The Oxford Handbook of Neolithic Europe

by Chris Fowler

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  CHAPTER 36

  EARLY METALLURGY IN IBERIA AND THE WESTERN MEDITERRANEAN

  MARTIN BARTELHEIM AND MARK PEARCE

  IT is very difficult to imagine the effect copper had on the Neolithic world. One major impact will have been visual (Pearce 2007). Later, Homeric poetry describes the ‘shining’ or ‘flashing’ armour of the Greek and Trojan armies; in a world without metal, only water would have caught the light in the same way. This quality may have meant that early metal objects functioned much as ‘bling’ does in the modern world, as a marker of wealth or identity. The technological qualities of metal were also revolutionary: metal artefacts can be repaired without the loss of raw material (unlike stone tools) or recycled to make new objects, and metal can be formed into complex shapes by casting or working. Finally, copper, silver, and gold are relatively scarce, and are not distributed uniformly across the landscape; thus metal use, or the possession of metal resources, may possibly be a measure of wealth. It might therefore be maintained that metalwork is an important index for the emergence of social complexity.

  THE IBERIAN PENINSULA

  The Iberian peninsula is potentially important for early metallurgy due to its almost ubiquitous wealth in ores (Bartelheim 2007, fig. II.7). However, our knowledge differs significantly from region to region. The southern half of the peninsula, and especially the Spanish region of Andalusia, is best known.

  The Chalcolithic

  The metal-using phase of the Iberian Neolithic is usually named ‘Chalcolithic’ and represents the final Stone Age and transition to the Bronze Age. Nevertheless, its development and exact absolute chronology are still much debated. At the beginning of the twentieth century a division was made between a Bell Beaker and a pre-Bell Beaker phase on the basis of finds from the southern Spanish settlement and cemetery of Los Millares (Molina and Cámara 2006, 26–30). Settlement stratigraphies at Vila Nova de São Pedro and Zambujal (Portugal) and the Cerro de la Virgen (Andalusia) (Schüle 1980; Sangmeister and Schubart 1981) made it possible to refine the chronology into an early, full, and final Chalcolithic (Martín et al. 2000). The full Chalcolithic is represented by the Los Millares culture (or Los Millares I culture) and the late Chalcolithic by the appearance of Bell Beakers (Los Millares II). In terms of absolute chronology it can only be stated that the entire Los Millares culture covered the period fr
om c. 3000 until c. 2300 BC (Castro et al. 1996, 79–82).

  Settlements are characterized by many small and a few large complex sites. The large settlements cover several hectares and like some of the smaller sites (e.g. Almizaraque, Terrera Ventura, El Malagón, Cerro de la Virgen) (Nocete 2001) are surrounded by defensive works.

  Burials are usually collective in megalithic tombs (Leisner 1943) and in caves. Individual burials appear from the mid third millennium, but remain a minority until the Bronze Age, making it difficult to identify the social rank of individual persons. Nevertheless, in view of the limited number of Chalcolithic graves and monumentalism of megalithic tombs, it is not unlikely that those buried there were members of an elite (Lacalle 2000). The existence of large fortified settlements also suggests a socially dominant group even if this is not reflected in what we currently know about their organization. On the basis of size it seems very likely that the large settlements functioned as central places for the surrounding area. Their complex fortifications support this. Unfortunately, extensive excavations have not been carried out inside the settlements, nor have the catchment areas been investigated sufficiently to verify this assumption.

  Early metallurgy

  The earliest treatment of copper ores was found by excavations at the Neolithic settlement of Cerro Virtud in Andalusia. The excavators reported a pottery sherd with copper slag adhering to it in a secure middle Neolithic stratigraphic context. It points towards the use of local carbonate copper ores. The corresponding archaeological layer (in which no metal objects were found) has been radiocarbon dated to around 4910–4460 BC (Montero and Ruiz 1996). The sherd is totally isolated in the regional chronology, with the next evidence for metallurgical activities dating to the third millennium BC. It is therefore impossible to say if it indicates the independent discovery of metallurgy on the Iberian peninsula (Rovira 2002, 85).

  Metal objects have only been found in significant numbers one and a half millennia later in the graves of the full Chalcolithic—after an ill-defined late Neolithic/early Chalcolithic with almost no metalwork. Most of these finds come from Andalusia (Fig. 36.1, Chalcolithic metal types in Andalusia), with the fortified settlement at Los Millares being the most prominent site. In this period arsenical copper was the main material produced from copper ores that also contain arsenic. Ores of this kind are abundant and easily accessible in the south of the Iberian peninsula (Gómez Ramos 1999; Montero 2004). There is no evidence for working tin bronze in the Iberian Chalcolithic.

  FIG. 36.1. Chalcolithic metal types (in Andalusia). 1,3-4,6,8-9 Los Millares; 2 Gádor, Loma de Huéchar; 7 Gádor, Loma de la Rambla de Huéchar; 10-11, 13-14 Almizaraque; 12 Fonelas; 15-16 Mojácar, Loma de Belmonte (after Leisner 1943 and Bartelheim 2007).

  Indications for metallurgical activities are almost entirely restricted to the portable remains of copper production: pieces of ore, mortars, grinding stones, hammerstones, slags, and fragments of slag-encrusted crucibles that were used to smelt ores. Important finds were only made in settlements, mainly in the south of the peninsula (Los Millares, Almizaraque, La Pijotilla, Cabezo Juré, Valencina de la Concepción) (Gómez Ramos 1999, Montero and Rovira 2013) and in the west (Zambujal, Leceia, Vila Nova de São Pedro) (Gómez Ramos 1999, 54–55; Müller and Soares 2008). No fixed smelting furnaces are currently known before the beginning of the Iron Age (Gómez Ramos 1999, 45–77, 181–186). The smelting of copper ores took place in mobile crucibles which were often placed in simple pit furnaces (Rovira 2002; Müller et al. 2004) like those recently excavated at Valencina de la Concepción near Seville (Nocete et al. 2008, Costa Caramé et al. 2010). However, residues of metal working—crucibles, casting waste, moulds, and semi-products—are found fairly frequently at settlements.

  Chalcolithic copper mines were unknown on the Iberian peninsula until recent discoveries at Mocissos and Angerinha (southern Portugal). Here traces of copper mining were radiocarbon dated to the third millennium BC (Goldenberg and Hanning, in press). Oxide ores were exploited (mostly malachite and azurite with high arsenical content), fragments of which are frequently found at Chalcolithic settlements on the Iberian peninsula.

  Socioeconomic context of early metallurgy

  Only a few sites have been investigated to an extent that allows substantiated statements about the scale and importance of metallurgy. Nevertheless, the distribution of metallurgical residues over almost all the Iberian peninsula shows there was hardly anywhere that metal had to be imported from afar. This is also true for raw materials—in the Chalcolithic mostly copper, but also gold—as the distribution map of ore resources reveals (Bartelheim 2007, fig. II.7). On those sites investigated sufficiently to make statements about the scale of metallurgical activities—Almizaraque (Montero 1994, 114–115) and Los Millares (Hook et al. 1987; Montero 1994, 143–146)—it becomes obvious that metallurgy could not have been the economic basis of the settlements. Residues were only found in small quantities with production just serving local needs.

  A survey of the available studies of early metallurgy on the Iberian peninsula reveals that in contrast to an often fairly good knowledge of several stages of Chalcolithic metal production in some areas—e.g. in Andalusia, in the northern Meseta, or in the Comunidad Valenciana (Delibes et al. 1999; Simón 1999)—it is not yet possible to reconstruct the entire chaîne opératoire of metals including their distribution and organization.

  Among the finds of the Iberian Chalcolithic metal plays a minor role. On most sites metal objects were found in small numbers. They are made mainly of pure copper, but a significant number contain 1–10% arsenic (Rovira et al. 1998, figs 3, 4). Gold is very rare. The range of object types is limited and consists of axes, daggers, awls, knives, saws, and projectile heads (Bartelheim 2007, fig. II.19). Ornaments are hardly known. Presumably, most weapons and tools were made of stone or organic materials.

  The use of metal objects as status symbols can hardly be estimated given that we do not know the original quantity of metals. If it is assumed that megalithic tombs were burial places of high-ranking groups, and metal objects were valuable in the early days of metallurgy, then it seems quite likely that persons of high status were marked by depositing metal in their graves (Kunst 2013; cf. Robb, this volume). It remains, however, unclear whether differences in quantity and kind of metal objects can provide information about social differences (Bartelheim 2007, 58–60, 265). Other objects whose acquisition was difficult, either because the raw materials had to be imported—like ivory (Schuhmacher et al. 2009; Schuhmacher 2013), marble, variscite, tuffite, or several kinds of flint—or due to a sophisticated production technique—like long flint blades, and the heavily decorated stone vessels or idols—probably also functioned as status symbols. They are usually found in graves together with metal objects.

  In view of the narrow range of types and the fairly low number of pieces in Chalcolithic contexts, it seems likely that metallurgy was not the driving force of technological and social change and lacked an important economic function (cf. Chapman 1990). Settlements concentrate in regions with good agricultural conditions, suggesting that the power of the elites was economically based on agriculture (cf. also Nocete 2001, 45).

  THE ITALIAN PENINSULA

  Earliest metallurgy c. 4500–3500 BC

  The earliest use of copper artefacts in Italy seems to date to around the mid-fifth millennium BC. The evidence is uncertain, as contexts are not reliable, but a number of copper axes are known (Pearce 2007, 38–42); they are all relatively small in size and seem to be skeuomorphs of polished stone axes. It is noteworthy that this earliest evidence is mostly from the Po valley, in the north of Italy, far from the Aegean which has traditionally been considered the origin of Italian metallurgy (e.g. Cazzella 1994). Similar axes found in central Italy seem to have been cast in two-piece moulds (Giardino 2013, 19–20) and are therefore probably later in date.

  The working of metal in Italy also first appears in the north, at the Chassey-Lagozza culture site of Bott
eghino near Parma where copper smelting is demonstrated by smelting slag and a crucible fragment, and has been radiocarbon dated to about 4300 BC (Mazzieri and Dal Santo 2007). Two copper awls were also found. This early date is paralleled by evidence from Brixlegg, in the Inn valley of Austria, where the smelting of fahlore is attested at 3960–3650 BC, and possibly even earlier as radiocarbon determinations for the Münchshöfener culture level in which the metalworking was found range from 4500 to 4160 BC (Höppner et al. 2005). Interestingly, cultural relations with Italy are attested by the finding at Brixlegg of pottery of Italian origin (datable to c. 4200 BC) and southern Alpine flint (Huijsmans and Krauß 1998, Abb. 305, 306).

  It is in the late fifth and early part of the fourth millennium that copper use and working begins to become widespread in Italy. Most of the artefacts documented in this period are copper awls or points (though axes are also found), and similar artefacts are known in the early metallurgy of the Balkans, Aegean, Austria, Switzerland, and southern Germany (Pearce 2007, 46–47). They are likely to have been used as pressure-flaking tools for the manufacture of bifacial flint implements, which become common in this period, though they may also have been used for tattooing, leatherworking, and basket-making (Pearce 2007, 48–50). It is often argued that early copper must have been very scarce, and therefore carefully conserved because of its value. However, the early awls in Italy are all casual losses (or discards) at settlement sites; it seems odd that they were not recovered and recycled and/or repaired. The implication is that their owners could afford to lose them and thus that copper artefacts were relatively easy to obtain or perceived as having little value. Consequently, we might argue there was much more copper in circulation than is documented by finds to date. An alternative hypothesis must also be considered: that once broken, awls could not be repaired as the local communities using them lacked the necessary know-how, and so they were discarded (Pearce 2007, 48–51, Table 3.8).