Marcos Martinon-Torres

• University College London

Copper-tin bronzes can be obtained through different techniques (i.e. natural alloying, co-smelting, cementation, co-melting and recycling). This paper presents a methodology and theoretical framework to contextually explain the logic behind the selection of bronze alloying techniques in different contexts, avoiding deterministic, apri-oristic and...

Occurring throughout the Americas, ceramics with negative decoration have been variously used as archaeological markers of chronology, provenance, ethnic affiliation, or cultural interaction. In the highlands of the adjacent regions of Nariño (Colombia) and Carchi (Ecuador), they are recovered and discussed frequently, but the lack of technical stu...

Chemical analyses of archaeological artefacts are often used for provenance studies and for assessing whether specific performance characteristics were targeted by craftspeople in the past. Traditionally, the answers to these questions were sought by identifying compositional averages and by studying their correlations with either the geochemical s...

The currently accepted narrative on the prehistory of bronze alloying technology follows deterministic, outdated assumptions of technological progression that ignore the role of contextual and performance factors in the decision-making processes, thus neglecting human agency. In essence, it is expected that newer techniques were overarchingly more...

This article discusses the contributions of the archaeologist Bernardo Vega on issues of archaeometallurgy in the Caribbean, based on the analysis of his book, Metals and the Aborigines of Hispaniola. In it, he compiles the information known by the end of the 1970s, about many of metal objects found in indigenous archaeological sites of the Greater...

Japanese craftspeople have dominated the art of patinating copper-alloys since the 15th century, using precise alloy compositions and complicated patination processes in different hot solutions to create a variety of colours on swords fittings such as tsuba. While this complex tradition is increasingly popular in the East, the reasons behind the ch...

The occurrence of Baltic amber through Europe has traditionally been associated to the spread of the Bell Beaker culture during the 3rd millennium BC. In Iberia, this phenomenon is particularly noticeable in the southern half. Here we present an amber bead recovered in a Late Neolithic funerary cave (3634–3363 cal BC) from northeastern Iberia where...

The casts of Pompeii bear witness to the people who died during the Vesuvius 79 AD eruption. However, studies on the cause of death of these victims have not been conclusive. A previous important step is the understanding of the post-depositional processes and the impact of the plaster in bones, two issues that have not been previously evaluated. H...

Unlabelled: Great Zimbabwe (CE1000-1600) is world famous for outstanding cultural innovations and localised and globalised entanglement with trans-Africa and trans-Indian Ocean exchange. New excavations yielded fragments of over a hundred gold processing vessels comprising reused pottery and purpose-made crucibles from stratified contexts in the E...

The expansion of Baltic amber through Europe has traditionally been associated to the spread of the Bell Beaker culture during the 3rd millennium BC. In Iberia, this phenomenon is particularly noticeable in the southern half. Here we present an amber bead recovered in a Late Neolithic funerary cave (3634 − 3363 2σ cal BC) from northeastern Iberia w...

This paper presents the technical characterisation by metallography and slag inclusion analysis of 43 iron artefacts from Qin civilian burials in the Guanzhong Plain, dated to the late Warring States period (around 3rd c. BC). Analysing these results with previously published data, we identify correlations among artefact functions, materials and ma...

Metals constitute one of the most important material categories in the archaeological record. This chapter offers an outline of the key scientific approaches currently used in archaeometallurgical research, making particular emphasis on newer techniques, their impact in broader archaeological debates, and some challenges and suggestions for the fut...

THE 5TH- TO 8TH-CENTURY METAL-DETECTED ASSEMBLAGE FROM RENDLESHAM includes material representing the manufacture of copper-alloy and precious metal objects in the later 6th and 7th centuries. This study of the copper alloys focuses on the evidence for manufacturing technology, sets it against the evidence for alloy compositions and metal supply fro...

Our understanding of early copper metallurgy in the Iberian Peninsula is mostly based on analysis from well-studied regions in the Southeast and Southwest. This paper focuses on two recently recovered Chalcolithic metallurgical assemblages outside these traditional research foci: two slagged crucibles from Lugar Viejo III (Zaragoza) and two large s...

This paper considers copper production in the Niari Basin, Republic of the Congo, during a period dated to the mid-fifteenth-mid-seventeenth centuries CE. Using a combination of pXRF, OM, SEM-EDS, and FTIR, it assesses the microstructure and composition of slags and technical ceramics from sites associated with two different regional pottery tradit...

Ash cupels were widely used in early modern Europe for small-scale refining of noble metals in artisanal workshops, mints and assay offices. The manufacture and use of cupels display considerable variability from context to context, which poses both challenges and opportunities for modern investigation. Here, we present the analytical study of an u...

Studies of archaeological goldwork in the Americas are increasingly revealing a rich variety of context-specific ways in which gold items were produced and valued, but research attention has largely focused on visually striking artefacts. However, in the south-central Andes, goldwork is described essentially as a ‘sheet technology’—a definition tha...

Towards the end of the seventeenth century, Oxford's chymical community came together in the Ashmolean Museum. Founded in 1683, the institution was part of Oxford University and home to the first official chair of chymistry in the country, with practical teaching directed by Robert Plot in the basement laboratory. The information at our disposal is...

Debates on early metallurgy in Western Europe have frequently focused on the social value of copper (between utilitarian and symbolic) and its purported role in the emergence and consolidation of hierarchies. Recent research shows that generalisations are increasingly untenable and highlights the need for comparative regional studies. Given its loc...

Early and Middle Minoan goldwork has sparked numerous studies, with particular emphasis on possible foreign influences and the role of gold in the development of social hierarchies. This paper contends that the value and uses of gold can only be understood in connection to the broader organization of production and distribution. Through a biographi...

The life-histories of gold artefacts can provide rich insight into technology and culture, but so far the potential of this research approach has not been exploited in the south central Andes. Here we present the analysis of 34 gold and silver objects from the Middle Period cemetery of Casa Parroquial (San Pedro de Atacama, northern Chile), using p...

The differentiation between alchemy and chemistry as separate disciplines is relatively recent. As such, an understanding of the early history of chemistry requires an approach to actual laboratory activities that avoids anachronistic biases and generalisations. This paper presents the analytical study of an assemblage of early modern chemical vess...

The analytical study of ancient metalwork is a useful strategy to characterise past technologies, but in contrast with other American metalworking traditions this approach has been relatively limited in the context of pre-Columbian Colombia. As a contribution to this emerging research area, this paper presents the results of a compositional and tec...

A materials science approach can illuminate our understanding of the life history of medieval stained glass windows; however, chemical analysis has been inhibited by their architectural context, preventing the removal of samples. Non-invasive techniques that can be used in situ, such as handheld/portable X-ray fluorescence spectrometry (pXRF), are...

For more than a century, evidence for the production of crucible steel in Central and Southern Asia, prior to the European Industrial Revolution, has fascinated and challenged material scientists, historians and archaeologists. At the same time, chromium-alloyed stainless steel was developed in the early 20th century, building upon 19th century exp...

El papel de la metalurgia en las comunidades de la Edad del Cobre del Sureste de la península ibérica es una cuestión recurrente en la investigación arqueológica en Europa oc­cidental. A partir del análisis de isótopos de plomo y ele­mentos traza de restos arqueometalúrgicos, este artículo aborda la organización territorial de la producción meta­lú...

Cast iron smelting has been the dominant technique for iron production in Central Plains China since the 5th century BC. Objects made of grey or mottled cast iron have been identified in metallographic studies, yet the techniques employed to make them or the underlying motivations for producing such materials have not been studied in detail. Here w...

This chapter summarises the information about indigenous use of metals in the insular Caribbean (ethnohistorical and documentary information) and the development of archaeometric studies focused on materials excavated from Cuba. Present a generalizing view that acknowledges the importance of metal artifacts to indigenous cultures, notes continuitie...

Iron production in the Central Plains area of China has been largely based on cast iron smelting since ca. fifth century BC, with different techniques developed in the following Warring States period and Han dynasty to convert this material into malleable soft iron. Whilst there is a broad consensus about the evolution of technological traditions i...

The paper presents new research on an assemblage of metallurgical crucibles used in the assay of minerals at colonial Jamestown. The aim of the study is to explore the range of chemical operations carried out at the site of the first permanent British settlement in America, for which little is known in the documents. The results show that the colon...

The upper Ili Valley in northwest Xinjiang is a crucial place for the study of early interactions between the Eurasian Steppe and northern China. This paper presents scientific analytical results and examines the use and production of copper alloys in the region with regard to the transregional exchange of materials and technology. The substantial...

For forty years, there has been a widely held belief that over 2,000 years ago the Chinese Qin developed an advanced chromate conversion coating technology (CCC) to prevent metal corrosion. This belief was based on the detection of chromium traces on the surface of bronze weapons buried with the Chinese Terracotta Army, and the same weapons’ very g...

The origins of the silver trade across the Mediterranean, and the role of the Phoenicians in this phenomenon, remain contentious. This is partly because of difficulties encountered when trying to assign archaeological silver to its geological sources. Here we present a reanalysis of Iron Age silver hoards in the southern Levant, which demonstrates...

The origins of the silver trade across the Mediterranean, and the role of the Phoenicians in this phenomenon, remain contentious. This is partly because of difficulties encountered when trying to assign archaeological silver to its geological sources. Here we present a reanalysis of Iron Age silver hoards in the southern Levant, which demonstrates...

Traditionally, standardisation of manufacture has been investigated using metrics (e.g. length and width) and compared in terms of the coefficient of variation (CV). This paper argues that standardisation should not only be investigated via metrics, but also in terms of shape. An Iron Age lance head type ('Havor'), known from three main weapon depo...

Abstract At the heart of bureaucratic practice during Warring States and early Imperial China were regular, small acts of accountancy in which objects and people were marked so that their movements could be kept track of, their quality checked and their numbers marshalled. In the mausoleum complex of the Qin Shihuang (259-210 bc, the First Emperor...

Este artículo presenta los datos arqueológicos recuperados en las excavaciones del poblado castreño de El Castru, en Vigaña (Balmonte de Miranda, Asturias) realizadas en 2012 y 2013. Dicho yacimiento constituye un buen ejemplo de los pequeños castros de la Edad del Hierro en las montañas del área occidental cantábrica. Por ello, el análisis de las...

Provenancing exotic raw materials and reconstructing the nature and routes of exchange is a major concern of prehistoric archaeology. Amber has long been recognised as a key commodity of prehistoric exchange networks in Europe. However, most science-based studies so far have been localised and based on few samples, hence making it difficult to obse...

Raw data of all samples analysed. (XLSX)

In the present case study, the thermal conductivity of two post-medieval crucibles was determined. The investigated crucible fragments represented two broadly contemporary production sites, Groβalmerode and Obernzell, which were employing different types of raw materials (sand tempered kaolinitic clays and natural graphitic clays, respectively) and...

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 16th-century Spanish conquest of Colombia brought new technologies that altered and interacted with native metalworking traditions. In the colonial village of Santa Cruz de Mompox, renowned because of its goldsmithing tradition, indigenous groups and Spaniards experienced momentous encounters of individuals, metallurgical technologies and knowl...

Metal ingots are infrequent in the archaeological record, but when they do occur they can offer important insight into aspects of metallurgical technology and international trade. Here we present the elemental and isotopic characterisation of two post-medieval discoidal ingots found in Bromham, Wiltshire (UK), which are identified as Reißscheiben....

Big narratives on the role of metallurgy in social change and technological innovations are common in archaeology. However, informed discussion of these issues requires a contextualised characterisation of metallurgical technology at the local level in its specific social and technological contexts. This paper approaches early metallurgy in Iberia...

We present a detailed response to Professor Pernicka's critique of our paper entitled “Iridium to provenance ancient silver”. We have concluded that Pernicka's hypothesis, which suggests that elevated levels of iridium in ancient silver artefacts is a consequence of silver deriving from the cementation (parting) process, does not account for the av...

Trace levels of iridium in ancient silver artefacts can provide information on the sources of silver-bearing ores as well as the technologies used to extract silver. A geographically and chronologically disparate legacy dataset, comprised of Near Eastern objects from the Sasanian and Byzantine Empires (1st Millennium AD) and coins circulating aroun...

Trace levels of iridium in ancient silver artefacts can provide information on the sources of silver-bearing ores as well as the technologies used to extract silver. A geographically and chronologically disparate legacy dataset, comprised of Near Eastern objects from the Sasanian and Byzantine Empires (1st Millennium AD) and coins circulating aroun...

They can neither read nor write, and have no books, and all ancient history and other things which they know they learn by tradition from their ancestors (Dos Santos 1964, cited in Mudenge 1988: 1). Abstract For 400 years before the onset of British colonisation, northern Zimbabwe witnessed increased interaction between the locals and several Europ...

Bronze production during the Iron Age of the Iberian Peninsula is characterised by the use of a relatively simple technology, based on crucible-furnaces. In an area rich in mineral resources, bronze was produced on a small scale and within settlements, to be used for ritual, ornamental and functional objects. Here we present an analytical study of...

We report chemical, petrographic and metallographic studies of copper ores and slags recovered during sporadic surface surveys and excavations over the past fifty years in the Phalaborwa and Murchison Range areas of the northern Lowveld of South Africa. The copper slags around Phalaborwa have unusual mineral assemblages, attributable to the unique...

Mining and metallurgy have previously been cited as the sole activities that encouraged the permanent occupation of the agropastorally marginal region conventionally known as the northern Lowveld of South Africa prior to the nineteenth century. Archaeologists have previously documented more than 50 second-millennium AD settlements, associated with...

Archaeological theory is a fluid and fractured field that is an arena of lively debate. This Handbook will guide students and practitioners through this field in a novel way, connecting ideas in different schools of thought through the key problems upon which they focus. Major themes are tackled in review papers by experts in those areas, while the...

Two amorphous lumps of a black material with a combined weight of c. 1. kg were recovered during rescue excavations at the Mausoleum M1 of the King of Jiangdu, located at Dayun Hill, Jiangsu Province, China, and dated to the Western Han Period (202 BC-8. AD). This paper reports the analysis of this material by Fourier-transform infrared spectroscop...

Unlike art historians, archaeologists rarely make systematic attempts at attributing artefacts to individual artisans - they stop at the broader category of 'provenance regions' or 'technical styles'. The identification of archaeological individuals, however, allows detailed insight into the organisation of workshops, knowledge transmission, skill,...

This study focuses on the use of copper-alloys in the Tyrrhenian town of Leopoli-Cencelle (Italy) during the Middle Ages, and explores the technical aspects and sociocultural implications of metal consumption. Founded near the coast of the Tuscia region as a reaction to threats from Saracens, and located within the main trade routes linking Rome to...

This special issue honours Richard Klein's outstanding contributions to archaeology through his seminal role as a senior editor for the Journal of Archaeological Science (JAS). The papers presented here assess achievements in archaeological science during the 40 years of research since JAS began, and scope the future within evolutionary and social...

Cultural contact, exchange and interaction feature high in the list of challenging topics of current research on European Prehistory. Not far off is the issue of the changing role of monuments in the making and maintaining of key cultural devices such as memory and identity. Addressing both these highly-debated issues from a science-based perspecti...

The spread of the Inka state in the Aconcagua Valley (Central Chile) is thought to have been culturally mediated, avoiding military coercion, and thus leading to different forms of cultural acceptance, resistance or hybridisation. However, there has been no previous attempt to investigate the extent to which these interactions are reflected in the...

The invention and spread of lost-wax casting in South America is not amenable to explanations based on the concepts of practical or prestige technologies. Here we propose an alternative model to explain this phenomenon, based on a combination of technical analyses of Colombian metalwork and ethnographic information. A crucial element of our argumen...

Gold and silver production was of major importance for almost all ancient societies but has been rarely studied archaeologically. Here we present a reconstruction of a previously undocumented technology used to recover gold, silver and lead at the site of Baojia in Jiangxi province, China dated between the 7th and 13th centuries AD, and discuss its...

Recent excavations at the Fatimid and Zirid site of Sabra al-Mansuriya near Kairouan (Tunisia) provide the first evidence of lustreware production in medieval Ifriqiya, in the 10 th –11 th centuries AD. As the Fatimid dynasty moved from Ifriqiya to Egypt to establish its capital in Fustat (Cairo), technological connections with the Egyptian lustrew...

This paper explores the integration of chemical data with metric studies and spatial analyses of archaeological artifacts to investigate questions of specialization, standardization, and production organization behind large-scale technological enterprises. The main analytical focus is placed on the 40,000 bronze arrowheads recovered with the Terrac...

Structure-from-motion and multiview-stereo together offer a computer vision technique for reconstructing detailed 3D models from overlapping images of anything from large landscapes to microscopic features. Because such models can be generated from ordinary photographs taken with standard cameras in ordinary lighting conditions, these techniques ar...

The Terracotta Army that protected the tomb of the Chinese emperor Qin Shihuang offers an evocative image of the power and organisation of the Qin armies who unified China through conquest in the third century BC. It also provides evidence for the craft production and administrative control that underpinned the Qin state. Bronze trigger mechanisms...

This article presents a preliminary attempt to characterise Upper Thai-Malay Peninsula prehistoric iron technologies based on assemblages from two recently excavated coastal sites: Khao Sam Kaeo and Phu Khao Thong. These are the earliest known sites involved in the early trans-Asian exchange that connected the eastern Indian Ocean to the South Chin...

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 det...

This chapter discusses the critical role played by ceramics in the production and processing of metals across the world. In addition, it details some of the most fruitful avenues for the exploration of these technical ceramics through visual, microscopic and chemical and chemical analyses. When adequately studied, metallurgical ceramics offer data...

Archaeologists recovered Colonial-period metal ornaments from Tipu, Belize, the site of a Maya occupation from 300 BC to AD 1707. This project asks to what extent the technological attributes of these ornaments reflect Mesoamerican or European influences. Investigators used microanalytical techniques, such as metallography, energy dispersive X-ray...

Metals held important symbolic and political values for the indigenous communities of the Caribbean islands. However, metal objects are not abundant in indigenous archaeological sites, and their study has hitherto been very limited. This paper presents the results of the first analytical programme focused on metal artifacts recovered in a range of...