Prehistoric Europe - Bronze Age

Bronze Age

Though the use of bronze started much earlier in the Aegean area, it is not before 1800 BC that it reaches southern Spain, while Central Europe will wait another century (c. 1700 BC) and the Atlantic region will remain Chalcolithic until 1300 BC (noticeably Egypt remained in the same backward technological state until much later). In any case, the date of 1800/1700 BC can be considered typical for the start of this stage in Europe in general, although some scholars claim earlier dates for the introduction of bronze (this may be caused by the slim barrier between copper and bronze, an alloy of the former).

• c. 1800 BC, the culture of Los Millares in SW Spain is substituted by that of El Argar, fully of the Bronze Age, which may well have been a centralized state.
• c. 1700 BC, the Central European cultures of Unetice, Adlerberg, Straubing and pre-Lausitz start working the Bronze, a technique that reached them through the Balkans and Danube.
• c. 1600 BC is considered a good approximate date to place the start of Mycenean Greece, after centuries of infiltration of Indo-European Greeks from an unknown origin.
• c. 1500 BC, most of these Central European cultures are unified in the powerful Tumulus culture. Simultaneously but unrelatedly, the culture of El Argar starts its phase B, characterized by a detectable Aegean influence (pithoi burials). About this time, it is believed that Minoan Crete fell under the rule of the Mycenean Greeks.
• c. 1300 BC, the Indo-European cultures of Central Europe (among them Celts, Italics and certainly Illyrians) change the cultural phase conforming to the expansionist Urnfield culture, starting a quick expansion that brings them to occupy most of the Balkans, Asia Minor, where they destroy the Hittite Empire (conquering the secret of iron smelting), NE Italy, parts of France, Belgium, the Nederlands, NE Spain and SW England.

Derivations of this sudden expansion are the Sea Peoples that attacked Egypt unsuccessfully for some time, including the Philistines (Pelasgians?) and the Dorians, most likely hellenized members of this group that ended invading Greek itself and destroying the might of Mycene and, later, Troy.

Simultaneously, around this date, the culture of Vila Nova de Sao Pedro (that lasted 13 centuries in its urban form) vanishes into a less spectacular one but finally with bronze. The centre of gravity of the Atlantic cultures (Atlantic Bronze complex) is now displaced towards Great Britain. Also about this date, the culture of Villanova, possible precursor of the Etruscan civilization, appears in central Italy (possibly with an Aegean origin).