Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-8bhkd Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-15T05:20:09.993Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Tainted ores and the rise of tin bronzes in Eurasia, c. 6500 years ago

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  22 November 2013

Miljana Radivojević ,
Thilo Rehren ,
Julka Kuzmanović-Cvetković ,
Marija Jovanović  and
J. Peter Northover
Miljana Radivojević
Affiliation:
1UCL Institute of Archaeology, 31–34 Gordon Square, London WC1H 0PY, UK (Email: [email protected]) 2National Museum in Belgrade, Trg Republike 1a, 11 000 Belgrade, Serbia
Thilo Rehren
Affiliation:
3UCL Qatar, a partner of Hamad bin Khalifa University, PO Box 25256, Doha, Qatar (Email: [email protected])
Julka Kuzmanović-Cvetković
Affiliation:
4Museum of Toplica, Ratka Pavlovića 11, 18 400 Prokuplje, Serbia (Email: [email protected])
Marija Jovanović
Affiliation:
5Museum of Vojvodina, Dunavska 35, 21 000 Novi Sad, Serbia (Email: [email protected])
J. Peter Northover
Affiliation:
6Department of Materials, University of Oxford, Begbroke Science Park, Oxford OX5 1PF, UK (Email: [email protected])
Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Core share and HTML view are not available for this content. However, as you have access to this content, a full PDF is available via the ‘Save PDF’ action button.

The earliest tin bronze artefacts in Eurasia are generally believed to have appeared in the Near East in the early third millennium BC. Here we present tin bronze artefacts that occur far from the Near East, and in a significantly earlier period. Excavations at Pločnik, a Vinča culture site in Serbia, recovered a piece of tin bronze foil from an occupation layer dated to the mid fifth millennium BC. The discovery prompted a reassessment of 14 insufficiently contextualised early tin bronze artefacts from the Balkans. They too were found to derive from the smelting of copper-tin ores. These tin bronzes extend the record of bronze making by c. 1500 years, and challenge the conventional narrative of Eurasian metallurgical development.

Keywords

EurasiaSerbiaBulgariaPločnikBelovodefifth millennium BCVinča culturecoppertinbronzemetallurgycompositional analysis
Type
Research articles
Information
Antiquity , Volume 87 , Issue 338 , December 2013 , pp. 1030 - 1045
Creative Commons
Creative Common License - CCCreative Common License - BY
The online version of this article is published within an Open Access environment subject to the conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution licence
Copyright
Copyright © Antiquity Publications Ltd. The online version of this article is published within an Open Access environment subject to the conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution licence <http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/>;.

References

Anthony, D.W. 2007. The horse, the wheel, and language: how Bronze-Age riders from the Eurasian steppes shaped the modern world. Princeton (NJ): Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Bar-Yosef Mayer, D.E. & Porat, N.. 2008. Green stone beads at the dawn of agriculture. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the USA 105:8548-51.Google Scholar
Begemann, F., Schmitt-Strecker, S. & Pernicka, E.. 2003. On the composition and provenance of metal finds from Bes¸iktepe (Troia), in Wagner, A., Pernicka, E. & Uerpmann, H.-P. (ed.) Troia and the Troad: scientific approaches: 173–201. Berlin: Springer.Google Scholar
Borić, D. 2009. Absolute dating of metallurgical innovations in the Vinˇca culture of the Balkans, in Kienlin, T.L. & Roberts, B.W. (ed.) Metals and societies. Studies in honour of Barbara S. Ottaway: 191–245. Bonn: Dr. Rudolf Habelt.Google Scholar
Caron, R.N., Barth, R.G. & Tyler, D.E.. 2004. Metallography and microstructures of copper and its alloys, in Voort, G. F. Vander (ed.) Metallography and microstructures: 775-88. Cleveland (OH): ASM International.Google Scholar
Charles, J.A. 1978. The development of the usage of tin and tin-bronze: some problems, in Franklin, A.D., Olin, J.S. & Wertime, T.A. (ed.) The search for ancient tin: 25–32. Washington, D.C.: Smithsonian Institution Press.Google Scholar
Chernykh, E.N. 1978. Gornoe Delo i Metallurgiya v Drevneishei Bolgarii. Sofia: Bulgarian Academy of Sciences Press.Google Scholar
Cleziou, S. & Berthoud, T.. 1982. Early tin in the Near East: a reassessment in the light of new evidence from Afghanistan. Expedition 25:14–19.Google Scholar
Craddock, P.T. & Meeks, N.D.. 1987. Iron in ancient copper. Archaeometry 29:187–204.Google Scholar
Ehrhardt, K. 2009. Copper working technologies, contexts of use, and social complexity in the Eastern Woodlands of Native North America. Journal of World Prehistory 22:213-35.Google Scholar
Giumlia-Mair, A. & Loschiavo, F. (ed.). 2003. The problem of early tin (British Archaeological Reports international series 1199). Oxford:Archaeopress.Google Scholar
Glumac, P. & Todd, J.. 1987. New evidence for the use of lead in prehistoric south-east Europe. Archeomaterials 2:123-45.Google Scholar
Glumac, P. 1991. Early metallurgy in southeast Europe: the evidence for production, in Glumac, P. (ed.) Recent trends in archaeometallurgical research: 9–19. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania.Google Scholar
Govedarica, B., Pernicka, E. & Rottershofer, K.F.. 1995. Neue Metallanalysen aus dem Westbalkangebiet, in Petrović;, P. & ĐUrEkanović, S. (ed.) Ancient mining and metallurgy in southeast Europe: 265-79. Belgrade: Archaeological Institute Belgrade; Bor: Museum of Mining and Metallurgy Bor.Google Scholar
Hamilton, E. 1991. Metallurgical analyses and the Bronze Age of Bohemia: or, are cultural alloys real? Archeomaterials 5:75–89.Google Scholar
Harding, A.F. 2000. European societies in the Bronze Age. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Helwing, B. 2009. Rethinking the Tin Mountains: patterns of usage and circulation of tin in greater Iran from the 4th to the 1st millennium BC. T¨urkiye Bilimer Akademisi Arkeoloji Dergisi 12:209-21.Google Scholar
Henrich, J. 2004. Demography and cultural evolution: how adaptive cultural processes can produce maladaptive losses, the Tasmanian case. American Antiquity 69:197–214.Google Scholar
Higham, T., Chapman, J., Gaydarksa, B., Slavchev, V., Honch, N., Yordanov, Y. & Dimitrova, B.. 2007. New perspectives on the Varna cemetery (Bulgaria)—AMS dates and social implications. Antiquity 81:640-54.Google Scholar
Hosler, D. 1994. The sounds and colors of power. Cambridge (MA): MIT Press.Google Scholar
Janković, S. 1997. The Carpatho-Balkanides and adjacent area. Mineralium Deposita 32:426-33.Google Scholar
Kaniuth, K. 2007. The metallurgy of the Late Bronze Age Sapalli culture (southern Uzbekistan) and its implications for the ‘tin question’. Iranica Antiqua 42:23–40.Google Scholar
Kuz'Mina, E.E. 2008. The prehistory of the Silk Road. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press.Google Scholar
Lechtman, H. 1977. Style in technology—some early thoughts, in Lechtman, H. & Merrill, R.S. (ed.) Material culture: styles, organization and dynamics in technology: 3–20. St Paul (MN): West.Google Scholar
Lechtman, H. 1980. The central Andes: metallurgy without iron, in Wertime, T.A. & Muhly, J.D. (ed.) The coming of the age of iron: 267–334. New Haven (CT): Yale University Press.Google Scholar
Lechtman, H. 1996. Arsenic bronze: dirty copper or chosen alloy? A view from the Americas. Journal of Field Archaeology 23:477–514.Google Scholar
Makkay, J. 1991. The most ancient gold and silver in central and south-east Europe, in Mohen, J.-P. & ÉLuèRe, C. (ed.) D´ecouverte du m´etal: 119-28. Paris:Picard.Google Scholar
Merkl, M.B. 2010. Bell Beaker metallurgy and the emergence of fahlore-copper use in Central Europe. Interdisciplinaria Archaeologica 1:19–27.Google Scholar
Muhly, J.D. 1973. Copper and tin. New Haven: Connecticut Academy of Arts and Sciences.Google Scholar
Muhly, J.D. 1993. Early Bronze Age tin and the Taurus. American Journal of Archaeology 97:239-53.Google Scholar
Muhly, J.D. 2002. Early metallurgy in Greece and Cyprus, in YalçIn, Ü. (ed.) Anatolian metal II: 77–82. Bochum: Deutsches Bergbau-Museum.Google Scholar
Nezafati, N., Pernicka, E. & Momenzadeh, M.. 2006. Ancient tin: old question and a new answer. Antiquity 80. Available at: http://www.antiquity.ac.uk/projgall/nezafati308/ (accessed 5 June 2013).Google Scholar
Nezafati, N., Pernicka, E. & Momenzadeh, M. 2011. Early tin-copper ore from Iran, a possible clue for the enigma of Bronze Age tin, in YalçIn, Ü. (ed.) Anatolian metal V: 211-30. Bochum: Deutsches Bergbau-Museum.Google Scholar
Northover, J.P. 1989. Properties and use of arsenic-copper alloys, in Hauptmann, A., Pernicka, E. & Wagner, G.A. (ed.) Old World archaeometallurgy: 111-18. Bochum: Deutsches Bergbau-Museum.Google Scholar
Ottaway, B.S. 1979. Analysis of the earliest metal finds from Gomolava. Rad Vojvod−anskih Muzeja (Novi Sad) 25:53–59.Google Scholar
Otto, H. & Witter, W.. 1952. Handbuch der ¨altesten vorgeschichtlichen Metallurgie in Mitteleuropa. Leipzig: J.A. Barth.Google Scholar
Pare, C. 2000. Bronze and the Bronze Age, in Pare, C. (ed.) Metals make the world go round: 1–38. Oxford: Oxbow.Google Scholar
Pernicka, E., Begemann, F. & Schmitt-Strecker, S.. 1993. Eneolithic and Early Bronze Age copper artefacts from the Balkans and their relation to Serbian copper ores. Pr¨ahistorische Zeitschrift 68:1–54.Google Scholar
Pernicka, E., Begemann, F., Schmitt-Strecker, S., Todorova, H. & Kuleff, I.. 1997. Prehistoric copper in Bulgaria. Its composition and provenance. Eurasia Antiqua 3:41–180.Google Scholar
Pigott, V.C. 1999. The development of metal production on the Iranian Plateau: an archaeometallurgical perspective, in Pigott, V. C. (ed.) The archaeometallurgy of the Asian world: 73–106. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology.Google Scholar
Pigott, V.C. 2011. Sources of tin and the tin trade in southwest Asia: recent research and its relevance to current understanding, in Betancourt, P.P. & Ferrence, S.C. (ed.) Metallurgy: understanding how, learning why. Studies in honor of James D. Muhly: 273-91. Philadelphia (PA): INSTAP Academic Press.Google Scholar
Powell, A., Shennan, S. & Thomas, M.G.. 2009. Late Pleistocene demography and the appearance of modern human behavior. Science 324:1298-301.Google Scholar
Radivojević, M., Rehren, Th., Pernicka, E., ŠLjivar, D., Brauns, M. & Borić, D.. 2010. On the origins of extractive metallurgy: new evidence from Europe. Journal of Archaeological Science 37:2775-87.Google Scholar
Ramdohr, P. 1980. The ore minerals and their intergrowths. Oxford: Pergamon.Google Scholar
Renfrew, C. 1986. Varna and the emergence of wealth in prehistoric Europe, in Appadurai, A. (ed.) The social life of things: commodities in a cultural perspective: 141-68. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Roberts, B.W., Thornton, C.P. & Pigott, V.C.. 2009. Development of metallurgy in Eurasia. Antiquity 83:1012-22.Google Scholar
Rostoker, W. & Dvorak, J.R.. 1990. Interpretation of metallographic structures. San Diego (CA): Academic Press.Google Scholar
Rovira, S. & Montero, I.. 2003. Natural tin-bronze alloy in Iberian Peninsula metallurgy: potentiality and reality, in Giumlia-Mair, A. & Loschiavo, F. (ed.) The problem of early tin (British Archaeological Reports international series 1199): 15–22. Oxford: Archaeopress.Google Scholar
Ryndina, N., Indenbaum, G. & Kolosova, V.. 1999. Copper production from polymetallic sulphide ores in the northeastern Balkan Eneolithic culture. Journal of Archaeological Science 26:1059-68.Google Scholar
Schickler, H. 1981. ‘Neolithische’ Zinnbronzen, in Lorenz, H. (ed.) Studien zur Bronzezeit: Festschrift f¨ur Wilhelm Albert v. Brunn: 419-45. Mainz am Rhein: von Zabern.Google Scholar
Scott, D.A. 1991. Metallography and microstructure of ancient and historic metals. Marina del Rey (CA): Getty Conservation Institute.Google Scholar
ŠLjivar, D. & Kuzmanović-Cvetković, J.. 2009. Ploˇcnik, archaeology and conservation. Diana (Belgrade) 13:56–61.Google Scholar
ŠLjivar, D., Kuzmanović-Cvetković, J. & ŽIvković, J.. 2012. Belovode, Ploˇ cnik: on copper metallurgy in the Vinˇca culture. Zbornik Narodnog Muzeja (Belgrade) 20:27–46.Google Scholar
Smith, C.S. 1981. On art, invention and technology, in Smith, C.S. (ed.) A search for structure: 325-31. Cambridge (MA): MIT Press.Google Scholar
Stech, T. & Pigott, V.C.. 1986. The metals trade in southwest Asia in the third millennium BC. Iraq 48:39–64.Google Scholar
StöLlner, T., Samaschev, Z., Berdenov, S., Cierny, J., Doll, M., Garner, J., Gontscharov, A., Gorelik, A., Hauptmann, A., Rainer, H., Kusch, G.A., Merz, V., Riese, T., Sikorski, B. & Zickgraf, B.. 2011. Tin from Kazakhstan—steppe tin for the West? in YalçIn, U. (ed.) Anatolian metal V: 231-51. Bochum: Deutsches Bergbau-Museum.Google Scholar
Tasić, N. 1982. Naselje bakarnog doba u istoˇcnoj Srbiji. Zbornik radova Muzeja rudarstva i metalurgije u Boru (Serbia) 2:19–36.Google Scholar
Thornton, C.P. 2007. Of brass and bronze in prehistoric southwest Asia, in Niece, S. La, Hook, D. & Craddock, P. (ed.) Metals and mines: studies in archaeometallurgy: 123-35. London: Archetype.Google Scholar
Thornton, C.P. 2009. The emergence of complex metallurgy on the Iranian Plateau: escaping the Levantine paradigm. Journal of World Prehistory 22:301-27.Google Scholar
Todorova, H. 1995. The Neolithic, Eneolithic and Transitional period in Bulgarian prehistory, in Bailey, D.W., Panayotov, I. & Alexandrov, S. (ed.) Prehistoric Bulgaria: 79–98. Madison (WI): Prehistory Press.Google Scholar
Weeks, L. 1999. Lead isotope analyses from Tell Abraq, United Arab Emirates: new data regarding the ‘tin problem’ in Western Asia. Antiquity 73:49–64.Google Scholar
Weisgerber, G. & Cierny, J.. 2002. Tin for ancient Anatolia? in YalçIn, Ü. (ed.) Anatolian metal II: 179-87. Bochum: Deutsches Bergbau-Museum.Google Scholar
Weninger, B., Lee, C., Rohling, E., Bar-Yosef, O., BöHner, U., Budja, M., Bundschuh, M., Feurdean, A., Gebe, H.G., JöRis, O., LinstäDter, J., Mayewski, P., MüHlenbruch, T., Reingruber, A., Rollefson, G., Schyle, D., Thissen, L., Todorova, H. & Zielhofer, C.. 2009. The impact of rapid climate change on prehistoric societies during the Holocene in the eastern Mediterranean. Documenta Praehistorica 36:7–59.Google Scholar
Wertime, T.A. 1964. Man's first encounters with metallurgy. Science 146:1257-67.Google Scholar
Wertime, T.A. 1978. The search for ancient tin: the geographic and historic boundaries, in Franklin, A.D., Olin, J.S. & Wertime, T.A. (ed.) The search for ancient tin: 1–6. Washington, D.C.: Smithsonian Institution Press.Google Scholar
Yener, K.A. 2000. The domestication of metals: the rise of complex metal industries in Anatolia. Leiden: Brill.Google Scholar
Yener, K.A. & Ozbal, H. 1987. Tin in the Turkish Taurus mountains: the Bolkarda˘g mining district. Antiquity 61:220-26.Google Scholar
Yener, K.A., Vandiver, P.B. & Willies, L.. 1993. Reply to Muhly, J.D., ‘Early Bronze Age tin and the Taurus’. American Journal of Archaeology 97:255-64.Google Scholar