Tin Found in Israel from 3k Years Ago Comes from Cornwall

Post by boomboomsubban » Wed, Jan 22, 2020, 2:54 PM UTC

avip wrote: post #42

Weird article. It reads as-if it's a new discovery, yet the "tin comes from England" meme appears in 2K yo maps ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cassiterides ). In the "Haifa marine Museum" you've never heard of, there are tin pieces found in Phoenician ships, that's ~3K yo and IIRC the sign even says the Tin is from today's England. [edit: of course this piece could be referencing new confirmation or new methodology…

Post by everdrive » Wed, Jan 22, 2020, 2:56 PM UTC

ncmncm wrote: post #46

avip wrote: post #42

Weird article. It reads as-if it's a new discovery, yet the "tin comes from England" meme appears in 2K yo maps ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cassiterides ). In the "Haifa marine Museum" you've never heard of, there are tin pieces found in Phoenician ships, that's ~3K yo and IIRC the sign even says the Tin is from today's England. [edit: of course this piece could be referencing new confirmation or new methodology…

People have always suspected Bronze-age tin might have come from England, but most historians never took it seriously because it implied a lot more long-distance commerce than they believed was possible then. Charred cloves from the Moluccas (south of the Philippines) were recently found in in a jar in burnt-out remains of a 4000-year-old middle-class kitchen in Syria.

Post by boomboomsubban » Wed, Jan 22, 2020, 2:59 PM UTC

netcan wrote: post #5

It'll be interesting to find what follows. 3k ybp is a relatively unique timestamp for tin. This is during or shortly after the bronze age collapse, where many mediterranean civilisations (greece, egypt, assyria, hatti..) receded, and bronze (inc tin) trade receded with them. Bronze presumably became scarce, and ironworking developed as the eventual alternative. The centuries of the last bronze dark age is the mythic…

Post by pfdietz » Wed, Jan 22, 2020, 3:13 PM UTC

netcan wrote: post #25

chrisco255 wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Climate change, too. The Minoan Warm Period ended around this time, and temps would not return to their optimum until the Roman Warm Period almost 1000 years later. Had to have an effect on agriculture and trade.

There's evidence for climate changes, earthquakes, revolutions, invasions, war, economic crisis, political crisis, ethnogenesis (both historiographical like accounts of sea peoples & mythical like exodus)... all seemingly substantial and concurrent. ..that's kinda why it's such an interesting and mysterious period. There's tons of room for theories on causes, effects and incidentals.

Post by logfromblammo » Wed, Jan 22, 2020, 3:22 PM UTC

BurningFrog wrote: post #48

tremon wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Using the amber road would be quite a detour here, I imagine. That would mean that instead of crossing the channel and traveling through France and Italy, or circumnavigating the Iberian peninsula, you think it's more likely the tin traveled from Britain, across Scandinavia, then to the Baltics, and from there southwards across Eastern Europe? Not that I have any knowledge of ancient trade routes, but to me having a…

I assume "trade routes" are emergent things. As in: Nobody decided "let's start a trade route from Egypt to Scandinavia!". Far more likely, people traded with their neighbors, and market forces led to goods step by step traveling to where they were most valued. Probably without Egyptians and Scandinavians ever having a clue the other group existed.