what's more they brought the out of smelting to the north
they added a vital secret from Middle Eastern trading routes mix some tin to copper
and you get bronze this process was so important
The Smiths have the richest graves they were probably cline chiefs
At the beginning of the Bronze Age you can imagine that much of the metal working
was actually undertaken by the chiefs themselves and we now see this is a rather banal task
that should be undertaken by workman bernal craftsman by sort of lower status people
but if you think of it just as a agical transformation of one thing into
another then it's another way of showing off and demonstrating your power your
status and securing your role in society and so it's therefore very
characteristic that you find the molds in rich graves in the graves of the chiefs
so the people who are in charge of society are in charge of the
transformation of wars into flashing daggers and
what
the Bronze Age consists in the introduction of edged weapons that you
couldn't make effectively in stone daggers that increasingly get longer and
longer and become swords spearheads that can be really effectively fixed on
the end of a long pole so the whole nature of armament was transformed by
the introduction of a really effective working metal Bronze
yeah
these weapons exude power they are rare and dangerous
we are seeing the birth of a military elite with the power to get exactly what
they want
get the weapons really show signs of use
perhaps they were purely ceremonial these leaders were breastplates and
decorative metal jewelry again as symbols of their wealth