Middle and Late Bronze Age Metal Tools from the Aegean, Eastern ...

the preferences commonly found within land hoards. As in many caches, tool kits were
probably included on the ships; this supposition is best supported by the diverse range of
chisels on both vessels. Regarding the origin of the shipwreck tools, the selected
implements reflect certain tool preferences of each region under study. Given the ships’
international character, the cultural mix of tool types is hardly surprising.
III. Interpreting how tool distributions relate to craftspersons
The extensive distribution of metal tools naturally produces patterns that reflect
the regional choices and preferences for certain implements. These tendencies also
indicate the manner in which metal was consumed from region to region. For instance,
the eastern Mediterranean utilized copious amounts of bronze to manufacture agricultural
equipment but metal resources were not employed in this manner within the Aegean. At
the most basic level, tool quantities signify how regions used copper and tin resources—
often in different ways. Tool concentrations can be compared to areas of metallurgical
activity to give a better sense of the correlation between production and consumption. In
most regions during the second millennium—though the LH mainland is an exception—
there is a strong connection between a region’s capability (and scale of production) in
metalworking and its quantity of tools.
Understanding how these tool patterns relate to the people who used them is more
difficult to ascertain. Tool distributions reveal the preferences of the consumer at the
local, regional and cross-cultural levels, but the identity of the consumer is normally ill-
defined. Therefore tool patterns, on their own, cannot confirm the exact activities of
craftspersons, since the tools themselves are one level removed from the individuals who
used them. The ability to associate a collection of tools with a craftsperson relies on the
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