Repealing the Çatalhöyük extractive metallurgy: the green, the fire and the ‘slag’
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...
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| Main Authors: | , |
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| Format: | Article (Journal) |
| Language: | English |
| Published: |
15 August 2017
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| In: |
Journal of archaeological science
Year: 2017, Volume: 86, Pages: 101-122 |
| ISSN: | 1095-9238 |
| DOI: | 10.1016/j.jas.2017.07.001 |
| Online Access: | Verlag, Volltext: http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jas.2017.07.001 Verlag, Volltext: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0305440317301024 
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| Author Notes: | Miljana Radivojević, Thilo Rehren, Shahina Farid, Ernst Pernicka, Duygu Camurcuoğlu |
| Summary: | 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 Catal-hoyuk 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. |
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| Item Description: | Gesehen am 15.11.2017 |
| Physical Description: | Online Resource |
| ISSN: | 1095-9238 |
| DOI: | 10.1016/j.jas.2017.07.001 |