This article has been reviewed according to Science X's editorial process and policies. Editors have highlighted the following attributes while ensuring the content's credibility: Copper is essential for making bronze, which shaped tools, weapons and ornaments across Bronze Age Europe. While many Bronze Age mines have been identified throughout Europe, researchers are still trying to pin down which of them were most active at different times and how far their copper traveled.
New research, published in the journal Antiquity, suggests that a series of mines in modern-day Spain and Portugal may have been an important source of copper in the Late Bronze Age, with some of that copper ending up as far away as Scandinavia. The Bronze Age in Europe spanned from about 3200 B.C. to 500 B.C., though the exact dates varied by region. Prominent mining sites emerged in Wales and the Austrian Alps (the Mitterberg district) in the Early Bronze Age between around 2300 and 1600 B.C.
The Mitterberg district became the main supplier of copper for Central Europe during the Middle Bronze Age and later was replaced by Welsh and Italian Alps suppliers. Researchers estimate that Welsh copper production declined around 1400 B.C. However, the Italian Alps continued to provide copper through the Late Bronze Age.
Southern Iberia also has rich copper deposits, but its ancient mines have gotten less attention than those in Wales and the Alps. Researchers suspected Iberia supplied copper across Late Bronze Age Europe, but few mines had reliable dates. Some prior analyses of ancient metal objects suggested Iberian copper might have reached places as far as Scandinavia, Britain, Ireland and Poland, but only 11 radiocarbon dates from five Iberian sites supported Late Bronze Age copper mining.
The team involved in the new study sought out additional data to determine the extent of Iberia's involvement in the Bronze Age copper trade. The team combined excavation data, underground surveys and radiocarbon dating of charcoal from a mine in Las Minillas in southern Spain. The work resulted in 17 additional radiocarbon dates between 1350 and 750 B.C., a period that aligns with the Late Bronze Age.
Hundreds of stone tools, including 735 grooved stone hammers, were also found in the mine. These were similar to tools from other Bronze Age mines. The tools, mining infrastructure and charcoal identify Las Minillas as the largest securely dated Late Bronze Age copper mine excavated in Iberia so far.
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