Abstract
This paper analyses and re-evaluates current explanations and interpretations of the origins, development and societal context of metallurgy in the Balkans (c. 6200–3700 BC). The early metallurgy in this region encompasses the production, distribution and consumption of copper, gold, tin bronze, lead and silver. The paper draws upon a wide range of existing archaeometallurgical and archaeological data, the diversity and depth of which make the Balkans one of the most intensively investigated of all early metallurgical heartlands across the world. We focus specifically on the ongoing debates relating to (1) the independent invention and innovation of different metals and metal production techniques; (2) the analysis and interpretation of early metallurgical production cores and peripheries, and their collapses; and (3) the relationships between metals, metallurgy and society. We argue that metal production in the Balkans throughout this period reflects changes in the organisation of communities and their patterns of cooperation, rather than being the fundamental basis for the emergence of elites in an increasingly hierarchical society.
Highlights
IntroductionThis paper analyses the evidence for early metallurgy in the Balkans from the earliest use of copper minerals at c. 6200 BC (Late Mesolithic–Early Neolithic) to c. 3700 BC (end of the Chalcolithic)
This paper analyses the evidence for early metallurgy in the Balkans from the earliest use of copper minerals at c. 6200 BC (Late Mesolithic–Early Neolithic) to c. 3700 BC (Figs. 1, 2, 3; except where stated otherwise all1 3 Vol.:(0123456789)Journal of World Prehistory (2021) 34:195–278There are, arguably, a total of six major heartlands of early metallurgical invention and/or innovation in western Eurasia (Radivojević et al 2010b), each of which is—not coincidentally— geologically rich in copper mineral deposits with widespread surface expressions
Gori & Ivanova, 2017); for the purposes of this paper, while we use the term Balkans geopolitically as a region defined by the Adriatic Sea to the west, the Ionian and Aegean seas to the southeast and southwest, and the Black Sea to the east, we focus only on those sites that display evidence of mining and metal production and/or use during the indicated time frame
Summary
This paper analyses the evidence for early metallurgy in the Balkans from the earliest use of copper minerals at c. 6200 BC (Late Mesolithic–Early Neolithic) to c. 3700 BC (end of the Chalcolithic) This paper analyses the evidence for early metallurgy in the Balkans from the earliest use of copper minerals at c. These are classic and fundamental questions, and each is connected to its own deep history of scholarship and has produced answers in terms of a wide range of competing explanatory models These questions are closely interrelated, and that they can be re-evaluated is due to the application of an integrated sciencebased, theoretical and methodological approach that emphasises not the ‘when’ and the ‘where’ of early metallurgy and the ‘how’ and the ‘why’. There is an identifiable convergence in early metallurgy scholarship towards recognizing the need to define and analyse the theories and underlying evidence surrounding concepts of invention (see papers in Roberts & Radivojević, 2015) and innovation We are increasingly witnessing a much more critical assessment of the value of long-held Childean ideas regarding early metallurgy, including the claimed close association with emerging elites and major societal transformations (e.g. Bartelheim, 2007; Biehl & Marciniak, 2000; Chapman, 1991, 2020; Kienlin, 2010; Kienlin & Zimmermann, 2012; Lichardus 1991c; Porčić, 2012b, 2019)
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