Columbia Encyclopedia

(Encyclopedia) Bronze Age, period in the development of technology when metals were first used regularly in the manufacture of tools and weapons. Pure copper and bronze, an alloy of copper and tin, were used indiscr...

(Encyclopedia) Copper Age: see Bronze Age.

(Encyclopedia) bronze sculpture. Bronze is ideal for casting art works; it flows into all crevices of a mold, thus perfectly reproducing every detail of the most delicately modeled sculpture. It is malleable beneath...

(Encyclopedia) Iron Age, period in the development of industry that begins with the general use of iron and continues into modern times. In Asia, Egypt, and Europe it was preceded by the Bronze Age. It did not begin...

(Encyclopedia) bronze, in metallurgy, alloy of copper, tin, zinc, phosphorus, and sometimes small amounts of other elements. Bronzes are harder than brasses. Most are produced by melting the copper and adding the de...

(Encyclopedia) bronze, in art: see bronze sculpture. ...

(Encyclopedia) age grade and age set, differentiation of social role based on age, commonly found in small-scale societies of North America and East Africa. Age sets are a type of sodality (nonresidential groups tha...

(Encyclopedia) Gilded Age, a term used to describe a period in United States history—from roughly 1870 to 1900—when the wealthy elite consisted of industrialists w...

(Encyclopedia) age of consent, the age at which, according to the law, persons are bound by their words and acts. There are different ages at which one acquires legal capacity to consent to marriage, to choose a gua...

(Encyclopedia) mental age: see intelligence.