Timeline for Was there a bronze age in the Americas?
Current License: CC BY-SA 3.0
9 events
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| Jul 5, 2012 at 21:42 | comment | added | Bryce | The Tin mining page vaguely says "in the Americas tin exploitation began around 1000 AD", but without sources. Yeah, Ecuador and Peru seem to have had arsenical bronze. | |
| Jul 5, 2012 at 21:26 | comment | added | T.E.D.♦ | @Bryce - I do know that the first bronzes in the near east were arsenic based, not Tin based. In their case at least, it appears Tin may have been only added to achieve the same effect with ores that didn't naturally have enough arsenic in them and when arsenic wasn't available to be added. It could be that development of bronze use in the Americas was slowed by not having natural arsenic bronzes available to get them started. South America, it turns out, is one of the places where natural arsenic bronze alloys are found. | |
| Jul 5, 2012 at 21:11 | comment | added | Bryce | In contrast, tin only appears as an ore (cassiterite), so you'd need to know smelting. According to the Tin page, there are large deposits of it in South America, but sounds like not so much in North America. | |
| Jul 5, 2012 at 21:02 | comment | added | Bryce | Also worth noting that there was enough native copper available that it could be had without smelting. Seems there were several tribes doing this, even the Eskimos (see Copper Inuit). The article on Native copper says the Michigan site is the largest native copper deposit in the world. Bolivia has another major deposit. | |
| Jul 5, 2012 at 20:46 | vote | accept | Bryce | ||
| Jul 5, 2012 at 19:57 | history | edited | T.E.D.♦ | CC BY-SA 3.0 |
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| Jul 5, 2012 at 14:03 | history | edited | T.E.D.♦ | CC BY-SA 3.0 |
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| Jul 5, 2012 at 13:58 | history | edited | T.E.D.♦ | CC BY-SA 3.0 |
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| Jul 5, 2012 at 13:51 | history | answered | T.E.D.♦ | CC BY-SA 3.0 |