text: Europe has very few sources of tin. Therefore, throughout ancient times it was imported long distances from the known tin mining districts of antiquity. These were the Ore Mountains (Erzgebirge) along the modern border between Germany and the Czech Republic, the Iberian Peninsula, Brittany in modern France, and Cornwall and Devon in southwestern Britain.) There are several smaller sources of tin in the Balkans and another minor source of tin is known to exist at Monte Valerio in Tuscany, Italy. The Tuscan source was exploited by Etruscan miners around 800 BC, but it was not a significant source of tin for the rest of the Mediterranean. Even at that time, the Etruscans themselves had to import additional tin from the northwest of the Iberian Peninsula, and later from Cornwall.
  It has been claimed that tin was first mined in Europe around 2500 BC in the Erzgebirge, and knowledge of tin bronze and tin extraction techniques spread from there to Brittany and Cornwall around 2000 BC and from northwestern Europe to northwestern Spain and Portugal around the same time.  However, the only Bronze Age object from Central Europe whose tin has been scientifically provenanced is the Nebra sky disk, and its tin (and gold, though not its copper), is shown by tin isotopes to have come from Cornwall.  In addition, a rare find of a pure tin ingot in Scandinavia was provenanced to Cornwall.  Available evidence, though very limited, thus points to Cornwall as the sole early source of tin in Central and Northern Europe.
  Cornwall and Devon were important sources of tin for Europe and the Mediterranean throughout ancient times and may have been the earliest sources of tin in Western Europe, with evidence for trade to the Eastern Mediterranean by the Late Bronze Age. Within recorded history, Cornwall and Devon only dominated the European market for tin from late Roman times, starting around the 3rd century AD, as many Spanish tin mines were exhausted. Cornwall maintained its importance as a source of tin throughout medieval times and into the modern period.
  Brittany – opposite Cornwall on the Celtic Sea – has significant sources of tin which show evidence of being extensively exploited after the Roman conquest of Gaul during the 50s BC and onwards. Brittany remained a significant source of tin throughout the medieval period.
  A group of 52 bronze artifacts from the late Bronze Age Balkans has been shown to have tin of multiple origins, based on the correlation of tin isotope differences with the different find locations of the artifacts. While the locations of these separate tin sources are uncertain, the larger Serbian group of artifacts is inferred to be derived from tin sources in western Serbia (e.g. Mount Cer), while the smaller group, largely from western Romania, is inferred to have western Romanian origins.
  Iberian tin was widely traded across the Mediterranean during the Bronze Age, and extensively exploited during Roman times. But Iberian tin deposits were largely forgotten throughout the medieval period, were not rediscovered until the 18th century, and only re-gained importance during the mid-19th century.