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Early Places Without and With Metals |
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Logic dictates that somebody, sometime, and somewhere used a metal, most likely
copper, for the first time. Unfortunately, he or she did not record that "first"
for posterity. The ancient inventor probably did not consider his deed to be something very special, not to mention that
writing hadn't been invented yet.
All we have is therefore what trained archaeologists (or untrained treasure hunters)
dug out of the ground somewhere. We must discard all objects not "scientifically" excavated in almost all cases
because we just don't know exactly where they come from and how old they are. |
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We also must treat objects excavated by early archaeologists with some care because
these guys may not have properly recognized what they found. When Napoleon's "archaeologists"
started digging and collecting stuff in Egypt, it wasn't clear to everybody that lead (Pb), graphite
(C) or galena (PbS) were completely different things, and the lead - galena confusion survived to some extent until modern times.
Modern archaeometallurgy right now is cleaning up the mess
left by hundreds of years of misunderstandings, wrong guesses or just plain mistakes made by well-meaning but not always
knowledgable archaeologists. It's not easy and in many cases definite answers cannot be given. One simply cannot determine
the exact age of an old copper or bronze object. C14 dating won't work, and no
other methods are known. For iron containing some carbon (i.e. for steel), C14 dating might work but it is not a simple
task. Dating thus is always tied to where, exactly, the object was found; i.e. in which
layer of a know stratification. |
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What I will do here is to look at some of the oldest
presently known archaeological sites where metals have been found. In all but one case we deal with native copper, picked
up "from the ground". In order to put the findings in context, we also need to look at comparable places where
no metals have been found. One might ask why the metal-less ancient cultures did not pick up available native copper and gold and made something from it, considering that other
cultures, not all that different, did just that a little later. One might argue that the stuff simply was not available
in the immediate environment of the metal-less old towns, and that is certainly a good reason. However, even the very oldest
organized cultures or societies covered in the links above did some long-distance trading, acquiring things that were not
easy to find in their own stomping grounds, for example bright green copper ores like malachite, or sea shells. One might
guess that nobody then used native metals.
All these places were centers of the
"Neolithic revolution", the period when humans
changed their life-style from being hunters and gatherers to settling down. Domesticating animals like pigs, sheep and goats
started, and so did agriculture by cultivating and breeding crops like wheat, emmer or barley (for making beer). That triggered new developments in other areas, too. If you can't go
out hunting with the boys anymore but have to stay at home most of the time, the most urgent business for the men is to
keep the females happy (and busy). Colorful jewelry
thus predates advanced technologies, like making pottery in kilns, or metallurgy. In fact, most of the very first metal
objects found were copper beads used for jewelry. |
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In the lists above I therefore start with some early places were no
metals have been found. Notice that I don't say that no metals shave been used. In some
places just a few tiny copper pearls have been found - in a space that covers a large area and several hundred years. Not finding something does not necessarily means it wasn't there under these circumstances.
Most of the early places I cover are in Anatolia and some of these places have been found just recently, causing major sensations
and plenty of speculations.
While I give you a lot or piecemeal information, the link provides for a very readable
article "History of Mining and Metallurgy in Anatolia" that puts it all together.
The authors are well-known
archaeometallurgists who we have met several times already: Ünsal Yalçýn
and Hadi Özbal. The article can be found in the Net
without a quotation; I hope the authors forgive me for including it here. |
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The following graph gives a time line
on the towns covered in the links. Note that the dating (typically "C14 technology")
is uncertain to some extent; every source seems to give slightly different times. If in doubt, I picked a kind of average.
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I have also included a rough draft of the average temperature during the
time slot involved; it is based on the results form the ice-core drilling in Greenland (a complete and correct curve is
given in this link). The average temperature in Anatolia
is certainly not well represented in this graph, but the general trend should be right. The rise in the average temperature
around 13 000 BC is the reason for the neolithic revolution, i.e. the transition
from (migrating) hunters and gatherers to sedentary farmers and animal keepers. |
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| Time line of early settlements mostly in Anatolia and Copper finds |
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Finally, here is a map of Turkey with the locations of these
places. A related map showing the "fertile crescent" is here. |
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© H. Föll (Iron, Steel and Swords script)
With frame
General Remarks to Literature and Sources