Station: [36] The Bronze Age

The Stone Age was followed by the Bronze Age, during which-– as the name suggests-– bronze was the main material. This period lasted from between roughly 2,200 to around 780 BC. The production of bronze from copper and tin was a new technology that originated in the Ancient Near East.

People lived in rural settlements which were usually unfortified and consisted of one or more farms. They were located near water, but stood mostly on low terraces, where they were protected from flooding. Fields and farmland surrounded the settlement areas. Water meadows were used as grazing, while mixed oak forests provided suitable woodland pasture. In the Late Bronze Age, the number of fortified hilltop settlements increased, which is evidence of the spread of a hierarchically structured society based on the division of labour. Individual small village structures would not be able to maintain such settlements.

All the village economies were based on arable farming and animal husbandry. The preferred cereals were emmer, barley and spelt, while proto millet (panicum miliaceum) was also grown later on. Linseed, opium poppy and broad (or fava) beans supplemented a varied diet. People gathered berries, nuts, fruit, fungi and wood, and also hunted in the forest. The rivers provided fish. Domestic animal husbandry also increased. Domestic cattle supplied meat and milk, but were also used as working animals. Pigs, sheep and goats also provided meat, milk and wool.

The wide range of different Bronze Age burial customs changed over time. Early on, the dead were buried in the squatting position familiar from the Neolithic, in other words, lying on their side with knees drawn up. But before long, burials in the supine position became common – meaning that the dead were buried lying on their backs. Graves were at ground level, often in stone or wooden burial chambers, or cists. Soil was heaped on top of them to create burial mounds, or barrows. In the Late Bronze Age — after around twelve hundred B.C. – a mix of funerary rituals emerged, with inhumations and cremations, urn burials and the scattering of remains from the pyre. This may reflect the fact that people were grappling with different ideas about the afterlife.