Untangling the web: some new views on the origins of prehistoric metallurgy
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Published
Jan 28, 2022
Abstract
Developments in early metallurgy have often been seen as innovative responses to fluctuations in the availability of raw materials. In this progressive framework the production and circulation of metal is explained in terms of supply and demand utilising concepts borrowed from modern economics. This idea of Bronze Age metallurgy as an economic activity utilising technological advances to supply a market is now considered inappropriate. This paper uses the specific case study of the first use of sulphide ore sources in the central European Bronze Age to highlight some of the difficulties inherent in such deterministic models of metallurgical development.
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References
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Wertime TA, 'Man's first encounters with metallurgy', Science 146(3649) (1964), 1257-1267.
Bancroft P, Mineral Museums of Eastern Europe, Mineralogical Record 19 (Tucson 1988).
Britton D, 'Traditions of metal-working in the later Neolithic and Bronze Age of Britain: Part I', Proceedings of the Prehistoric Society 29 (1963), 258-325.
Budd P and Taylor T, 'The faerie smith meets the bronze industry: magic versus science in the interpretation of prehistoric metal-making', World Archaeology 27(1) (1995), 133-143.
Burgess C, 'The Bronze Age', in C Renfrew (ed) British Prehistory: a new outline (London, 1974), 165-232.
Charles J, 'Determinative mineralogy and the origins of metallurgy', in PT Craddock and M J Hughes (eds), Furnaces and smelting technology in antiquity (London: BM 0cc Paper 48, 1985), 21-28.
Charpentier J F W de, Mineralogische Geogaphie der Chürsachsischen Länder (Leipzig 1778).
Chemykh E N, 'Aibunar - a Balkan copper mine of the fourth millennium BC', Proceedings of the Prehistoric Society 44 (1978), 203-217.
Childe V G, 'Archaeological Ages as Technological Stages', Journal of the Royal Anthropological Society 74 (1944), 7-24.
Coghlan H H, Notes on the Prehistoric Metallurgy of Copper and Bronze in the Old World, 2nd edn (Oxford 1975).
Jovanovic B, 'Primary copper mining and the production of copper' in PT Craddock (ed), Scientific studies in Early Mining and Metallurgy (London: BM Occ Paper 20, 1980), 31-40.
Jovanovic B, 'Early metallurgy in Yugoslavia' in R Maddin (ed), The Beginning of the use of Metals and Alloys (Cambridge Mass. and London 1988), 69-79.
Junghans S, Sangmeister E and Schröder M, Metallanalysen kupferzeitlicher und frubronzezeitlicher Bodenfunde aus Europa (Berlin, 1960).
Junghans S, Sangmeister E and Schröder M, Kupfer und bronze in der frühen metallzeit Europas. Katalog der analysen Nr. 985-10040 (Berlin 1968).
Junghans S, Sangmeister E and Schröder M, Kupfer und bronze in der frühen metallzeit Europas (Berlin 1974).
Needham S P 'Selective deposition in the British Early Bronze Age', World Archaeology 20(2) (1988), 229-248.
Needham S P, Leese M N, Hook D R and Hughes M J, 'Developments in the Early Bronze Age Metallurgy of Southem Britain', World Archaeology 20(3) (1989), 383-402.
Northover J P, 'The analyses of Welsh Bronze Age metalwork', appendix to N H Savory, Guide catalogue to the Bronze Age collections, National Museum of Wales (Cardiff 1980),229-243.
Northover J P, 'The exploration of the long distance movement of bronze in Bronze and Early lron Age Europe', Bulletin of the Institute of Archaeology 19 (1982), 45-71.
Ottaway B S, 'The earliest copper ornaments in northern Europe', Proceedings of the Prehistoric Society 39 (1973), 294-323.
Ottaway B S, Earliest Copper Artefacts of the North-alpine Region: Their Analysis and Evaluation (Bern: Schriften des Seminars für Urgeschite der Universität Bern, 1982).
Ottaway B S, 'lnteractions of some of the earliest copper-using cultures in central Europe', in A Hauptmann, E Pernicka and GA Wagner (eds), Proceedings of the International Symposium on Old World Archaeometallurgy. (Bochum, 1989), 19-23.
Otto H and Witter W, Handbuch der ältesten vorgeschichtlichen Metallurgie in Mittleuropa (Leipzig 1952).
Palache C, Berman H, and Fronde] C, Dana's System of Mineralogy, vol 11 (New York 1951).
Pouba Z and Ilavsky J, 'Mineral deposits of the Czechoslovakia' in F W Manning and AM Evans (eds), Mineral deposits of Europe, volume 3: Central Europe
(London 1986), 117-173.
Rowlands M J, The Production and Distribution of Metalwork in the Middle Bronze Age in Southern Britain (Oxford: BAR BS 31, 1976).
Shennan S, 'Population, prestige and production: some aspects of the development of copper and bronze metallurgy in prehistoric Europe', Universitätsforschungen zur Prähisorischen Archäologie 8 (Bonn, 1992), 535-542.
Sherratt A, 'Core, periphery and margin: perspectives on the Bronze Age', in C Mathers and S Stoddart (eds), Development and Decline in the Mediterranean Bronze Age (Sheffield: Archaeological Monographs 8, 1994), 335-345.
Tylecote R F, A History of Metallurgy (London 1976).
Walther H W, 'Mineral deposits of the Federal Republic of Germany', in F W Manning and AM Evans (eds), Mineral deposits of Europe, volume 3: Central Europe (London 1986), 175-293.
Werner A G, Neue Theorie vonder Enttehung der Gänge (Freiberg 1791)
Wertime TA, 'Man's first encounters with metallurgy', Science 146(3649) (1964), 1257-1267.
How to Cite
Untangling the web: some new views on the origins of prehistoric metallurgy. (2022). Historical Metallurgy, 28(2), 98-102. https://hmsjournal.org/index.php/home/article/view/462
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How to Cite
Untangling the web: some new views on the origins of prehistoric metallurgy. (2022). Historical Metallurgy, 28(2), 98-102. https://hmsjournal.org/index.php/home/article/view/462