How did mines operate during the Bronze Age?

An artist's imagining of a Bronze Age boat (Credit: Credit: Frank Gardiner/. To make bronze, you need tin, which in Britain was mined only in Cornwall -- a roughly 300-mile boat ride away (Credit: Frank Gardiner/Heritage Image Partnership Ltd/Alamy). read more

Bronze Age people crossed the sea in long wooden boats. A boat found at Dover needed 18 men to paddle it! During the Bronze Age, many people crossed the sea from mainland Europe to Britain. read more

One of the reasons we know this is that artefacts like bone tools and charcoal have been found in many of Britain's prehistoric mines, allowing researchers to use radiocarbon dating to estimate their age. Making bronze required serious sophistication . Copper, the first metal that humans discovered other than gold, was highly desirable. read more

Many regions did not have a bronze age, but changed directly from Chalcolithic to iron use. The Source of Tin for the Bronze Age Until 1984 we did not know the source of tin for the ancient bronze civilizations of the Near East. read more