France and The Western Alps

Abstract

The use of copper was first established in the western Alps during the late fifth/ early fourth millennia BC. There were several metal-using groups in what is now modern Switzerland during the fourth millennium, including the Cortaillod and Pfyn cultures, followed in the third millennium BC by groups of the Saône-Rhône culture (Strahm 1994). The first direct evidence of copper production, however, only dates from the Late Bronze Age. This is based on the dating of smelting slag heaps in the valley of Oberhalbstein in the canton of Graubünden (Fasnacht 2004). These slags derive from the smelting of chalcopyrite ore derived from pillow lavas of the ophiolite geology in that area (Geiger 1984). The ability to smelt iron-rich copper ore involved a furnace technology that seems to have been first developed in the eastern Alps (see Chapter 7). No prehistoric mines are known; however, their existence may be inferred from the smelting of local ore at Late Bronze Age sites such as Savognin-Padnal and Marmorera-Stausees in the Oberhalbstein valley. Potential mining sites have been identified (see Schaer 2003), however, these have yet to be investigated in any detail. There are numerous deposits of copper mineralization in many parts of France. These occur in Brittany, the Pyrenees, the Corbières, on the margins of the Massif Central, the Maures, and the Alps. Research over the past 30 years has identified prehistoric copper mines in several of these areas. Further discoveries are possible in the difficult terrain of the Alps and Pyrenees, and also in areas where early copper mines have not been discovered, such as Brittany where deposits of steam tin and gold are also known. The oldest metal objects in France are recorded in the Paris Basin, where a small number of sheet copper beads date to the second half of the fourth millennium BC. These include the burial at Vignely (Seine-et-Marne) where a necklace of nine such beads was found with the burial of a five-year old child dated to 3499–3123 BC (Allard et al. 1998).