Beginning Of Metallurgy Research Articles

Conventional Hammering of a Fe-7.2%Ni Alloy Sample from Itutinga Meteorite: An Evaluation of Its Formability and Functionality Gilson Antônio Nunes

Using a mechanical forming process used in the beginning of metallurgy, the samples from the iron meteorite Itutinga were heated and plastically deformed by hammering. Two sharp pieces, similar to small arrowheads, were produced and characterized microstructurally by optical microscopy and scanning electron microscopy (SEM/EDS/EBSD), complemented with Vickers hardness. As expected, the observations pointed to the presence of α2 phase, cracks, oxidation and deformed taenite lamellae. To assess the performance of the arrowheads a penetration test was done on a leather sample. The results demonstrated the possibility of making a useful rudimentary arrowhead from of iron meteorite.

材料科学の先達 ～その 2～<br/>Curt Netto と日本 Metallurgy 事始め

材料科学の先達 ～その 2～<br/>Curt Netto と日本 Metallurgy 事始め

A developmental approach to ancient innovation

In this paper, we view creativity through the lens of innovation, a concept familiar to archaeologists across a range of contexts and theoretical perspectives. Most attempts to understand ancient innovation thus far, we argue, have been limited by their lack of capacity to cope with the multiple scales of innovation: Those that track widespread changes, like the beginnings of metallurgy, fail to account for the changes experiences by individual craftspeople; those that do justice to the details of the micro-scale, with ‘thick’ description, cannot well explain the regional adoption of new practices. Here we develop an intermediary position, at the meso-scale, which we hope can serve to integrate these different scales. It is based on the notions that all innovation entails learning (and hence cognitive transformations) and that learning is very often supported at this meso-scale, through ‘communities of practice’. Drawing on the ethno-archaeological literature in particular, we emphasise how learning is a process of embodied cognition. Our archaeological case study is then drawn from the Bronze Age east Mediterranean, where a striking innovation in pottery making — the use of rotative kinetic energy via the potter’s wheel — sees a very uneven uptake from region to region over the course of many centuries. We propose certain differences in community organization from one region to another that might account for such variation in the adoption of an innovation, with the island of Crete in particular seeing a much more stable trajectory of adoption than many of its neighbouring areas.

Correction: The Beginning of Metallurgy in the Southern Levant: A Late 6th Millennium CalBC Copper Awl from Tel Tsaf, Israel

Correction: The Beginning of Metallurgy in the Southern Levant: A Late 6th Millennium CalBC Copper Awl from Tel Tsaf, Israel

The Beginning of Metallurgy in the Southern Levant: A Late 6th Millennium CalBC Copper Awl from Tel Tsaf, Israel

The beginning of metallurgy in the ancient Near East attracts much attention. The southern Levant, with the rich assemblage of copper artifacts from the Nahal Mishmar cave and the unique gold rings of the Nahal Qanah cave, is regarded as a main center of early metallurgy during the second half of the 5th millennium CalBC. However, a recently discovered copper awl from a Middle Chalcolithic burial at Tel Tsaf, Jordan Valley, Israel, suggests that cast metal technology was introduced to the region as early as the late 6th millennium CalBC. This paper examines the chemical composition of this item and reviews its context. The results indicate that it was exported from a distant source, probably in the Caucasus, and that the location where it was found is indicative of the social status of the buried individual. This rare finding indicates that metallurgy was first defused to the southern Levant through exchange networks and only centuries later involved local production. This copper awl, the earliest metal artifact found in the southern Levant, indicates that the elaborate Late Chalcolithic metallurgy developed from a more ancient tradition.

From Metallurgy to Bronze Age Civilizations: The Synthetic Theory

During the past few decades, evidence for the ancient smelting of copper has been discovered in areas isolated from one another. In most of them, the beginning of metallurgy had no substantial social and cultural consequences. Accordingly, the diffusionist theory (assuming the existence of a single homeland for metallurgy and its central importance in cultural development) has been replaced by a localizationist theory, in which the emergence of metallurgy is simply a continuation of the working of native copper. But neither of these theories is able either to correlate similarities observed among disparate Bronze Age civilizations or to explain the status of the smelter as civilizing hero in ancient mythologies. The problem, I argue, arises because previous scholars did not distinguish properly between two modes of copper production: crucible metallurgy and furnace smelting. According to the localizationist theory, crucible metallurgy appears as a spontaneous extension of the melting of native copper but does not result in any substantial cultural change, whereas the general principles of a diffusionist theory would regard the emergence of furnace metallurgy as a unique event that spread rapidly and spurred on vast cultural changes (if diffusionists had ever actually understood the difference between the two production methods). I propose instead a synthetic theory in which the spread of furnace metallurgy—which was fundamentally different from crucible metallurgy and depended on complex technical knowledge—from the southern Levant generated a wide network linking Bronze Age societies. This has important implications for our understanding of the international network of exchanges in technology, artifacts, and ideas during the Bronze Age.

Introduction: The Beginnings of Metallurgy in Global Perspective

The ‘beginnings of metallurgy’ has been a topic of considerable interest for over a century. Due to the relatively good preservation of metal artifacts and the modern values attached to metals, metal artifact typologies often served as the very basis for prehistoric sequences during the late nineteenth and early twentieth century. In many ways, it was V. Gordon Childe (1930, 1944) who placed metallurgical technology at the forefront, arguing as he did for the roles of ‘itinerant metal smiths’ and bronze production in the rise of social elites and complex societies (cf. Wailes 1996). Childe (1939) was also one of the first to systematically argue for the diffusion of metallurgy from the Near East to the rest of Eurasia. This diffusionist perspective was adopted by a number of prominent scholars of ancient metallurgy, notably Wertime (1964, 1973a, b), Smith (1977), Muhly (1988), and Chernykh (1992), who all felt that the technological knowledge necessary to transform ores into metal was too complex to have been invented twice. Criticism of the ex oriente lux paradigm came first from Europe, where Renfrew (1969, 1973, 1986) used radiocarbon dates to demonstrate that early European metallurgical sites were in fact older than similar sites in the Near East. Not surprisingly, other objections to the diffusionist perspective were raised by scholars working in areas far removed from the Middle East, including in China (e.g., Barnard 1961, 1993), in Africa (e.g., Trigger 1969), and most especially in the New World (e.g., Lechtman 1979, 1980). However, even important cross-regional volumes on early metallurgy (e.g., Wertime and Muhly 1980; Maddin 1988; Hauptmann et al. 1999), which have demonstrated most effectively that metallurgy did not follow a single developmental trajectory in every society, have done little to quell the predominance of diffusionist models and other Childean theories of elite dominance, core–periphery dynamics, and specialized craftspeople. With this in mind, invitations were sent to fifteen scholars of early metallurgy who had previously demonstrated an ability to combine archaeometrical analysis, archaeological

Purification of Iron and Steels a Continuous Effort from 2000 BC to AD 2000

The evolution of metal and alloys preparation has been directed, since the beginning of the history of metallurgy, towards (1) the research of better products -better properties, better reproducibility, larger production-, (2) the invention of new tools and machines for production -furnaces, blowing machines, hammers, pure oxygen, chemical analysis- and (3) the discovery of new scientific or empiric descriptions of matter. An important point is that new tools and machines were produced by using new iron and steels, and new scientific ideas, coming from technicians and workers gave a more precise description of what is meant by better product. This continuous circle running from technical application to science and from scientific description to application has been effective from the beginning of metallurgy: without a new product there is no progress of science and without new scientific ideas there are no new products. Examples are taken in ancient and today metallurgy to show that the enormous effort starting 4000 years ago for iron production or more -6000 years- for copper is not finished. Today, it is as difficult as before to increase the purity of metals and alloys, because the overall purity has been increased. However, the new developments towards better alloys depend on new chemical or physical analysis methods and on the conception of new metallurgical processes, including new machines and new ideas, as in the ancient times.

A CHALCOLITHIC MACE HEAD FROM THE NEGEV, ISRAEL: TECHNOLOGICAL ASPECTS AND CULTURAL IMPLICATIONS

An interdisciplinary case study of the role of technology in ancient society is presented here based on a single copper object from the beginning of metallurgy in Israel during the late fifth to fourth millennium BC. This research is based on a combination of typological, chronological and technological analyses. The mace head is made of copper alloyed with arsenic and antitmony, cast in a ‘lost wax’ technique over a stone core. The metallurgical, metallographic and petrographic analyses not only help reconstruct the production technology but also shed light on fundamental questions concerning the origin, ore selection and function of this sophisticated type of metal production in prehistoric society.

The Prehistory of Metallurgy in the British Isles

A revision of Tylecote's 1962 Metallurgy in Archaeology (see AATA 4-3960 ), this book provides a technical account of prehistoric metallurgical processes and artifacts. It covers the winning and fabrication of all metals in the British Isles from the beginning of metallurgy there through the early modern period. It reflects the growing use of metallographic methods of analysis in the examination of artifacts and other trends in archaeometry. Illustrations, a glossary, and a list of journals carrying archaeometallurgical reports are also provided. -- AATA