Miljana Radivojević

Historical phenomena often have prehistoric precedents; with this paper we investigate the potential for archaeometallurgical analyses and networked data processing to elucidate the progenitors of the Southwest Silk Road in Mainland Southeast Asia and southern China. We present original microstructural, elemental and lead isotope data for 40 archaeological copper-base metal samples, mostly from the UNESCO-listed site of Halin, and lead isotope data for 24 geological copper-mineral samples, also from Myanmar. We combined these data with existing datasets (N = 98 total) and compared them to the 1000+ sample late prehistoric archaeometallurgical database available from Cambodia, Laos, Thailand, Vietnam and Yunnan. Lead isotope data, contextualized for alloy, find location and date, were interpreted manually for intra-site, inter-site and interregional consistency, which hint at significant multi-scalar connectivity from the late second millennium BC. To test this interpretation statistically, the archaeological lead isotope data were then processed using regionally adapted production-derived consistency parameters. Complex networks analysis using the Leiden community detection algorithm established groups of artefacts sharing lead isotopic consistency. Introducing the geographic component allowed for the identification of communities of sites with consistent assemblages. The four major communities were consistent with the manually interpreted exchange networks and suggest southern sections of the Southwest Silk Road were active in the late second millennium BC.

The 2nd millennium BC in the Eurasian Steppe has widely been recognised as the period of exponential surge in circulation of metals, as well as metal exploitation activities across this area. Nevertheless, there is a general paucity of data on metal production in the steppes, which comes in as crucial in the interpretation of the role metalmaking played in the Bronze Age Eurasian Steppe communities. Here we report analyses of a pilot sample of nine smelting slags from the 2nd millennium BC metalmaking workshop of Taldysai in Central Kazakhstan. Our preliminary results identified at least two metal production lines: copper and arsenical copper. Copper metal was obtained by co-smelting copper oxides and sulfides most likely originating from local cuprous sandstone in a single step. Arsenical copper production is exhibited through co-smelting of copper and arsenic-rich ores in two steps, one to remove sulfur, the second to release the iron present in the charge. Compared against a reference database of nine 2nd millennium BC Bronze Age metal production sites across Eurasia, our results suggest that metalsmiths had mastered multiple ways to extract copper-based alloys: by combining raw materials in different recipes, applying diverse pyrotechnological solutions and exploiting a variety of locally and regionally available ores. This perspective allows for postulating local inventiveness at play for copper and copper alloy production in the Bronze Age steppes, and beyond.

Using the organic artefacts from the fourth-century BC grave at Bulhakovo in southern Ukraine, this article discusses the economics of the perishable material culture of the Scythians of the Pontic Steppe region. Thanks to the survival of organic materials (wood, leather, textiles), the burial provides important information about the complex networks of production and exchange that existed in European Scythia. Scientific analyses produced new data regarding materials and techniques used for the production of wooden, leather and textile objects, providing an opportunity for a more nuanced discussion of their production and consumption.
https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/ojoa.12255

The recent set of excavations (campaigns 2012 and
2013) at the sites of Belovode and Pločnik (see Chapters
11 and 26) have shown the use of copper minerals
and metallurgical activities to be highly consistent
with results from previous analytical research
(Radivojević 2007, 2012, 2013, 2015; Radivojević et al.
2010a; Radivojević and Rehren 2016). Specific aspects
to emerge so far include: persistent selection of black
and green manganese-rich copper ores for metal
extraction; similar engineering parameters involved in
the early copper smelting technology; field evidence
from Belovode supporting the presence of potterylined
hole-in-the-ground installations; consistent metal
making and working technology remains at both sites;
and direct absolute dating evidence that leaves no doubt
for c. 5000 BC as the beginning of copper metallurgy
in the Balkans. In this chapter we will synthesise the
evidence for this c. 7,000 years old copper production
technology within the Vinča culture, in its local and
regional perspective, including data and debates on the
provenance of copper ores.

Metallurgical materials recovered during the
excavation campaigns of 2012 and 2013 in Pločnik
show similar characteristics to samples already
studied and published previously (Radivojević 2012,
2015; Radivojević and Kuzmanović Cvetković 2014;
Radivojević and Rehren 2016; Radivojević et al.
2013). They include, as for Belovode (Chapter 11),
predominantly malachite minerals and ores (Table 1),
that occur as roughly beneficiated pieces and without a
distinct spatial patterning in Trench 24. In comparison
to Belovode, they occur less frequently across all five
horizons, partially explained by the fact that most
of Trench 24 is a large rectangular feature – a house
(F1=F2=F4=F5=F6=F10), and there is very little economic
area surrounding it.

The Neolithic–Chalcolithic site of Belovode covers
approximately 40 ha (Figure 1). In the two fieldwork
campaigns of 2012 and 2013, only 31.5 m2 was excavated
due to the archaeometallurgical focus of the project.
The trench was positioned on the eastern platform
of the settlement, where previous excavations had
uncovered significant metallurgical evidence in
Trenches 3 (Šljivar and Jacanović 1997c, Radivojević et
al. 2010a) and 17, which are located to the north and
the south of Trench 18 respectively. A 5 x 5 m area
was opened in the 2012 season and then, based on the
preliminary spatial analysis of metallurgical finds, in
2013 the trench was slightly expanded with a 2 x 3 m
extension on the eastern side.

This chapter reviews the archaeological evidence
for the Vinča culture, the broader archaeological
context for the majority of the metal production and
metal artefacts extensively explored in Chapter 3, as
well as for the sites of Belovode and Pločnik, whose
investigation forms the core of The Rise of Metallurgy
in Eurasia project. The chapter will provide a lengthy
introduction to the current data and interpretations of
the Vinča culture that are subsequently developed in
far greater detail in the thematic overviews by many
of the leading specialists in later chapters (Chapters
39–52). This monograph seeks to address, at least
in part, the absence of a dedicated synthesis of the
Vinča culture since Chapman’s (1981) monograph (see
Chapman 2020b for a critical reflection).
The concept of archaeological cultures remains
problematic in European prehistory in terms of
definition and interpretation, yet extremely resilient
in the absence of comparable empirically orientated
alternatives (Roberts and Vander Linden 2011). Due
to competing national traditions of scholarship, the
culture history groupings and terminologies are
strikingly complex in the later prehistoric Balkans (Gori
and Ivanova 2017; Tsirtsoni 2016a). As such, the chapter
explores the historiography and complex debates that
surround the archaeological and temporal definitions
of the Vinča culture. The importance of the Vinča
culture lies not only in the evidence of early metallurgy
but also in the evidence for the expansion of material
culture production and circulation, the intensification
of agriculture and increase in sedentism and settlement
growth, which are all subsequently reviewed. The
chapter concludes by examining past and present
interpretations of the communities who lived and died
within what we now term the Vinča culture.

The Rise of Metallurgy in Eurasia is a landmark study in the origins of metallurgy. The project aimed to trace the invention and innovation of metallurgy in the Balkans. It combined targeted excavations and surveys with extensive scientific analyses at two Neolithic-Chalcolithic copper production and consumption sites, Belovode and Pločnik, in Serbia. At Belovode, the project revealed chronologically and contextually secure evidence for copper smelting in the 49th century BC. This confirms the earlier interpretation of c. 7000-year-old metallurgy at the site, making it the earliest record of fully developed metallurgical activity in the world. However, far from being a rare and elite practice, metallurgy at both Belovode and Pločnik is demonstrated to have been a common and communal craft activity.

This monograph reviews the pre-existing scholarship on early metallurgy in the Balkans. It subsequently presents detailed results from the excavations, surveys and scientific analyses conducted at Belovode and Pločnik. These are followed by new and up-to-date regional syntheses by leading specialists on the Neolithic-Chalcolithic material culture, technologies, settlement and subsistence practices in the Central Balkans. Finally, the monograph places the project results in the context of major debates surrounding early metallurgy in Eurasia before proposing a new agenda for global early metallurgy studies.

Open access and fully downloadable from:
https://doi.org/10.32028/9781803270425

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.

Dogs were the first domestic animal, but little is known about their population history and to what extent it was linked to humans. We sequenced 27 ancient dog genomes and found that all dogs share a common ancestry distinct from present-day wolves, with limited gene flow from wolves since domestication but substantial dog-to-wolf gene flow. By 11,000 years ago, at least five major ancestry lineages had diversified, demonstrating a deep genetic history of dogs during the Paleolithic. Coanalysis with human genomes reveals aspects of dog population history that mirror humans, including Levant-related ancestry in Africa and early agricultural Europe. Other aspects differ, including the impacts of steppe pastoralist expansions in West and East Eurasia and a near-complete turnover of Neolithic European dog ancestry.

The present paper re-examines the purported relationship between Late Neolithic/Early Chalcolithic pottery firing technology and the world’s earliest recorded copper metallurgy at two Serbian Vinča culture sites, Belovode and Pločnik (c. 5350 to 4600 BC). A total of eighty-eight well-dated sherds including dark-burnished and graphite-painted pottery that originate across this period have been analysed using a multi-pronged scientific approach in order to reconstruct the raw materials and firing conditions that were necessary for the production of these decorative styles. This is then compared to the pyrotechnological requirements and chronology of copper smelting in order to shed new light on the assumed, yet rarely investigated, hypothesis that advances in pottery firing technology in the late 6th and early 5th millennia BC Balkans were an important precursor for the emergence of metallurgy in this region at around 5000 BC. The results of this study and the recent literature indicate that the ability to exert sufficiently close control over the redox atmosphere in a two-step firing process necessary to produce graphite-painted pottery could indeed link these two crafts. However, graphite-painted pottery and metallurgy emerge at around the same time, both benefitting from the pre-existing experience with dark-burnished pottery and an increasing focus on aesthetics and exotic minerals. Thus, they appear as related technologies, but not as one being the precursor to the other.

The metal vessel from Krivinka 1 site was detected by a metal detectorist and handed over to archaeologists from the Pavlodar State University. A sample of the vessel was taken for compositional analysis by OM and SEM-EDS and metallographic study in March 2019. The metal was found to be made of copper of high purity (on average 98.3 at%) with relevant contents of tin, sulfur, iron, selenium, tellurium, zinc, antimony and lead. The object was cast and worked in several cycles of hammering and annealing, with final touch of cold working.

Bronze is the defining metal of the European Bronze Age and has been at the center of archaeological and science-based research for well over a century. Archaeo-metallurgical studies have largely focused on determining the geological origin of the constituent metals, copper and tin, and their movement from producer to consumer sites. More recently, the effects of recycling, both temporal and spatial, on the composition of the circulating metal stock have received much attention. Also, discussions of the value and perception of bronze, both as individual objects and as hoarded material, continue to be the focus of scholarly debate. Here, we bring together the sometimes-diverging views of several research groups on these topics in an attempt to find common ground and set out the major directions of the debate, for the benefit of future research. The paper discusses how to determine and interpret the geological provenance of new metal entering the system; the circulation of extant metal across time and space, and how this is seen in changing compositional signatures; and some economic aspects of metal production. These include the role of metal-producing communities within larger economic settings, quantifying the amount of metal present at any one time within a society, and aspects of hoarding, a distinctive European phenomenon that is less prevalent in the Middle Eastern and Asian Bronze Age societies.

Bronze is the defining metal of the European Bronze Age and has been at the center of archaeological and science-based research for well over a century. Archaeo-metallurgical studies have largely focused on determining the geological origin of the constituent metals, copper and tin, and their movement from producer to consumer sites. More recently, the effects of recycling, both temporal and spatial, on the composition of the circulating metal stock have received much attention. Also, discussions of the value and perception of bronze, both as individual objects and as hoarded material, continue to be the focus of scholarly debate. Here, we bring together the sometimes-diverging views of several research groups on these topics in an attempt to find common ground and set out the major directions of the debate, for the benefit of future research. The paper discusses how to determine and interpret the geological provenance of new metal entering the system; the circulation of extant metal across time and space, and how this is seen in changing compositional signatures; and some economic aspects of metal production. These include the role of metal-producing communities within larger economic settings, quantifying the amount of metal present at any one time within a society, and aspects of hoarding, a distinctive European phenomenon that is less prevalent in the Middle Eastern and Asian Bronze Age societies.

Bronze is the defining metal of the European Bronze Age and has been at the center of archaeological and science-based research for well over a century. Archaeo-metallurgical studies have largely focused on determining the geological origin of the constituent metals, copper and tin, and their movement from producer to consumer sites. More recently, the effects of recycling, both temporal and spatial, on the composition of the circulating metal stock have received much attention. Also, discussions of the value and perception of bronze, both as individual objects and as hoarded material, continue to be the focus of scholarly debate. Here, we bring together the sometimes-diverging views of several research groups on these topics in an attempt to find common ground and set out the major directions of the debate, for the benefit of future research. The paper discusses how to determine and interpret the geological provenance of new metal entering the system; the circulation of extant metal across time and space, and how this is seen in changing compositional signatures; and some economic aspects of metal production. These include the role of metal-producing communities within larger economic settings, quantifying the amount of metal present at any one time within a society, and aspects of hoarding, a distinctive European phenomenon that is less prevalent in the Middle Eastern and Asian Bronze Age societies.

The aesthetic appearance of metals has long been recognised in archaeometric studies as an important factor driving inventions and innovations in the evolution of metal production. Nevertheless, while the studies of ancient gold metallurgy are well supported by the modern research in colour characteristics of gold alloys, the colour properties of major prehistoric copper alloys, like arsenical copper and tin bronzes, remain either largely understudied or not easily accessible to the western scholarship. A few published studies have already indicated that alloying and heat treatment change the colours of copper alloys, although they are mainly based on the examples of prehistoric tin bronze objects and experimental casts. Here we present the procedure for building the Cu-As-Sn ternary colour diagram, starting with experimental casting of 64 binary and ternary alloys in this system. We used two types of information to produce two different ternary colour diagrams: one, based on photographs of the samples, and the other, established on the colorimetric measurements. Furthermore, we developed the procedure for creating a graphic representation of colours in the Cu-As-Sn ternary diagram using QGIS. As an initial case study, we plotted the composition of the world’s earliest tin bronze artefacts; the graphic representation further supports claims about the importance of golden hue for their invention and demand, c. 6,500 years ago. We argue that the presented colour diagrams will find wide use in future investigations of aesthetics of prehistoric copper alloys.

Full text on: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0305440317301759

The scholarly quest for the origins of metallurgy has focused on a broad region from the Balkans to Central Asia, with different scholars advocating a single origin and multiple origins, respectively. One particular find has been controversially discussed as the potentially earliest known example of copper smelting in western Eurasia, a copper ‘slag’ piece from the Late Neolithic to Chalcolithic site of Çatalhöyük in central Turkey. Here we present a new assessment of metal making at Çatalhöyük based on the re-analysis of minerals, mineral artefacts and high-temperature materials excavated in the 1960s by J. Mellaart and first analysed by Neuninger, Pittioni and Siegl in 1964. This paper focuses on copper-based minerals, the alleged piece of metallurgical slag, and copper metal beads, and their contextual relationship to each other. It is based on new microstructural, compositional and isotopic analyses, and a careful re-examination of the fieldwork documentation and analytical data related to the c. 8500 years old high-temperature debris at Çatalhöyük. We re-interpret the sample identified earlier as metallurgical slag as incidentally fired green pigment, which was originally deposited in a burial and later affected by a destructive fire that also charred the bones of the interred body. We also re-confirm the contemporary metal beads as made from native metal. Our results provide a new and conclusive explanation of the previously contentious find, and reposition Çatalhöyük in a new narrative of the multiple origins of metallurgy in the Old World.

The beginnings of extractive metallurgy in Eurasia are contentious. The first cast copper objects in this region emerge c. 7000 years ago, and their production has been tentatively linked to centres in the Near East. This assumption, however, is not substantiated by evidence for copper smelting in those centres. Here, we present results from recent excavations from Belovode, a Vinča culture site in Eastern Serbia, which has provided the earliest direct evidence for copper smelting to date. The earliest copper smelting activities there took place c. 7000 years ago, contemporary with the emergence of the first cast copper objects. Through optical, chemical and provenance analyses of copper slag, minerals, ores and artefacts, we demonstrate the presence of an established metallurgical technology during this period, exploiting multiple sources for raw materials. These results extend the known record of copper smelting by more than half a millennium, with substantial implications. Extractive metallurgy occurs at a location far away from the Near East, challenging the traditional model of a single origin of metallurgy and reviving the possibility of multiple, independent inventions.

The earliest known iron artefacts are nine small beads securely dated to circa 3200 BC, from two burials in Gerzeh, northern Egypt. We show that these beads were made from meteoritic iron, and shaped by
careful hammering the metal into thin sheets before rolling them into tubes. The study demonstrates the ability of neutron and X-ray methods to determine the nature of the material even after complete
corrosion of the iron metal. The iron beads were strung into a necklace together with other exotic minerals such as lapis lazuli, gold and carnelian, revealing the status of meteoritic iron as a special material on a par with precious metal and gem stones. The results confirm that already in the fourth millennium BC metalworkers had mastered the smithing of meteoritic iron, an ironenickel alloy much harder and more brittle than the more commonly worked copper. This is of wider significance as it demonstrates that metalworkers had already nearly two millennia of experience to hot-work meteoritic iron when iron smelting was introduced. This knowledge was essential for the development of iron smelting, which produced metal in a solid state process and hence depended on this ability in order to replace copper and bronze as the main utilitarian metals.

The identification and analysis of invention is fundamental to understanding early societies. Yet invention tends to be only sporadically addressed by archaeologists, and then usually only within broader studies of innovation. Doubts concerning the ability of the archaeological
record to yield data of sufficient quality to investigate invention, together with the perception that the concept leads inevitably to nineteenth-century societal narratives of technological progress, remain widespread. This paper reviews the theoretical approaches
to invention in early societies with a particular focus on pyrotechnologies. It highlights the papers within this special section, which demonstrate the capacity of an integrated approach incorporating materials science, archaeology and archaeological theory to understand the processes of both invention and innovation underlying the appearance of pyrotechnologies and their relationships to early societies throughout Europe, Africa, Asia and South America. It is argued that the importance of historical and contemporary debates on inventions, innovations and societies across the world continues to increase—and will do so with or without the active contribution of archaeologists.

The earliest known iron artefacts are nine small beads securely dated to circa 3200 BC, from two burials in Gerzeh, northern Egypt. We show that these beads were made from meteoritic iron, and shaped by careful hammering the metal into thin sheets before rolling them into tubes. The study demonstrates the ability of neutron and X-ray methods to determine the nature of the material even after complete corrosion of the iron metal. The iron beads were strung into a necklace  together with other exotic minerals such as lapis lazuli, gold and carnelian, revealing the status of meteoritic iron as a special material on a par with precious metal and gem stones. The results confirm that already in the fourth millennium BC metalworkers had mastered the smithing of meteoritic iron, an ironenickel alloy much harder and more brittle than the more commonly worked copper. This is of wider significance as it
demonstrates that metalworkers had already nearly two millennia of experience to hot-work meteoritic iron when iron smelting was introduced. This knowledge was essential for the development of iron smelting, which produced metal in a solid state process and hence depended on this ability in order to
replace copper and bronze as the main utilitarian metals.

This paper integrates archaeological, material, microstructural and compositional data of c. 7000 years old metallurgical production evidence with the aim to address the knowledge of the world’s earliest metalworkers. The main focus is placed on copper minerals, ores, slags, slagged sherds and metal droplets coming from four Vinča culture settlements in Serbia and Bosnia and Herzegovina: Belovode, Pločnik, Vinča and Gornja Tuzla, all dated between c. 5400 – 4400 BC. Chemical study of copper minerals throughout all sites points at striking uniformity in selecting black and green minerals from the early days of the settlements’ occupation, some of which predate the metal smelting events. Microstructural examination of metal production debris showed convincing technological similarity throughout c. six centuries of copper making in the studied sites, as well as a consistent choice of black and green ores for metal extraction. We argue that black and green ores were intentionally selected as ingredients for the metal smelting ‘recipe’ in the early stages of Balkan metallurgy based on the knowledge related to their characteristic visual aspects. This finding demonstrates how important the adequate combination of colours was for the early copper metalworkers and suggests a unique technological trajectory for the evolution of metallurgy in this part of the world. It also illustrates the capacity that micro-research carries in addressing the how and why of the emergence of metallurgy, and outlines a methodology for future studies of early metallurgies worldwide.

The Vinča culture sites of Belovode and Pločnik have been attracting scholarly attention for decades now, due to numerous discoveries indicative of copper mineral and metal use in these settlements, which are confirmed as, currently, the earliest worldwide and very likely developed independently in Eurasia . The authors attempt to give an overview of already published data along with new results stemming from the recently completed doctoral research of the primary author. All materials related to copper mineral use and pyrometallurgical activities are presented through the concept of metallurgical chaîne opératoire, following the established sequence of operations, which is adjusted for this specific case study and divided into three categories: copper mineral processing, (s)melting debris, and the making and working of finished metal objects. The qualitative overview of available data is therefore focused mainly around the material side of the studied samples and provides an insight into the technological choices for making copper mineral ornaments and copper metal artefacts in the sites of Belovode and Pločnik. Accordingly, it provides a model for the understanding of similar material assemblages that occur in other Vinča culture sites, or beyond.

In this paper we present the results of X-ray fluorescence (XRF) analyses carried out on the Celtic silver objects from the Židovar hoard, north-eastern Serbia. Archaeological material from the hoard can be divided into three groups based on technological differences. The XRF analysis demonstrates that stylistically different groups have different alloy compositions and therefore probably originate from different workshops. The unusual silver-copper-tin-lead alloy of the big silver fibulae of the Jarak type opens the discussion about local metalwork production in the Middle Danube valley at the end of the La Tène period. Moreover, the use of high-tin bronze and a tin-rich silver alloy during the Late Iron Age provides another reason for conducting further research into pre-Roman mining in the Balkans.

The appearance of the earliest tin bronze artefacts is traditionally linked to the copper-tin alloying practice in the 3rd millennium BC Near Eastern Bronze Age settlements. Advocates of this model argue that tin for alloying may have come from deposits located in central Asia or southwest Iran; however, evidence for tin bronze production remains a challenge for archaeologists. Here we present a piece of tin bronze foil discovered in the Vinča culture site of Pločnik in Serbia, and securely dated to c. 4650 BC, which makes it the earliest known tin bronze artefact anywhere in the world. Compositional analysis links it to smelting a complex copper-tin ore, such as chalcopyrite intergrown with stannite and / or fahlerz, while metallographic analysis indicate its intentional production and understanding of material properties of the newly acquired metal. These results initiated a reassessment of the fourteen previously discovered and analysed artefacts of similar compositional pattern as the Pločnik foil. The rise of tin bronze metallurgy in the Balkans is also discussed in the light of the concurrent appearance of other colourful metal objects in this region.

The earliest tin bronze artefacts in Eurasia are generally believed to have appeared in the Near East in the early third millennium BC. Here we present tin bronze artefacts that occur far from the Near East, and in a significantly earlier period. Excavations at Pločnik, a Vinča culture site in Serbia, recovered a piece of tin bronze foil from an occupation layer dated to the mid fifth millennium BC. The discovery prompted a reassessment of 14 insufficiently contextualised early tin bronze artefacts from the Balkans. They too were found to derive from the smelting of copper-tin ores. These tin bronzes extend the record of bronze making by c. 1500 years, and challenge the conventional narrative of Eurasian metallurgical development.

The earliest tin bronze artefacts in Eurasia are generally believed to have appeared in the Near East in the early third millennium BC. Here we present tin bronze artefacts that occur far from the Near East, and in a significantly earlier period. Excavations at Pločnik, a Vinča culture site in Serbia, recovered a piece of tin bronze foil from an occupation layer dated to the mid fifth millennium BC. The discovery prompted a reassessment of 14 insufficiently contextualised early tin bronze artefacts from the Balkans. They too were found to derive from the smelting of copper-tin ores. These tin bronzes extend the record of bronze making by c. 1500 years, and challenge the conventional narrative of Eurasian metallurgical development.

The beginnings of extractive metallurgy in Eurasia are contentious. The first cast copper objects in this region emerge c7000 years ago, and their production has been tentatively linked to centres in the Near East. This assumption, however, is not substantiated by evidence for copper smelting in those centres. Here, we present results from recent excavations from Belovode, a Vinča culture site in Eastern Serbia, which has provided the earliest direct evidence for copper smelting to date. The earliest copper smelting activities there took place c7000 years ago, contemporary with the emergence of the first cast copper objects. Through optical, chemical and provenance analyses of copper slag, minerals, ores and artefacts, we demonstrate the presence of an established metallurgical technology during this period, exploiting multiple sources for raw materials. These results extend the known record of copper smelting by more than half a millennium, with substantial implications. Extractive metallurgy occurs at a location far away from the Near East, challenging the traditional model of a single origin of metallurgy and reviving the possibility of multiple, independent inventions.

This paper integrates archaeological, material, microstructural and compositional data of c. 7,000 years old metallurgical production evidence with the aim to address the knowledge of the world’s earliest metalworkers. The main focus is placed on copper minerals, ores, slags, slagged sherds and metal droplets coming from four Vinča culture settlements in Serbia and Bosnia and Herzegovina: Belovode, Pločnik, Vinča and Gornja Tuzla, all dated between c. 5400 and 4400 BC. Chemical study of copper minerals throughout all sites points at striking uniformity in selecting black and green minerals from the early days of the settlements’ occupation, some of which predate the metal smelting events. Microstructural examination of metal production debris showed convincing technological similarity throughout c. six centuries of copper making in the studied sites, as well as a consistent choice of black and green ores for metal extraction. We argue that black and green ores were intentionally selected as ingredients for the metal smelting ‘recipe’ in the early stages of Balkan metallurgy based on the knowledge related to their characteristic visual aspects. This finding demonstrates how important the adequate combination of colours was for the early copper metalworkers and suggests a unique technological trajectory for the evolution of metallurgy in this part of the world. It also illustrates the capacity that micro-research carries in addressing the how and why of the emergence of metallurgy, and outlines a methodology for future studies of early metallurgies worldwide.

Sljivar and Boric (in the first part of this pdf) challenge the validity of the archaeological context of the tin bronze foil found at the Vinca culture site of Plocnik and, therefore, its broader interpretation. The archaeological context, as described in Radivojevic et al. (2013), is recorded in the original field journals, annual field reports and academic publications for Plocnik (all of which were co-authored by Dusan Sljivar); these records support our earlier description of the context. Their criticisms of the broader interpretation of the tin bronze foil appear to be based on a misunderstanding of the nature of ores and metallurgy. In the second part of the pdf we respond in detail to the challenges levelled at our interpretation.

"The beginnings of extractive metallurgy in Eurasia are contentious. The first cast copper objects in this region emerge c. 7000 years ago, and their production has been tentatively linked to centres in the Near East. This assumption, however, is not substantiated by evidence for copper smelting in those centres. Here, we present results from recent excavations from Belovode, a Vin ca culture site in Eastern Serbia, which has provided the earliest direct evidence for copper smelting to date. The earliest copper smelting activities there took place c. 7000 years ago, contemporary with the emergence of the first cast copper objects. Through optical, chemical and provenance analyses of copper slag, minerals, ores and artefacts, we demonstrate the presence of an established metallurgical technology during this period, exploiting multiple sources for raw materials. These results extend the known record of copper smelting by more than half a millennium, with substantial implications. Extractive metallurgy occurs at a location far away from the Near East, challenging the traditional model of a single origin of metallurgy and reviving the possibility of multiple, independent inventions.
"

The scholarly quest for the origins of metallurgy has focused on a broad region from the Balkans to Central Asia, with different scholars advocating a single origin and multiple origins, respectively. One particular find has been controversially discussed as the potentially earliest known example of copper smelting in western Eurasia, a copper 'slag' piece from the Late Neolithic to Chalcolithic site of Catalhoyuk in central Turkey. Here we present a new assessment of metal making at Çatalhoyük based on the re-analysis of minerals, mineral artefacts and high-temperature materials excavated in the 1960s by J. Mellaart and first analysed by Neuninger, Pittioni and Siegl in 1964. This paper focuses on copper-based minerals, the alleged piece of metallurgical slag, and copper metal beads, and their contextual relationship to each other. It is based on new microstructural, compositional and isotopic analyses, and a careful re-examination of the fieldwork documentation and analytical data related to the c. 8500 years old high-temperature debris at Çatalhoyük. We re-interpret the sample identified earlier as metallurgical slag as incidentally fired green pigment, which was originally deposited in a burial and later affected by a destructive fire that  also charred the bones of the interred body. We also reconfirm the contemporary metal beads as made from native metal. Our results provide a new and conclusive explanation of the previously contentious  find, and reposition Çatalh€ oyük in a new narrative of the multiple origins of metallurgy in the Old World.

The earliest tin bronze artefacts in Eurasia are generally believed to have appeared in the Near East in the early third millennium BC. Here we present tin bronze artefacts that occur far from the Near East, and in a significantly earlier period. Excavations at Plocnik, a Vinca culture site in Serbia, recovered a piece of tin bronze foil from an occupation layer dated to the mid fifth millennium BC. The discovery prompted a reassessment of 14 insufficiently contextualised early tin bronze artefacts from the Balkans. They too were found to derive from the smelting of copper-tin ores. These tin bronzes extend the record of bronze making by c. 1500 years, and challenge the conventional narrative of Eurasian metallurgical development.

The document includes comments by Šljivar & Borić (2014) and from page 1315 a response by Radivojević et al. (2014).

Šljivar and Borić (2014) challenge the validity of the archaeological context of the tin bronze foil found at the Vinča culture site of Pločnik and, therefore, its broader interpretation. The archaeological context, as described in Radivojević et al. (2013), is recorded in the original field journals, annual field reports and academic publications for Pločnik (all of which were co-authored by Dušan Šljivar); these records support our earlier description of the context. Their criticisms of the broader interpretation of the tin bronze foil appear to be based on a misunderstanding of the nature of ores and metallurgy. Here we respond in detail to the challenges levelled at our interpretation.

(Summary in English)
The long-standing archaeological research of the Serbian Vinča culture sites of Belovode and Pločnik has been strengthened with the joint collaborative work with the UCL Institute of Archaeology in the past 6 years. This collaboration yielded scientific demonstration of the world’s earliest copper smelting amongst the excavated materials, c. 7000 years old. In the six years since the first publication of this finding in 2010, a number of detailed analytical studies followed, together with another breakthrough discovery of the world’s earliest tin bronze artefact. This artefact was excavated in a secure context within a Vinča culture settlement feature at the site of Pločnik, which was radiocarbon dated to c. 4650 BC. On the basis of the early metallurgical results from Belovode, the UK Government funded a large international collaborative project from 2012–2015. This included Serbian, British and German teams all of whom brought substantial experience and cutting-edge technology to the study of the evolution of the earliest known metal-making in its 5th millennium BC Balkan cultural context. This project’s forthcoming publications, including a major monograph published by UCL Press, which will be free to download, promise to shed new light on the life of the first metal-making communities in Eurasia, and also out- line integrated methodological approaches that will serve as a model for similar projects worldwide.
The open, balanced and respectful research atmosphere within our core project team is currently being challenged by an unsubstantiated controversy. This controversy arises from accusations against the project team members by Duško Šljivar, a once an extremely supportive and prominent member of our team. Each of these accusations by Duško Šljivar is completely contradictory to his own previous documented work, and have therefore easily been refuted. The work by Duško Šljivar in question encompasses: two decades of excavations at the sites of Belovode and Pločnik; including single-authored and joint publications prior to 2012, including those with Miljana Radivojević and Julka Kuzmanović-Cvetković; and official field documentation, either signed off solely by him, or together with his co-excavator at the site of Pločnik, Julka Kuzmanović-Cvetković. The first accusation, published in 2014, saw Duško Šljivar deny, together with another colleague, the veracity of his original field journal notes on the context of the previously mentioned tin bronze foil, for which he received an immediate and successful rebuttal. In the second accusation, published in Starinar LXV/ 2015, Duško Šljivar continued with the same practice of denying his own official field journals and publications which he (co-) authored with a series of false accusations relating to the manipulation of the original data from the excavations of the sites of
Belovode and Pločnik by Radivojević and Kuzmanović-Cvetković. In the third accusation, Šljivar argues that his copyright was infringed, and that field journals were used without per- mission. This is despite the fact that these accusations are legally and formally unsupported, and that he shared his data and materials during the course of a long collaboration and co-authorship on a number of articles with both Radivojević and Kuzmanović-Cvetković over the course of the last two decades.
In other words, in order to validate his accusations and to seek to damage our untainted academic standings, Duško Šljivar has denied all his professional and academic achievements, research articles, field diaries and formal documents that he ever (co-) wrote and/or signed on the topic. He even goes as far as to exclude a landmark joint publication in an international peer-reviewed scientific journal (Radivojević et al. 2010) from his citation list in order to support his claim that a formal agreement on the joint publishing of Belovode metallurgy results has never been fulfilled. Šljivar also omitted the published rebuttal (Radivojević et al. 2014) to unsubstantiated claims on alleged manipulation of contextual data of the tin bronze foil from the Vinča culture site of Pločnik put forward in a joint article by him and another colleague (Šljivar and Boric 2014). In order to end this malicious debate, we present our rebuttal from 2014 and further elaborate upon it by showing the original quotes from the Pločnik field diary on the day that the tin bronze foil in question was found, and from the concluding remarks of the diary in question. We again clearly demonstrate that there has never been any doubt regarding the secure context of the tin bronze foil within the Vinča culture material, that the Vinča horizon is the only cultural occupation at the site of Pločnik and that no intrusion has ever been observed in the context of this find, not on the day of the discovery, not in the conclusions or the excavation field diary, and not in the first publication of the said find by Duško Šljivar.
We have presented a detailed account of this particular case in order to show [Šljivar’s contradictory and inconsistent account of the official fieldwork documentation that he co-authored. It would appear that either Šljivar made a false field diary entry regarding the context of the tin bronze foil on the day of its discovery in 2008, or he presented incorrect information in the later joint commentary. The former hypothesis that Šljivar made a false entry in the field diary in 2008 in order to potentially mislead later scholarship does not seem plausible, especially as the object of dispute was not identified as tin-bronze on the day of discovery, but merely as another copper object from Pločnik and therefore not nearly as important to early metallurgical scholar ship. To underline further the absurdity of the situation in which we found ourselves with Šljivar, we should also mention Šljivar’s initial agreement to co-author the paper we published in Starinar XLIV/2014, from which he withdrew without offering any constructive comments, only to publicly publish his views as well as professional and personal insults directed towards us in Starinar XLV/2015. The situation where Šljivar had the opportunity to act in his best professional interest was while our article was still in preparation and he chose not to do it; this leads us to assume that professional interests were not his priority on this matter. Finally, Šljivar’s deceitful and erroneous claims were executed in a spiteful language that is unfit for a scholarly journal, and damages both his reputation and the decision of this journal to publish them.
We further elaborate on these developments in the broader context of Serbian archaeology, quoting the legislation on the intellectual copyright of excavation directors over the archaeological materials that they have excavated. The current law on Cultural Monuments recognizes the exclusive rights of excavation directors to publish their research for the period of 12 months after the excavations ended. After this period, other interested parties in the field can access the materials and any related field documentation. This demonstrates, alongside previously mentioned scientific arguments that we have worked with the Belovode and Pločnik materials in accordance with the valid legal regulations. We conclude that there is no formal support for the exclusive interpretation of lives of communities in the sites of Belovode and Pločnik c. 7000 years ago, and emphasise the value of our original scientific contribution as illuminating a particular economic activity of the inhabitants of these two prehistoric villages. Finally, we call for the reinforcement of existing procedures in Serbia so that our profession can prevent any future misconduct such as that exemplified in the attempt by Duško Šljivar.

Tracing Pottery-Making Recipes in the Prehistoric Balkans 6th-4 th Millennia BC is a collection of twelve chapters that capture the variety of current archaeological, ethnographic, experimental and scientific studies on Balkan prehistoric ceramic production, distribution and use. The Balkans is a culturally rich area at the present day as it was in the past. Pottery and other ceramics represent an ideal tool with which to examine this diversity and interpret its human and environmental origins. Consequently, Balkan ceramic studies is an emerging field within archaeology that serves as a testing ground for theories on topics such as technological know-how, innovation, craft tradition, cultural transmission, interaction, trade and exchange. This book brings together diverse studies by leading researchers and upcoming scholars on material from numerous Balkan countries and chronological periods that tackle these and other topics for the first time. It is a valuable resource for anyone working on Balkan archaeology and also of interest to those working on archaeological pottery from other parts of the world.

The present paper re-examines the purported relationship between Late Neolithic/Early Chalcolithic pottery firing technology and the world’s earliest recorded copper metallurgy at two Serbian Vinča culture sites, Belovode and Pločnik (c. 5350 to 4600 BC). A total of eighty-eight well-dated sherds including dark-burnished and graphite-painted pottery that originate across this period have been analysed using a multi-pronged scientific approach in order to reconstruct the raw materials and firing conditions that were necessary for the production of these decorative styles. This is then compared to the pyrotechnological requirements and chronology of copper smelting in order to shed new light on the assumed, yet rarely investigated, hypothesis that advances in pottery firing technology in the late 6th and early 5th millennia BC Balkans were an important precursor for the emergence of metallurgy in this region at around 5000 BC. The results of this study and the recent literature indicate that the ability to exert sufficiently close control over the redox atmosphere in a two-step firing process necessary to produce graphite-painted pottery could indeed link these two crafts. However, graphite-painted pottery and metallurgy emerge at around the same time, both benefitting from the pre-existing experience with dark-burnished pottery and an increasing focus on aesthetics and exotic minerals. Thus, they appear as related technologies, but not as one being the precursor to the other.

Using the organic artefacts from the fourth-century BC grave at Bulhakovo in southern Ukraine, this article discusses the economics of the perishable material culture of the Scythians of the Pontic Steppe region. Thanks to the survival of organic materials (wood, leather, textiles), the burial provides important information about the complex networks of production and exchange that existed in European Scythia. Scientific analyses produced new data regarding materials and techniques used for the production of wooden, leather and textile objects, providing an opportunity for a more nuanced discussion of their production and consumption.