The Bronze Age forms with Old Iron (which joins together the times of Hallstatt and Tène-Hallstatt) the protohistory of Western Europe. It succeeds the final Neolithic era and the chalcolithique one. It is subdivided in Bronze Ages old, average and final, to which one generally allots the following dates: 2500-1600 front years J. - C. for the first; 1600-1300 for the second; 1300-900 for the third.

The adoption of metal, initially sporadic, is done within the framework of the organization of the sedentary human groups or not, already made up with the Neolithic era. Initially average from exchange, the object of metal will be spread, thanks to a commercial organization and with the regional metallurgy. The extraction of copper and tin is done in mines with open sky or galleries, as it is the case in the Tyrol. By strongly heating the rock and by brutally cooling it by fountain, it burst and one collected the ore, then treated with the furnace to give a metal stored in ingots (in form of bipennes, bars, salmons, etc), which one forwarded to the various workshops, located sometimes at thousands of kilometers.

Thus, this intense trade made it possible the western world to have contacts with more refined civilization of the Eastern areas of Europe and Asia Mineure. Still attached to the declining tradition of the work of flint, the men of old bronze will however give to this last ultimate sound perfection; they also worked very beautiful objects out of polished stone (mass naviforme perforated, for example). As for their individual burials, initially punts, they will be built soon under tumulus. It out of bronze, this time, that the fine swords and the triangular daggers are run (with sometimes the bronze handle), is decorated nets engraved the edge parallel to; the points of lance, the axes have, at the edge, of the projections intended to maintain the hafting; one manufactures also pins, the pointed ones, ornaments spiraliformes, bracelets decorated, etc

Ceramics brings their richness of forms and decorations to the vast whole of the ages of old bronze and the relevance of certain characters by way of criteria of classification; thus, ceramics is twisted, i.e. decorated by impression with a cord on the fresh paste, with horizontal incisions, excisions, bands, incrustations, etc the type of the objects varies with the areas; the study of funerary furniture or habitat and that of the deposits of founders make it possible to specify the chronological subdivisions, the influences and their geographical orientation.

In Brittany, the tumuli of old bronze (localized on the coast) generally contain axes punts, halberds, daggers of bronze or flint, plates of amber, very fine arrowheads flint, with ailerons and stalks, arm-bands of schist bow. It is probable that this settlement is of Scandinavian origin.

In the Jura and the valley of the Rhone, old bronze is close to that of Switzerland. Apart from these areas, France conceals many isolated vestiges, as of the deposits of founders containing of the finished objects and the broken and recovered objects, just like many pig iron and cast iron the preceding ones residues.

With average bronze, the metallurgy of bronze makes great great strides, especially with the mouth of the large rivers, which facilitates the diffusion of the products. The swords are more numerous and their more diversified types; they replace little by little the triangular dagger. The axes are, either with ailerons (median or not), or with heel. The decoration of the bracelets is from now on more complex, though geometrical. The decoration excised, by removal of paste around the reason before cooking, characterizes ceramics. The tumuli contain several burials now and form sometimes true “fields of tumulus”.

It is thanks to a certain argillaceous nature of the basement that one could know the clothing of the men of this time in Denmark: coat of wool, kind of tunic and wool slippers, girdles leather, bonnet with reinforcement out of wooden, the female costume comprises a kind of pullover and a skirt rolled up twice around the size; the belt carries on the front a large bronze disc.

In Alsace, the group of the tumuli of Haguenau provided a very abundant furniture: pins with head in trumpet and reinflated collar, pins with head in the shape of disc, swords with strips with two or four rivets, leggings at spiral ends. In Brittany, the tumuli of average bronze shelter rooms, more or less rectangular, out of dry stones covered with a flagstone or a tholos. Ceramics experiences a great development. One of most remarkable discovered this time is that of the solar carriage of Trundholm (Denmark); the bronze solar disk placed vertically is covered with a thin stamped gold plate.

The period of final bronze is marked by great upheavals (wars, invasions). It is especially in Asia Mineure and Eastern Europe that disorders involve the destruction of brilliant civilizations (collapse of the Empire hittite*; in Greece, the Dorian ones crush Mycenaean civilization). In Central Europe, the people having adopted the rite of the incineration (Urnenfelderkultur or age of the Fields of ballot boxes) will penetrate and spread themselves in several successive waves in the Western areas. In the old phases, smaller vases are deposited in the funeral urn placed in open ground; later, the secondary vases are so numerous that they accompany the large cinerary ballot box.

One generally considers the people of the age of the Fields of ballot boxes as being the first Celts who spread themselves towards the west of Europe. The bronze daggers are with arched back; certain swords have a handful of bronze; they are extremely beautiful, like those of the type of Möringen (Swiss), with oval panel. The pins diversify: globulous head, vasiforme, head of poppy with flange, end moulded in stick. The delicacy of the decorations of certain objects of bronze (swords in particular) shows that those were run by the process of lost wax. Ceramics particularly is successful in their cooking, their esthetics, their decorations; the ballot boxes, biconical with cylindrical collar, are decorated with fine incisions drawing of the arches, the rafters, the horizontal bands; vertical grooves also decorate these vases, as well as nipples. One also meets great cuts, generally without foot and decorated.

In certain points, this period is contemporary beginning of the first age of iron (Hallstatt), as in Languedoc, in Roussillon, in Catalonia. Other areas were not subject to the influence of the Fields of ballot boxes; it is the case of the Scandinavian countries and the Atlantic zone. In the latter the deposits of founders multiply. The commercial relations are very active; thus, certain axes with heel and side rings manufactured in the North-West of Spain are exported in Brittany, England and in the Scandinavian countries, and also in Sardinia. The sword out of bronze, known as in cutting chisel, with silk punt and ricasso (notch striated with the lance, located below the handle) is extremely widespread. It is normal to find in the median areas, like Touraine or Charentes, at the same time of the elements typically Champs of ballot boxes and others typically Atlantic. In Brittany, a facies of final bronze develops where the bronze axes have a casing of square section; one knows approximately 35' 000 specimens of them; they were exported as far as Belgium and in Germany.