Coordinated by Vincent C. Pigott Museum Applied Science Center for Archaeology, The University Museum, University of Pennsylvania

Over the last twenty years, there has been a discernable increase in the number of scholars who have focused their research on metal production, working and use in antiquity, a field of study which has come to be known as ARCHAEOMETALLURGY. Materials scien­tists and conservators have worked primarily in the laboratory while ar­chaeologists have conducted fieldwork geared to the study of metal technology in a cultural context with laboratory analysis as one portion of the interpre­tive program.

Authors' Note: The archaeometallurgical evidence in­vestigated in our research was retrieved from prehistoric sites dating from the sixth through fourth millennia B.C. in the Middle Danube basin, a region that includes the middle drainage of the Danube and its major tributaries, in what is present day Romania, Hungary and Yugoslavia. The area is ringed by mountains rich in silver and gold metals as well as copper, lead and tin ore deposits.

INTRODUCTION The oldest European evidence for

the prehistoric use of copper minerals and metal comes from Southeastern Europe. While few scholars would argue that authentic copper metal needles and awls have occasionally been found on prehistoric sites dated to the sixth millennium B.C., the gen­eral consensus would be that these artifacts were made from native cop­per rather than by smelting ores.

There is a growing body of data to indicate that copper carbonate min­erals and copper metal (assumed to be native copper) were first collected and shaped into jewelry and simple tools by the Early Neolithic cultures of Southeastern Europe ca. 6400-5400 B.C.! This evidence coincides with increasing sedentism and the earliest known village societies. Ceramic tech­nology, involving the firing of clay

5mm

Figure 1. A malachite disc-bead (left) and a copper metal bead (right) excavated from Selevac.

54

vessels at temperatures up to 900°C, was introduced at this time, but no evidence for the smelting of copper ores or the melting of copper metal has yet been found.

However, it is among the Middle and Late Neolithic cultures (ca. 5400-4000 B.C.) that there is a dramatic increase in the incidence of copper minerals and the variety of copper metal artifacts found in settlements and cemeteries throughout Southeastern Europe. Figure 1 shows a malachite disc bead and a copper metal bead excavated from a site at Selevac, Yugoslavia, dated to 4900 B.C. These finds prompted a search for metallurgical slags, and a small (2 x 2 cm) copper smelting slag was found at Selevac.2,3

Figure 2 shows a copper metal prill within the Selevac slag. This repre­sents the earliest identification of a copper-metal-bearing slag in Euro­pean prehistory.

The earliest and most complete data sets for the study of incipient metal­lurgy are provided by the Vinca culture,4 one of several culture groups which co-existed in the Middle Danube basin from ca. 5400-4000 B.C. More than 400 Vinca culture sites, all of which are within easy access to copper ore bodies, are known in Yugoslavia, Romania, and Hungary. Small (2 cm) copper smelting slags have also been discovered at the Vinca culture sites of Anzabegovo, Gornja Tuzla and Sta­pari. The Anzabegovo slag was found in archaeological strata which have

gy

in Southeastern 'Europe

P.O. Glumac and J.A. Todd University of Southern California

been radiocarbon dated to 5200 B.C.;5 all the others come from occupation levels which have been radiocarbon dated to the fifth millennium B.C.

VINCA METALLURGY

Detailed information is available concerning the prehistoric procure­ment of copper carbonate minerals from Rudna Glava, the site of Europe's oldest, securely dated copper mines. Ongoing excavations by Borislav Jova­novic have uncovered Vinca ceramic vessel hoards within several of the mine shafts.6 In each shaft, some of which are up to 15 meters in depth, the Vinca miners exploited only the copper carbonate minerals, malachite and azurite, leaving untouched the depos­its of sulfide ores. No evidence of ore processing has been found.

The malachite and azurite minerals were transported to Vinca settlements in the alluvial river valleys, located 20-70 km from the mines in the up­land ore zones. At the settlements, these minerals had a variety of uses, serving not only for the manufacture of jewelry and pigments, but also as the raw materials from which copper metal was smelted. X-ray diffraction analyses of malachite and azurite minerals from the Vinca sites of Sele­vac and Divostin indicated that they contained small quantities of the iron oxides hematite and goethite, together with quartz gangue, suggesting that the ores were essentially self-fluxing.

The presence of slags provides the

JOM • October 1989

Introductory Figure (left). Three metal chisels and a hammer-axe found in at the Vinca set­tlement of Plocnik. Traces of use deformation can be seen on the hammer head.

most convincing evidence for local smelting of ores. These discarded waste products of metallurgical pro­cessing were recycled to a lesser extent and are more durable and resistant to corrosion than metal artifacts. For the archaeometallurgist, slags may be the most informative source for recon­structing aspects of the technological process, including information about the raw materials that were being smelted and the compositional nature of the metals produced.7 For example, the copper prills found trapped in the Selevac slag contained 0.2% iron, con­sistent with the copper carbonate ores found at the site.

Copper metal was used by Vinca craftsmen to produce jewelry items such as rings, beads, bracelets and pins, and, several centuries later, much larger objects such as chisels and hammer-axes (Introductory Figure). Drillings taken from selected Vinca copper metal objects have been ana­lyzed using proton-induced x-ray emission spectroscopy (PIXE), and the results show that these artifacts were made of a high-purity copper with only minor traces ($.0.15 wt.%) of iron and nickel. This is consistent with analy­ses of the copper prills in the Vinca slags and shows a logical correlation between the Vinca ores, slags and metal products.

Despite the large number of Vinca culture sites, excavators have yet to find any trace of ceramic or metal­lurgical furnaces. One reason may be that the furnaces were located in the periphery of the site. Alternatively,

. Vinca culture ceramic manufacture and metal smelting could have been conducted in pits and hearths within the settlement itself. Indeed, pits and outdoor hearths are frequent occur­rences in habitation areas, but are generally attributed to domestic ac­tivities such as food preparation. However, there is little doubt that temperatures and reducing atmo­spheres appropriate for the smelting of copper carbonate ores could have been achieved in carefully controlled open pit fires or hearths.8 The small size of the retrieved slags, the presence of ceramic vessels resembling crucibles and the lack of furnace evidence, strongly suggest that crucibles were the primary reduction vessel.

It should be noted that copper min­erals were not the only metallic min­erals collected and smelted by Vinca­culture metallurgists. The lead sulfide mineral galena has also been com­monly found at Vinca settlements. X-

1989 October. JOM

L-..J

10 ).1m

Figure 2. A cross section of the slag sample retrieved from Selevac (4900 B.C.) showing a copper metal prill (circular white region) which appears to be attracting myriads of small copper particles.

ray analyses of the contents of a small (5.5 cm high) ceramic vessel from the site of Donja Tuzla1 confirmed that it once contained molten galena. This finding suggests that pyrotechnologi­cal experimentation with lead miner­als occurred simultaneously with the first evidence for copper smelting.

The identification of metallurgical slags suggests that by the fifth mil­lennium B.C., the importance of min­erals as a source of metal had been recognized by the people of South­eastern Europe and that experimen­tation with metallic minerals was being conducted at various Vinca set­tlement sites. This experimentation probably took the form of crucible smelting, which could readily be achieved in open pits or hearths with reducing atmospheres. However, the expectations of archaeologists that native metals alone were being ex­ploited in the area during the period 5400-4000 B.C. may have precluded their identification of metallurgical slags, which could easily have been dismissed as the vitrification products associated with house burning.

Throughout this period, there are frequent observations of conflagra­tions, which are now being investi­gated in detail by Tringham,9 but it should be recognized that their prod­ucts are usually vitrified clays, and the copper prills associated with met­allurgical slags have not been ob­served. This suggests that the metal­lurgical slags were not accidentally produced but were the result of delib­erate smelting operations.

However, an understanding of the reduction of metal ores need not imply the immediate widespread adoption of such processes. Indeed, the ar­chaeological record implies that metal smelting remained a "cottage indus­try" for at least two millennia after its discovery in Southeastern Europe. This long incubation period may be attributed to social factors (e.g., ta­boos, values systems and beliefs)· as

much as the technological constraints associated with a large-scale industry.

In summary, the experimentation with metallic minerals in Southeast­ern Europe during the Middle and Late Neolithic periods appears to have resulted in the gradual assimilation of knowledge which would lead to the mass production of copper and its al­loys in the European "Bronze Age," beginning approximately 2000 B.C.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS This research was supported by the

National Science Foundation, award no. BNS-8712070. P. Glumac wishes to acknowledge a Fulbright CIEE award, a Fulbright Hayes award and an IREX fellowship. J.A. Todd wishes to ac­knowledge a U.S. Department of En­ergy Visiting Faculty Research Partici­pation award administered by Oak Ridge Associated Universities. Elec­tron microscopy was conducted in the Center for Electron Microscopy and Microanalysis (CEMMA) at the Uni­versity of Southern California and in the microprobe laboratory at the Cali­fornia Institute of Technology. PIXE analyses were undertaken by Dr. Stuart Fleming (MASCA) and Dr. Charles Swann (Bartol Research Insti­tute, University of Delaware). The au­thors would like to thank the following individuals for their permission, assis­tance, and cooperation in our study of the pertinent archaeological materials: Borivoj Covic and Brunislav Mar­anovic from the Zemaljski Museum in Sarajevo, Blazenka Stalio and Dusko Krstic from the National Museum in Beograd, Ruth Tringham (University of California at Berkeley), Alan Mc­Pherron (University of Pittsburgh), Frauke Hogue (metallography consult­ant) and Scanning Electron Analyses Laboratories .

References 1. P.D. Giumac and J.A. Todd. "New Evidence for the Use of Lead in Prehistoric South-East Europe," Archeomateri­als, 2 (1987), pp. 29-37. 2. P.D. Giumac, "An Archaeometallurgical Study of the Material from Selevac," Zbornik Narodnog Muzeja u Beo­gradu, 11 (1) (1983), pp. 135-141. 3. R.E. Tringham, D. Krstic, B. Voytek and T. Kaiser, "The Early Agricultural Site of Selevac," Archaeology, 33 (2) (1980), pp. 24--32. 4. J. Chapman, The Vinca Culture, of South,East Europe, British Archaeological Reports, BAR International Se­ries, 117 (I & II) (1981). 5. M. Gimbutas, "Conclusion," Neolithic Macedonia, ed. M. Gimbutas, Monumenta Archaologica, vol. 1 (Los Angles, CA: Inst. of Archaeology, University of California at Los Angles, 1976), pp. 30--31, 417. 6. Rudna Glava, Najstarije Rudarstvo Bakra na Cen­tralnom Balkanu, ed. B. Jovanovic (Beograd: Arheoloski Institut 17, 1982). 7. H-G. Bachmann, The Identification of Slags from Ar­chaeological Sites, Occasional Publication No.6 (London: Institute of Archaeology, 1982). 8. H.H. Coghlan, "Prehistoric Copper and Some Exper· iments in Smelting," Transactions of the Newcomian So­ciety, 20 (1940), pp. 49~5. 9. R.E. Tringham and B. Brukner, "The Opovo Project: A Study of Socioeconomic Change in the Balkan Neolithic," Journal of F"ld Archaeology, 12 (1985), pp. 425--444.

If you want more information on this subject, please circle reader service card number 60.

55