|
|
| |
|
|
Scientists Debunk Claim of Copper Smelting was invented 8,500 years ago in Turkey-2018 China(Guangzhou)Int¡¯l Non-Ferrous Metal£¨Copper£©Exhibition
8/31/2017 Copper exhibition -non-ferrous metals expo |
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- |
|
Haare Tz reported that scientists have debunked the claim that prehistoric peoples living in central Turkey 8,500 years ago invented copper smelting, putting an end to one fierce controversy. It was known all along that the copper beads found in 8,500-year-old graves at the famous Late Neolithic site of Çatalhöy¨¹k were made by hammering native metal found in nature, not by smelting. But 15 bits of supposed "metallurgical slag", supposedly the "earliest evidence" for metal smelting in the world, are now shown to have been accidentally produced in a conflagration that half-melted green pigments that had been placed in a grave.
Smelting involves isolating metal from ore-bearing rock by intense heating. Professor Ernst Pernicka, of the University of Heidelberg, confirms that the native-copper beads found at Çatalhöy¨¹k and this "slag" were not chemically related.
That further supports the theory that the artifacts were made by manipulating local rocks and the "slag" wasn''t from smelted copper ornaments put into the grave, but from copper-rich pigment that burned with the dead.
Professor Thilo Rehren of the UCL Institute of Archaeology Rehren told Haaretz that "Not every piece of semi-molten black and green stuff from an excavation is necessarily metallurgical slag. Yes, there are native copper beads in Çatalhöy¨¹k and no, they don''t count as ''copper production'' because they are just stones collected and hammered into shape, no melting involved. The native copper beads are part of a Neolithic (Stone Age) technology of collecting and hammering minerals and stones. And therefore they don''t constitute metallurgy."
Fifty years ago, the analytical technology didn''t exist to check whether these 15 semi-baked bits in an 8,500 year-old grave were made of native copper or the result of metallurgy, Rehren explains. Now such technology exists, enabling the re-assessment of the earlier assumptions, including by the same team seven years ago.
Ms Miljana Radivojevic of the University of Cambridge, lead author of the paper published this month in the Journal of Archaeological Science said that the metallurgists had realized all along that the handful of Çatalhöy¨¹k "slag" samples were only semi-baked. That indicated a non-intentional, accidental copper firing event. But the ''eureka'' moment of how and why that happened arrived quite late. She said that "When our pigment specialist (Duygu Camurcuo?lu of the British Museum) mentioned earlier examples of green and blue copper pigments in graves and our excavation specialist (Shahina Farid of the UCL Institute of Archaeology) reported firing events involving charred bones and materials in shallow graves, the penny started to drop.¡±
Radivojevic told Haaretz that so, the oldest known proven smelting remains are in Belovode, Serbia, from around 7,000 years ago. There Radivojevic and the team did identify intentionally-produced copper slag, which has been analytically confirmed as the source for at least 16 heavy copper implements found across the Balkans.
-2018 China(Guangzhou)Int¡¯l
Non-Ferrous
Metal£¨Copper£©Exhibition
|
|
|
|
|
