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Jacob asked in Arts & HumanitiesHistory · 4 years ago

What type of jobs were there during the bronze age?

What kind of jobs did people have during the bronze age? I'm particularly interested in what jobs were there for lower class people in more rural areas (like sheaperd)

10 Answers

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  • Tim D
    Lv 7
    4 years ago

    Copper and tin (or arsenic) rarely occur near each other, these were the components of bronze, that means that someone must have collected them together. The combining of them and the creation of bronze implements is difficult (far more difficult than iron), so there must have been a hierarchy of craftsman, traders and miners producing any tool. With all that effort the value of a bronze tool must have been high, so the eventual users will have had to "pay" for them and they cannot have been within the reach of everyone.

    A craftsman, trader or miner cannot devote so much time and effort to growing food or fetching water or making clothes, so they will be paying someone else to do it for them. Probably not the miners, they might well have been slaves.

    The point is that by the time bronze is created there are classes and hierarchies. By the way, just because bronze was available not every tool was suddenly made from bronze, stone, antlers and wooden tools were still widely used.

    So shepherd or swine-, goat- or cowherd would have been performed by young boys, probably not the worst job, but certainly low. Working in tanning, dyeing or butchery would have been pretty unpleasant but they would more likely be urban occupations.

  • ?
    Lv 7
    4 years ago

    Agriculture and agricultural products was the predominant occupation of society as a whole this would even be more so in rural areas.

    #1 Occupation small farmer/ family farmer

    2. Farm hand, migrant worker, harvester, farm slave.

    3. Rancher, herder, shepherd.

    4. Fisherman

    5. Blacksmith, farm tool maker

    6. Leather tanner

    7. Carpenter

    8. Cloth dyer

    9. Grain processor

    10. Beer maker (mead wine)

    10. Miner

    11. Metal maker

    11. Hunter

    12. Trader

    13. Silver smith

    Then the elite and rare

    14. Healer

    15. Shaman/ soothsayer

    16. Inn keeper/ tavern keeper

    17. Scribe

    18. priest

    19. warriors

    20. nobles

    21. council of elders

    22. rural ruler

  • Anonymous
    4 years ago

    Until the "Industrial Age" there was NO CHANGES in daily Existence.

    You had

    1. Farmers

    2. Slaves

    3. Military

    4. Religious Leeches. Sages, Seers, Alchemists

    5. Royalty and War Lords.

    6. Metal Workers.

  • 4 years ago

    most people in most areas in the bronze age were farmers or herders. They grew crops, raised livestock, or were herders of cattle. They would not have thought of this as a 'job' as such, more as a way of life. The Bronze age in europe is generally dated from about 2300 B.C, when the first bronze objects began to appear in the tombs and settlements of Europe. there were highly skilled metalworkers who were probably professional craftsmen. people wore woven cloth, so there may have been professional spinners and weavers, though many women at that time would have made the cloth and clothing for their own families rather than buying it. there were probably traders who traded in goods as a way of life. There began to be a noticeable difference in how some people were buried - under large mounds often set apart from the rest of the fommunity, and containing rich grave goods. This suggests there was a ruling elite class. They would have had servants, very probably some of them were slaves. Working as a servant would have been quite common. in some countries like Egypt for instance there were highly sophisticatrf civilizations during the bronze age, where there were been many tradesmen and craftsmen in addition to the many peasant farmers. Although the majority of the lower class in Egypt were farmers, there were many artisans and craftsmen, builders, metalworkers, and both men and women worked as weavers. Women and men were employed as servants, and women worked as midwives, as children's nurses, as wigmakers, and as professional mourners at funerals. The builders of the vast complexes of tombs and temples at thebes for instance had their own village and slef contained community.

    Source(s): Atlas of the Ancient World by Margaret Oliphant Ancient Britain by James Dyer
  • 4 years ago

    Really? Do you even understand when the bronze age was? There weren't classes, people weren't paid for work. It was the community as a unit doing what was necessary, based on their skills and gender, to make the community survive. Most were farmers. There were no paid jobs per se. People did trading, there wasn't a financial system.

  • 4 years ago

    Since most people lived on farms, many people did a variety of things. Wives did cooking, baking, grinding grain, dairying, and so on. They carded wool, spun it, wove it, and sewed garments. They probably tanned leather and worked it, though men might have done that. There was plowing, seeding, weeding and harvesting to be done, livestock to tend, fish to catch, olives to harvest, etc. Some men would have operated ferries across rivers, and in some places men would have to become soldiers.

  • Athena
    Lv 7
    4 years ago

    Farmer and all that entailed.

    The idea of "jobs" is a lot different than you are thinking of.

    Few people worked for themselves and did not farm and make their needs.

    There was no "IPhone" store down at the mall.

  • Anonymous
    4 years ago

    Bronze smith, jewellery maker, priest/priestess, flint knapper, carpenter, storyteller, potter, tanner, weaver, basket maker, warrior are all possibilities

  • Anonymous
    4 years ago

    Do you realise the times you are talking about? from 3300-1200 bc.

  • Anonymous
    4 years ago

    "Trying not to starve" was a popular occupation.

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