Metallurgy POD: How far, how advanced could European and African bronze-making get ?

It is often said that African prehistory and antiquity, with the exception of Egypt, "went straight from the Neolithic to the Iron Age". I'm not an expert in this field (something I regret), and newer finds and research might invalidate this long-held claim, but I nevertheless have interest in the topic.

And so, I want to ask:
- How much and how far could bronze-making spread throughout the African continent before iron-making starts to replace it ?
- How would local conditions and some of the earliest African trade routes influence the spread of this knowledge and craft ?
- Would bronze-making be useful enough to most African cultures before the arrival of iron as a hardier material ?

On a similar note, I want to ask the same sort of question about Bronze Age Europe: How far could the crafts of bronze tool, bronze weapon and bronze ornament manufacturing get ? Not just among the Mediterranean cultures (e.g. Minoans, Myceneans, Hispanians, etc.), but also among the more northern or obscure cultures who's names had been lost to history.

Africa fans, prehistory fans, European Bronze Age fans, I'm all ears !
 

altamiro

Banned
While Africa is blessed with abundant and easily accessible copper it lacks in tin - at least in deposits of tin ore similarly easy to mine as in Britain or in Asia Minor. This would limit bronze manufacturing until someone figures out that copper-zinc alloys are almost as good and zinc is far more abundant... But this in turn requires zinc to be known as metal.
 
Ah, that's a very good point, actually ! :cool: Could explain part of the OTL developments...

Nevertheless, are there any possible methods of how pre-Iron Age people could develop a copper-zinc bronze industry ?

If surface mining for zinc is impossible, then I don't know... Maybe they mine for lead (or something else) somewhere and run into zinc ?

I think I've read Morocco has some zinc mining, though that's probably not that old a develoment.

800px-ZincMap.png


Here's a 2009 map of zinc mining output worldwide. It seems the only major African countries that do zinc mining are Morocco, the DRC, Namibia and South Africa. Reading this bit of information, it seems Algeria also has some zinc mining.
 
Yeah, I think I read that's how the Incas made their tools-grade bronze. They're really the only New World culture that embraced the economic and military possibilities of bronze.
 

Driftless

Donor
Yeah, I think I read that's how the Incas made their tools-grade bronze. They're really the only New World culture that embraced the economic and military possibilities of bronze.

I'm not enough of a metallurgy expert to recognize whether the Bismuth option for Bronze (as the Incas worked out) would open any more possibilities for Bronze in Africa?
 
Well, we would need to check the bismuth availablity in Africa first. :)

Unfortunately, Wiki tells me we probably shouldn't be too optimistic. :(

In the Earth's crust, bismuth is about twice as abundant as gold. The most important ores of bismuth are bismuthinite and bismite.[12] Native bismuth is known from Australia, Bolivia, and China.

Hm, that would explain the Incas, given the apparently abundant deposits in Bolivia !

On the metal alloy thing:

Bismuth is used in metal alloys with other metals such as iron, to create alloys to go into automatic sprinkler systems for fires. Also used to make bismuth bronze which was used in the Bronze Age.

The bismuth bronze (or "bismuth brass") article is pretty extensive, I think it's worth a read to those interested.
 
Bumping. Any other ideas on how we can kickstart an African Bronze Age ? Or at least an African Chalcolithic ?
 
Can you explain why you're looking to do this? The African Iron Age only started less than a thousand years after iron working became widespread in the Near East and about 500 years after Europe, so it's not like the continent was significantly retarded by lack of bronze. If you want Africa to develop metallurgy earlier, the best way to do it is by having more sub-Saharan trade routes, not introducing a bronze age.
 
I suppose you're right that the trade routes would probably be the best solution to encourage earlier or greater use of mettalurgy in much of the sub-Saharan part of the continent. Pity that's probably the only realistic way to kickstart this whole thing on a larger scale.
 
Top