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One of the Alaca Höyük bronze standards from a pre-Hittite tomb dating to the third millennium BC, from the Museum of Anatolian Civilizations, Ankara

Bronze Age
↑ Chalcolithic
Africa, Near East (c. 3300–1200 BC) Egypt, Anatolia, Caucasus, Elam, Levant, Mesopotamia, Sistan, Canaan Late Bronze Age collapse
Indian subcontinent c. 3300–1200 BC Indus Valley Civilisation, Bronze Age India, Ochre Coloured Pottery, Cemetery H
Europe (c. 3200–900 BC) Aegean (Cycladic, Minoan, Mycenaean), Caucasus, Catacomb culture, Srubnaya culture, Bell Beaker culture, Apennine culture, Terramare culture, Únětice culture, Tumulus culture, Urnfield culture, Proto-Villanovan culture, Hallstatt culture, Canegrate culture, Golasecca culture, Argaric culture, Atlantic Bronze Age, Bronze Age Britain, Nordic Bronze Age
Eurasia and Siberia (c. 2700–700 BC) Poltavka culture, Abashevo culture, Sintashta culture, Andronovo culture, Mezhovskaya culture, Cherkaskul culture
East Asia (c. 3100–300 BC) Erlitou, Erligang, Gojoseon, Jomon, Majiayao, Mumun, Qijia, Siwa, Wucheng, Xindian, Yueshi, Xia dynasty, Shang dynasty, Sanxingdui, Zhou dynasty
Topics Arsenical bronze, writing, literature, Sword, Chariot
↓ Iron Age
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The Bronze Age was a historical period lasting from approximately 3300 to 1200 BC. It was characterized by the use of bronze, the use of writing in some areas, and other features of early urban civilization. The Bronze Age is the middle principal period of the three-age system, between the Stone and Iron Ages.^[1] Worldwide, the Bronze Age generally followed the Neolithic period, with the Chalcolithic serving as a transition.

The Bronze Age is generally considered to have ended with the Late Bronze Age collapse, a time of widespread societal collapse between c. 1200 and 1150 BC. This collapse affected a large area of the Eastern Mediterranean, including North Africa and Southeast Europe, as well as the Near East, in particular Egypt, eastern Libya, the Balkans, the Aegean, Anatolia, and the Caucasus. It was sudden, violent, and culturally disruptive for many Bronze Age civilizations, and it brought a sharp economic decline to regional powers, most notably ushering in the Greek Dark Ages.

An ancient civilization is deemed to be part of the Bronze Age if it either produced bronze by smelting its own copper and alloying it with tin, arsenic, or other metals, or traded other items for bronze from producing areas elsewhere.

Bronze Age cultures were the first to develop writing. According to archaeological evidence, cultures in Mesopotamia, which used cuneiform script, and Egypt, which used hieroglyphs, developed the earliest practical writing systems.

^ The Metal Ages. Encyclopedia Britannica.