Via Miller McCune:
... Despite such modern-sounding strategies, it was too little too late, and Bronze Age metallurgists could not sustain the high level of production of the previous two centuries. Copper production peaked around 1200 B.C. and the last copper furnaces were shut down in 1050 B.C. The collapse had nothing to do with the lack of raw copper feedstock. A thousand years later, after the woods had grown back following the abandonment of copper production and reserves set up by local kings, the Romans reopened the mines and produced more copper than ever before....
