The early development of metallurgy in the British Isles

Abstract

Studies of prehistoric extractive and fabrication techniques suggest that the traditional view, that the earliest copper metallurgy in the British Isles was based on the exploitation of primary minerals deriving from the southwest of Ireland, is fallacious. Elaborate mineral selection and process control is not needed to produce copper of the composition reported for the Early Bronze Age, and so ore deposits in Britain were probably being exploited from a very early period.