bronze Age, this growth was based on precisely the development of society, and not the internal processes of development of innovations in metallurgy. Only after the transition to tin bronzes, the metallurgy started to exert some limited influence on the development of society.KeywordsBronze ageMetallurgyEurasiaTechnologiesSocio-economic processes