John Malalas presents Hephaestus as a king of Egypt who was deified as an inventor who made weapons and so provided his subjects with nourishment and strength in war. In the context of the Greco-Roman discussion of the progress of civilization and the identification of inventors, this may seem innocuous, even a commendation. But this discourse does not unite war and hunting, as Hephaestus’s inventions do. This combination seems to allude by inversion to the biblical ideal of harmony among people and between people and beasts, and so makes Hephaestus an agent of human delinquency. This denigration is confirmed by the magical initiation of Hephaestus’s ironsmithing. It is, however, by implication and allusion, rather than outright denunciation, that Malalas achieves his critique of the traditional gods and their deification.

Relative to the centuries preceding and following it, the tenth century a.d. in Mesoamerica is poorly understood by scholars. Although there is some regional variation in the timing of these events, archaeologists commonly ascribe a pattern of political decline, dynastic collapse, or social reorganization to this period. Paradoxically, increasing interregional interactions and emergent market exchange networks are also characteristics of macroregional patterns during the tenth century. These contradictory phenomena contribute to confusion surrounding interpretations of this transitional time. This article contributes a comparative dataset from systematic archaeological investigations of El Coyote, a monumental center in the lower Cacaulapa valley, Department of Santa Barbara, Honduras. The late occupational phase contains evidence for Early Postclassic chronological markers, including Tohil Plumbate pottery; obsidian from Pachuca, Hidalgo; and copper metallurgy. Calibrated radiocarbon assays with a 2σ error place these contexts between a.d. 710 and 1040, with a clustering of intercepts circa a.d. 900. These results are consistent with a pattern described throughout Mesoamerica and demonstrate that despite variation in the use of cultural terminology—Epiclassic, Terminal Classic, or Early Postclassic—there is uniformity in the timing of this macroregional interaction.

The article presents the results of research on the absolute chronology of the Nižná Myšľa cemetery. Due to its scale and location in a key region of the Carpathian Basin, it should be considered one of the most important Early Bronze Age sites in Central Europe. Many years of archaeological research have so far failed to provide adequate data on absolute chronology. This text presents the results of statistical and spatial analyses on a series of newly acquired 14C dates. They allowed us to present a model of the spatial and chronological development of the funerary space and to capture the stage of significant cultural change associated with the adoption of a new raw material—bronze.

The appearance of Beaker pottery in Britain and Ireland during the twenty-fifth century bc marks a significant archaeological horizon, being synchronous with the first metal artefacts. The adoption of arsenical copper, mostly from Ireland, was followed by that of tin-bronze around 2200 bc. However, whilst the copper mine of Ross Island in Ireland is securely dated to the Early Bronze Age, and further such mines in the UK have been dated to the Early and Middle Bronze Age, the evidence for the exploitation of tin ores, the other key ingredient to make bronze, has remained circumstantial. This article contains the detailed analyses of seven stone artefacts from securely dated contexts, using a combination of surface pXRF and microwear analysis. The results provide strong evidence that the tools were used in cassiterite processing. The combined analysis of these artefacts documents in detail the exploitation of Cornish tin during this early phase of metal use in Britain and Ireland.

Knowledge of alloying practices is key to understanding the mass production of ancient Chinese bronzes. The Eastern Zhou text, the Rites of Zhou, contains six formulae, or recipes, for casting different forms of bronze based on the combination of two components: Jin and Xi. For more than 100 years, the precise interpretation of these two components has eluded explanation. Drawing on analyses of pre-Qin coinage, the authors offer a new interpretation, arguing that, rather than pure metals, Jin and Xi were pre-prepared copper-rich alloys, in turn indicating an additional step in the manufacturing process of copper-alloy objects. This result will be of interest to linguists, as well as archaeologists of ancient Chinese technology.

Se presenta el primer análisis composicional, morfológico y contextual de objetos metálicos de la Puna Meridional argentina (1430-2070 aP) para contribuir al conocimiento de la metalurgia centro-surandina del cobre, desde un espacio marginal a los principales centros productivos relacionados con esta tecnología. Mediante microscopia electrónica de barrido y análisis de energía dispersiva de rayos X (MEB-EDS) se identifican cobres sin alear y aleaciones de cobre-arsénico y de plomo-arsénico, con una variedad de elementos minoritarios que corresponderían a distintas menas y, potencialmente, distintos lugares de producción en los Andes centro sur. El metal habría circulado a largas distancias en distintos trayectos en el marco de las redes sociales que vincularon ámbitos a diferentes alturas en ambas vertientes andinas. La Puna Meridional constituiría un nodo en esta circulación durante el período Medio. Allí el metal se integró a rituales domésticos del grupo corresidente de fundación, de clausura y referidos al ciclo anual agropastoril, mediante los cuales se propiciarían sus animales domésticos y se reclamaría el territorio.

Dated to the transitional period from the Bronze Age to Early Iron Age (fourteenth to eighth centuries BC), a unique site discovered at Tartas-1 in Western Siberia has yielded the remains of frame-and-post structures, metallurgic furnaces, votive bronze objects, pottery fragments, and animal and human bones. The authors argue that this site represents the first known cultic complex in Western Siberia.

The assayers’ ingots recovered in 2014 from the SS Central America contain geochemical signatures and anomalies which convey information about the culture of miners and assayers in the late 1850s. A significant number of ingots (21%) contain elevated copper and zinc in the same ratio as a common brass alloy of the period, suggesting that adulteration of placer gold dust was a common issue. The ingots with the brass-like signature also have a gold fineness much lower than measured for typical California placer gold. Trace elements like palladium in uniform concentrations in all Kellogg & Humbert ingots suggest the use of quality high-temperature tools, while lead and tin in all ingots suggest specific contamination and industrial hygiene issues common to the whole industry. Other trace constituents such as arsenic, antimony and bismuth are likely to have originated from dense minerals associated with placer gold, or from the natural placer gold alloy itself. Comparison of modern analysis of ingots vs. assay values stamped on the ingots themselves suggests some firms like Kellogg & Humbert did superior assay work, while others like the San Francisco office of Justh & Hunter probably had issues with quality control. The variations in assay ingot alloy chemistry provide a window into this important period in American history.

A Late Bronze Age hoard from Karmin, Poland, contained 16 socketed axes, half of which were made of copper. The copper axes represent the same local type as the bronze objects and bear the same traces of manufacturing and use. The authors argue that the move to copper was a response to unexpected difficulties in the tin supply.

In this article we present the fragments of a crucible and a possible tuyère that provide evidence of early copper metallurgy in Scandinavia at least 1500 years earlier than previously thought. The technical ceramics were found in a cultural layer containing Early Neolithic Funnel Beaker pottery dating to around 3800–3500 bc beneath a long barrow dating to 3300–3100 bc. The presence of a copper alloy in the crucible is confirmed by three independent X-ray fluorescence analyses using both a hand-held and a stationary instrument, SEM-EDS analysis of a cross-section, as well as a Bruker Tornado μ-X-Ray-fluorescence scanner (μ-XRF). The transmission of metallurgy to southern Scandinavia coincided with the introduction of long barrows, causewayed enclosures, two-aisled houses, and certain types of artefacts. Thus, metallurgy seems to be part of the new networks that enabled the establishment of a fully Neolithic society.

The south-eastern Black Sea area is a key region for understanding the history of iron metallurgy. While Classical texts mention the people living in this area as producers, and perhaps even inventors, of iron, material evidence has been lacking. Recent archaeological survey and scientific analyses now make it possible to investigate iron technologies in the region during the mid to late first millennium BC and the medieval period, providing new insights into the metallurgical tradition that inspired such admiration in the Graeco-Roman world. These results have implications for the smelting of iron in liquid state, although it remains unclear where and when this technology first appeared in Western Eurasia.

We examined copper production at the archaeological site of El Manchón, located in the Sierra Madre del Sur of Guerrero, using archaeological, historical, ethnographic, and materials engineering data. Thirty-six AMS wood charcoal samples from El Manchón, analyzed using Bayseian statistics, date the two domestic sectors of El Manchón from cal AD 1250–1440 (Sector 1) and cal AD 1280–1680 (Sector 3). The smelting sector (Sector 2) contains copper ore and slag and dates to cal AD 1630–1825. Historical sources show that the Spanish had no experience smelting copper metal and were forced to negotiate with indigenous specialists to acquire smelted copper. These specialists provided it in return for tax exemptions and other economic privileges. The indigenous specialists requested iron tools for mining; the Spanish suggested introducing bellows to smelt copper in volume. In the smelting sector we excavated the stone foundations and a slag cake that conform to the dimensions of a hand-powered bellows-driven furnace in which the copper ore was smelted in a circular depression known as a cendrada. Thus far, this furnace design has only been excavated at El Manchón. This bellows-powered furnace was likely operated by indigenous Manchón specialists, who probably initially smelted copper using the more ancient blowpipe technology. The dates for the smelting and occupation of El Manchón overlap.