Latest news with #BenjaminRoberts
Yahoo
10-05-2025
- Science
- Yahoo
New Study Shows Surprising Link Between Britain and Bronze Age Settlements
A new study has revealed the surprising role British innovation played in spurring Bronze Age civilizations across Europe, according to a new study published in the journal Antiquity. By analyzing tin ores and other tin artifacts found across Europe and at the site of four separate shipwrecks, scientists identified beyond doubt that the tin originated in England. 'This means that tin mined by small farming communities in Cornwall and Devon around 3,300 years ago was being traded to ancient kingdoms and states in the East Mediterranean over 4,000 kilometers (2,500 miles) away,' explained one of the study's lead authors, Benjamin Roberts. 'This is the first commodity to be exported across the entire continent in British history.'The discovery puts to rest more than two centuries of speculation from scientists, who long endeavored to figure out how the tin used in Bronze Age communities found its way into Eurasia. Although it was known for a long time that the most accessible tin deposits were located in Devon and Cornwall, scientists had no conclusive evidence to tie those locations to Mediterranean communities. 'There has never been a major research project until now that has scientifically analyzed the tin ores and tin artifacts in south-west Britain as well as the tin deposits in Western and Central Europe,' Williams were able to make a conclusive geographical match after finding that tin found in one of the shipwrecks, which occurred off the coast of France, dated back to 600 B.C. That tin was then traced back to Cornwall, indicating a trade route which was active for hundreds of years. The results of this new study offer the first conclusive proof that Bronze Age Britain was a crucial supplier of goods and materials to neighboring nations. 'The identification of this trade network, which is likely to have involved tons of tin being moved annually across the continent, radically transforms our understanding of Britain's social and economic relationships with the far larger and more complex societies in the distant past,' Roberts noted. 'The volume, consistency and frequency of the estimated scale in the tin trade is far larger than has been imagined and requires an entirely new perspective on what Bronze Age miners and merchants were able to achieve.'
Business Mayor
07-05-2025
- Science
- Business Mayor
Cornish tin was sold all over Europe 3,000 years ago, say archaeologists
In about 1300BC, the major civilisations of the eastern Mediterranean made a cultural and technological leap forward when they began using bronze much more widely for weapons, tools and jewellery. While a form of the metal had previously been used in smaller quantities by the Mycenaeans and Egyptians among others, bronze was now abundant – but how? Most bronze is an alloy of copper and tin, but while the former was widely available in antiquity, tin is a rare element, with no large sources within thousands of kilometres. This left one big question, referred to by archaeologists as the 'tin problem'. Where were the bronze age societies of the Mediterranean getting the tin for their bronze? A British-led group of archaeologists believe they have solved the mystery. By scientifically analysing ore and artefacts from across Europe, they have established that tin from the abundant deposits in Cornwall and Devon was being widely traded in the Mediterranean more than 3,000 years ago – and may have played a key part in the advances of sophisticated kingdoms and states more than 4,000km (2,485 miles) away. 'This is the first commodity to be exported across the entire continent in British history,' said Dr Benjamin Roberts, an associate professor of archaeology at Durham University. The identification of the trade network 'radically transforms' our understanding of bronze age Britain's place in the wider world, he said. 'The volume, consistence and frequency of the estimated scale in the tin trade is far larger than has been imagined and requires an entirely new perspective on what bronze age miners and merchants were able to achieve.' The study, the first major project of its kind, performed trace element, lead isotope and tin element analysis on tin ingots recovered from bronze age shipwrecks in the Mediterranean, including three that sank off the coast of Israel. Scientists also analysed ore samples and ancient tin artefacts from south-west Britain and the handful of other European sources. By comparing their results, the authors were able to establish not only that Cornish tin was being widely traded in the eastern Mediterranean, but also that 'a whole chain of interconnected communities [were shipping] the tin through the rivers of France, through Sardinia, along the Mediterranean islands off Cyprus, and then to the coast of Israel', said Roberts. Their findings are published in the latest issue of Antiquity. The tin deposits in Cornwall and Devon are among the largest and most accessible in the world, and would later be mined extensively. But while the Greek writer Pytheas wrote of tin trading in Cornwall during the iron age, many experts had been sceptical that Britain's earlier bronze age inhabitants – small farming communities that had neither towns nor writing – could be part of a widespread trading network with sophisticated Mediterranean societies, said Roberts. While the trade at the time was not exclusively in Cornish tin, 'we believe it was the richest, the most easily accessible and the main source', said Alan Williams, an honorary fellow of archaeology at Durham University. Williams said he had been 'dreaming' of researching Cornish tin's role in the bronze age since he was a student geologist at one of the county's last working tin mines, 50 years ago. He will shortly join Roberts in an archaeological dig at St Michael's Mount in Cornwall, which they believe may have been a centre for bronze age tin smelting and key link in the tin trading network.
