Hi,
I've just joined 'Adit'.
I'm interested to know whether bronze could have easily been made in the Kendal area (Lake District). There is copper not too far away but am not aware of any local tin mines which could have been used to make the bronze. Also could bronze be made relatively easily without sophisticated apparatus? Is there evidence that bronze was made locally (to Kendal)?
I now live in Kendal although previously my interest was in caving (exploring lava tubes) - which I carried out for a number of years while living abroad (principally in Kenya).
Davethecave

I can tell you quite explicitly that tin only occurs in Cornwall and Devon. This obviously implies an advanced logistics way back in the bronze age. Also the prerequisite was ease of extraction rather than richness of deposit and as such bronze age workings would tend to be alluvial or shallow, its commonly believed that adit mining was introduced by the Romans.

This is just a quick answer, there are people on here much better informed then me.

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There is "spelter" in Brownley Hill and elsewhere, perhaps it's use might go back that far in terms of second -best bronze?;D

I have seen an episode of Time Team where they make a bronze sword, the process of which was quite easy, using stone carved moulds, melting the metals in a earthen furnace, and sharpening the sword using grit stone.

Copper could have come from Coniston but the Tin would have to be bought in from Cornwall.

The episode where TT were at Coniston did not find much in the way of smelting but did find evidence that the copper ore was treated at high temp probably to burn off impurities.

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A simple search on Google gives plenty of information on the Bronze age in the Lake District.

https://www.google.co.uk/?gws_rd=ssl#q=lake+district+bronze+age+finds 

Allegedly Cornish tin was being traded as far as the Mediterranean in the Bronze age. Irish and North Wales sources of copper were important, and accessible to ships navigating close to land. The Lake District is not much further.
Smelting of ore to produce copper is not difficult, and on a small scale leaves very little remains to be found now.
Tin could have been traded for copper, or other goods.

At the NAMHO conference in Aberystwyth, there was a field session at Cwmystwyth where Dr. Simon Timberlake from the Early Mines Research Group demonstrated smelting tin & copper to create a bronze dagger using only period technology. It took quite a few hours of pumping the bellows.

The one nod to modern tech was that Simon had a thermocouple so he could measure the core temperature of the furnace. It go so hot (>1300C) that it melted the thermocouple.

Chris.

Might I point you in the direction of the last edition of 'Mining History' (Vol. 19 No. 3 Summer 2015) for an article by Simon Timberlake on Mining and Smelting in the Prehistoric period.

There will also be a considerable amount of information in 'The Archaeology of Mining and Quarrying in England: An Archaeological Research Framework for the Extractive Industries in England' which has been produced by a group of us led by Peter Claughton and Phil Newman on behalf of NAMHO, which should be published in the next two or three months.

There was a considerable period from the late Neolithic onwards when copper was smelted and used just as copper. It's usually referred to as the Chalcolithic and fits between the New Stone Age (Neolithic) and the Bronze Age.

For details see: Julian Heath (2012) Life in Copper Age Britain. Amberley Publishing, Stroud.

I quote from Simon's article: The tin question is also an interesting one. Britain emerges into a fully-fledged tin Bronze Age around 2100-1900 BC; a date which is surprisingly early in the evolutionary sequence of development of metal-using technologies, given that use of copper here only begins around 2600-2500 BC. Furthermore, when bronze first appears in these islands, the tin level is high, with between 5-12% tin content being typical of flat axes during the Early Bronze Age (Northover 1999, 223), rising to 10-12% by the Middle Bronze Age. Most likely this reflects the easy availability of alluvial-sourced tin from SW England (W. Devon and Cornwall), and the existence of trade exchange pathways between the tin and copper-producing areas.

At present there is (as far as I am aware - and I have my ear to the ground) no known Bronze Age mining in the Lakes (or in fact in Cornwall or Devon) which is surprising. It may be that the evidence has disappeared but even if the mine itself has gone there are usually the scattered stone hammer tools which are diagnostic of Bronze Age mining. See details of the excavations at Copa Hill, Cwmystwyth, for more information. At Ecton Mine in Staffordshire the presence of these tools was noted as far back as the time of Thomas Bateman, the antiquarian barrow digger of the 1860s.

As in all these matters - there are far more questions than answers.

At the NAMHO conference in Aberystwyth, there was a field session at Cwmystwyth where Dr. Simon Timberlake from the Early Mines Research Group demonstrated smelting tin & copper to create a bronze dagger using only period technology. It took quite a few hours of pumping the bellows.

The one nod to modern tech was that Simon had a thermocouple so he could measure the core temperature of the furnace. It go so hot (>1300C) that it melted the thermocouple.

Chris.

Tin melts at a fairly low temperature but you need 1200'c and above to melt copper

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Many thanks for all your most helpful replies (especially davetidza). I've looked up as much as I can on the Web (in case you think I'm lazy!), but I'm curious to know the answer to a question: If an obvious bronze age artefact was found buried around Kendal, how could it have got here? That is, was it made locally or was it brought here. Which is most probable?

The short answer is - you cannot definitely tell. It depends on archaeological context. However, the most likely is that it would be traded from almost anywhere in western and central Europe. You may remember Otzl (the Iceman) whose frozen body was found high in the Alps. In all likelihood he was a a trader in copper/bronze goods travelling from the important copper mines in northern Italy towards central Europe.

Having said that, the re-casting of old copper/bronze items, to make a more fashionable item was commonplace. Otzl was also carrying scrap pieces of metal.

'Ritual' deposition of copper/bronze items during the Bronze Age was commonplace. They were usually deposited near water - as the surface boundary between the water and the sky was seen as the boundary between the everyday world and the other-world. The finding of copper-bronze items in sand and gravel extraction along river terraces is relatively common.

I should also have added another point to my previous posting. There is also another class of bronze which is an alloy of copper and arsenic.

May I ask a question? Have you found such an axe or are you interested in a Museum item? You can send me a p.m. if you don't want to answer this in public.

Dave Williams

Not directly related to the OP but items from the stone axe 'factory' in Langdale have been found all over Britain and parts of Europe. It shows that even as far back as neolithic times there were extensive trade networks already well established. We often forget just how resourceful our ancestors were.

Jim, the spelter on the Brownley Hill context, refers to zinc extraction.
Indeed the workings accessed by ourselves, on Guddamhill Gill Vein, close to the junction with Welgill Cross Vein, were discovered by ourselves, after reuses exarch we had carried out in the Cumbria Record Office.
These workings were marked on the delicate tracings, that I had found there as Spelter workings, and so Robert and I went to mvestigate, them.
The results of explorations were written up. In the journal of W.C.M.R.G. and I believe Roy has uploaded these to this site, if you want to read more about what was discovered.

Thanks John,

It wasn't a completely serious comment and I have read the WCMRG paper , although it would generally appear the technology in the Bronze age seems to have been very adaptable and would use what ever was available. As has also been commented on trade routes were very extensive, not only Langdale axes have turned up in many places, I think stone (for axes?) was widely exported from St. Kilda as well. I have another question about Brownley Hill but I'll email you about that when I have a photo of the specimen.