The tip of the Bronze Age was carved from a meteorite that fell 3.5 thousand years ago – scientists
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Scientists have discovered that a Bronze Age arrowhead found in Switzerland was made of meteoric iron. Space writes about this with reference to the Journal of Archaeological Science. Archaeologists found the tip in the late 1800s. Since then, the 3,000-year-old artifact has been part of the collection of the Bern Historical Museum. “From the outside it looks like a typical arrowhead, covered in rust. Its analysis showed that there was still a lot of metal left,” said Beda Hoffmann, lead author of the study and curator of mineralogy and meteorites at the Bern Museum of Natural History. Photo: vg/Thomas Schüpbach Using several methods, scientists have determined that the palm-sized arrowhead contains aluminum-26 isotopes. They do not occur in nature. And in the chemical composition of the artifact, an alloy of iron and nickel, which is inherent in meteorites, was discovered. The researchers also saw traces of grinding and the remains of the resin with which it was attached to the arrow. At first, scientists believed that the tip was made from the 170,000-year-old Twannberg meteorite, because it was located only 8 km from the house where the same tip was found. But the analysis refuted this hypothesis, because the concentrations of nickel and germanium in the sample did not match. Then the scientists analyzed the entire geological database. The chemical composition of the tip was from the Kaaliyarv meteorite in Estonia. It was found more than 2 thousand kilometers from the tip of the arrow. That is why scientists assumed that the tip was an object of trade. “It was well documented that long-distance trade was well established during the Bronze Age. These early humans probably knew that when the impact occurred there in 1500 BC, the material was precious and had value to them,” the scientist said. Hoffmann. In total, archaeologists found 55 meteorite arrowheads in Eurasia and another 22 in Africa. We previously wrote that a 4.6 billion-year-old meteorite fell on the roof of a residential building in the state of New Jersey. Read also: Boomerang stone: scientists analyzed a meteorite that allegedly flew into space and returned to Earth
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