On the origins of extractive metallurgy: new evidence from Europe

The invention of extractive metallurgy, its location, timing, and origins, are among the restlessly argued matters in prehistoric archaeology. The introduction of metallurgy to prehistoric communities has provided an important chronological backbone for the later prehistory worldwide and has been widely discussed throughout the work of influential scholarship, and recognized as essential for the emergence of complex societies. Such ideas can be traced to the work of Childe, 1944, Childe, 1958, who saw the Near Eastern prehistoric communities as the single inventors of extractive metallurgy. The concept of a single origin was challenged by Renfrew (1969) who argued for multiple inventions of metallurgy in independent centres throughout Eurasia. This debate has since received new field and analytical data, which helped understanding the geological, technological and/or social factors involved in various cultural manifestations of emerging metallurgical activity (cf. Roberts et al., 2009). However, due to the lack of direct evidence of actual smelting from any of the suggested regions of invention, the origins of extractive metallurgy remain hotly contested (Roberts et al., 2009, Thornton et al., 2010).

Importantly, in the studies of ancient metallurgy, metal artefacts have received the lion’s share of the scholarly attention. The structural, chemical and isotopic analysis of artefacts can respectively show the ancient technology of their working and making, and the suggested geological origins of the metal used. However, the story of finished artefacts is only a relatively small part of the whole chaîne opératoire of metallurgy; a typical prehistoric metallurgical site would normally contain a set of various stone tools, ores, charcoal, fragments of technical ceramics and installations (furnaces, crucibles, tuyéres) and various types of slag and other waste products (cf. Rehren and Pernicka, 2008). For a more comprehensive understanding of the technology of metal production and its cultural transmission, the full range of technological debris needs to be analysed and incorporated in archaeometallurgical research (cf. Bachmann, 1982, Craddock, 1995 and literature therein, Renzi et al., 2009, Thornton and Rehren, 2009, Thornton et al., 2009).

This paper contributes to the debate on the origins of extractive metallurgy by presenting remains of copper smelting discovered recently in Belovode, a Vinča culture site in Eastern Serbia. Chemical, structural and provenance analyses of numerous finds including copper slag, geological and archaeological minerals, a copper metal droplet, and several malachite beads demonstrate consistent and coexisting metal smelting and malachite bead manufacturing activities at the site. Significantly, the analyses indicated that different sources were exploited for raw materials for copper smelting and bead making, respectively, suggesting a good knowledge of their relevant material properties. The first smelting event so far documented at Belovode occurs at c. 5000 BC, which makes it the earliest securely dated record of extractive metallurgy, anywhere. This event occurs at a location far from the Near East and in a region exceptionally rich in early metal artefacts, thereby challenging the model of a single origin of extractive metallurgy.