In the past material of a new series of articles on metallurgy * and the culture of the Bronze Age - "The first metal products and ancient cities: Chatal-Huyuk -" a city under a hood "(part 2) https://topwar.ru/96998-pervye-metallicheskie-izdeliya -i-drevnie-goroda-chatal-hyuyuk-gorod-pod-kolpakom-chast-2.html”it was about the ancient city in modern Turkey Chatal-Huyuk and the traces of the oldest metallurgy of the planet discovered there. Today we continue this topic, which has so interested many VO readers. And the story will go a little differently than before. It will be not so much about specific findings as about questions of theory and … our Russian priority in the study of the ancient bronze metallurgy of Eurasia.
Copper spearheads. State of Wisconsin, 3000 - 1000 BC. Historical Museum of Wisconsin, USA.
From the old paradigm to the new
It has always been and always will be that from time to time there are people who are in some way ahead of others with their views. That is, they either receive some insight, or, which happens much more often, they work hard all their lives, and as a result come to conclusions based on the results of their many years of research. In our country, such a researcher of the history of ancient metallurgy was Evgeny Nikolaevich Chernykh, a Russian archaeologist, head of the laboratory of natural scientific methods of the Institute of Archeology of the Russian Academy of Sciences, Doctor of Historical Sciences, Professor, Corresponding Member of the Russian Academy of Sciences ** and the author of many significant works on this topic [1]. The most important thing, however, of everything that he did while studying ancient metallurgy was to change the entire paradigm, that is, the complex of scientific data or axioms associated with the history of its origin. The original paradigm was based on the theory of monocentrism, that is, the opinion that the birth of metallurgy took place in one place. Accordingly, population migration was declared the most important mechanism for the diffusion of innovations. The leading position in it was occupied by the principle of development "from simple to complex" on the basis of morphological and typological analysis of ancient artifacts and the construction of systems of relative chronology. And, of course, the “triad of centuries” - stone, bronze and iron - was the fundamental basis in this paradigm. In 1972, E. N. Chernykh argued that the question of the ways of origin and spread of metallurgy among the population of the Old World is still open.
Rough copper axes. The same period, culture, museum.
But now time has passed, and what does he offer now? Now a new paradigm is proposed: unconditional polycentrism in the development of metallurgical ancient cultures; explosive and often “ragged”, leaping rhythm of the spread of new technologies; in which the observance of the principle "from simple to complex" did not always take place. Regression and even failures in "climbing to the heights of mastery" often manifested themselves. As for the "Thomsen triad", it is associated only with the main, but far from all Eurasian cultural communities, not to mention other territories.
The Wisconsin State Museum's copper products are typical of the American Copper Age.
Much of it, in general, was evident before. So, for example, it is quite clear that metal processing in ancient China arose out of connection with the metallurgical cultures of Asia and Europe, and was of an explosive nature, that is, there were at least two centers for the emergence of metallurgy in Eurasia. Moreover, this is only in Eurasia. Because on the territory of the New World there were their centers of origin of metallurgy and their own metallurgical cultures, and in many respects different from the Eurasian ones.
Indians "yellow knives".
Yes, but in what sequence did people in ancient times acquire metal? Are there any generalizing diagrams of the processes of the emergence of metallurgy, or are scientists limited only to a simple statement of the presence of processed metal or an equally simple dichotomy - there is no metal yet, the metal is already there! Of course, there are such schemes, and there are quite a few of them, but two of them are perhaps the most optimal, the first of which belongs to the Dutch scientist Robert James Forbes, and the second to the English historian of metallurgy Herbert Henry Coglen.
Metal in four stages
Both the one and the other created their own schemes for the distribution of metal on the planet, based on the data of archeology and … their own logic, since there was not enough archaeological data to substantiate a number of their provisions. Let's start with the first scheme of R. Forbes, which consists of four stages.
I - stage - the use of native metal as a stone;
II - stage - the stage of native metal, like metal. Native copper, gold, silver are used, and meteoric iron is processed by forging;
III - stage of obtaining metal from ore: copper, lead, silver, gold, antimony; copper alloys, tin bronzes, brass;
IV - stage of iron metallurgy.
The scheme is quite logical and consistent, but it has a very general character, and this is its advantage and, at the same time, its disadvantage. In addition, R. Forbes did not have so many reasons to substantiate the first two stages. The more successful and convincing E. N. Chernykh considers the scheme of Herbert Henry Coglen, the famous English historian of metallurgy.
A - cold and then hot forging of native copper, taken as a kind of stone;
B - melting native copper and using simple molds open on top for casting products;
C - smelting pure copper from ore - the beginning of true metallurgy;
D - the appearance of the first bronzes - artificial copper-based alloys.
What does this diagram mean? First of all, that during the Eneolithic period or the Copperstone Age (phases A, B, C), significant advances were made in the technology of working with metal. In fact, the foundation was laid for all future metallurgy as a whole, while the Bronze Age itself became only the development of the basic, previously mastered by man, metal processing techniques.
Accordingly, considering the spread of metal around the planet as a whole, we can be convinced that yes, indeed - all these phases of the development of copper and bronze metallurgy in the history of mankind were present, but … had different meanings in different places. For example, the forging of native copper has nowhere played such a big role as … in North America, in the Great Lakes region, where copper deposits were so rich that they were used from ancient times to the twentieth century!
In the United States in the state of Georgia, for example, mounds of the so-called Etova Mounds culture have been discovered. It has been proven that this area was inhabited around 1000-1550 AD. NS. Indians of the Mississippi culture, who possessed a fairly high level of metal processing technology. This is evidenced by numerous tools and weapons made of copper, as well as plates decorated with embossed ornaments and images. When copper products in the burials protected the fabric from the effects of the earth, archaeologists found brightly colored fabrics decorated with patterns under them.
In the photo you can see a model of the settlement of Etova Mounds. These were fortified settlements, in many respects identical to similar and even later cultures of Europe. However, its inhabitants knew only one metal - native copper!
Therefore, when we say "copper age", thus distinguishing it from the "bronze age" and "copper stone", then there really was such a "century" in the history of mankind, but … it was nothing more than a local culture of the North American continent, and many Indian tribes both on the prairie, and in the South, and in the North practically did not use copper products, while others even got their name from the products they made from native copper, for example, the tribes of "yellow knives" - tatsanotins, chipwayan, kaska, glory and beaver.
Funeral figurines of the Etowa Mounds culture. It should be noted that there were many similar crops on the North American mainland and in the region of the Mississippi River Basin.
The real copper age
That is, the "real copper age" was in North America, and when the hunters for the precious metal came there after Columbus, it turned out that the local Indians did not know not only iron, but also bronze. Their main metal was native copper.
Copper bird. American Museum of Natural History, New York.
And it so happened that in the central part of the North American continent and south of the Great Lakes, already in the distant past, there was one of the largest river systems in the world - the Mississippi River with tributaries, which covered a huge territory. This river system served as a convenient "transport artery" for the ancient inhabitants of these places, and it was here that the area of a highly developed culture of hunters and gatherers was formed, which received the name Woodland in science. Here also ceramics appeared for the first time, the tradition of the construction of burial mounds, the rudiments of agriculture began to take shape, but most importantly, copper products appeared. The epicenter of this culture was the area along the Mississippi and its tributaries - the Missouri, Ohio and Tennessee rivers.
Mississippi culture. Headdress pendant. Collection of the National Museum of the American Indian.
The main centers for processing native copper in this area are the modern territories of the states of Wisconsin, Minnesota and Michigan. Already in the V-III millennium BC, local craftsmen were able to make arrowheads and spearheads, knives and axes from copper. Subsequently, the Woodland culture was replaced by other cultures, for example, Adena and Hopewell, whose representatives created beautiful copper jewelry and ritual memorial "plaques", and exquisite decorative plates, and dishes from thin sheets of wrought copper. A kind of "money" in the form of copper plates, and those already appeared among the Indians of the North-West, when Europeans came to them at the beginning of the 16th century.
Ohio, Ross County. Hopewell Cultural Art Samples. OK. 200 -500 BC AD Exhibited at the Serpent Museum, Ohio.
However, be that as it may, no matter what wonderful products the local Indians did not create, but they processed copper in the most primitive ways, and did not know such a technological technique as smelting! Copper was mined by them from pure ore veins in the form of nuggets, then they were flattened with hammer blows, after which, having obtained sheets of the required shape from it, they cut out the necessary figures from them or engraved patterns using cutters made of bone or stone.
Until recently, it was believed that the Indians of the North American mainland did not know hot forging, although some researchers considered the use of such a method by local craftsmen likely. The latest metallographic studies of a number of copper products have shown that the technology of hot forging was still known to the Indians. The sizes, shape and structure of copper grains inside the products that have come down to us were analyzed, which made it possible to conclude that they first pounded the workpiece with a heavy hammer, after which they laid it for 5-10 minutes on hot coals, which caused the copper to soften and lose brittleness, and repeated this operation many times until a thin copper sheet is obtained.
However, in the very north of the continent, both Greenlanders and Eskimos also used copper nuggets to make nails, arrowheads and other weapons, as well as tools without melting. This, in particular, was told by the Scottish merchant and traveler, agent of the Canadian North-West (fur) company, Alexander Mackenzie, who visited these places at the end of the 18th century and testified that the peoples living along the entire coast of the Arctic Ocean, native copper was well known and they knew how to handle it. Moreover, they forged all their products cold with only one hammer.
Copper plate depicting a Falcon dancer found in the Etovskie burial mounds.
It should be noted that the source of native copper both for the inhabitants of the Mississippi basin and for the Indians-northerners was its deposits from the area of Lake Superior on the border of the modern USA and Canada. Here were the richest reserves of high-quality copper ore, although usually native copper in industrial volumes is extremely rare. In this regard, the copper ores of this region are unique. The ore-bearing region stretches here along the shores of one of the largest lakes in the world for about five hundred kilometers. And if nuggets of gold weighing 10 kilograms can literally be counted on the fingers, then in relation to copper, North America for giant nuggets can be said to be just lucky. Here, on the Kyoxinou Peninsula, nuggets weighing 500 tons were found, that is, only one such nugget could provide a whole Indian tribe with metal, and for a rather long period.
Therefore, it is hardly surprising that by the time the Europeans arrived in these places, the mine workings were already heavily used up and even overgrown with forest. But they found here traces of workings, near which they found stone hammers, copper tools and charcoal, and this was a whole "mining area" with a length of more than two hundred kilometers.
Industrial copper mining in the area of Lake Superior began in 1845 and continued until 1968. During this time, about 5.5 million tons of copper were mined. In 1968, these mines were mothballed. The remaining copper reserves are estimated at about 500 thousand tons. That is, it is obvious that ore mining has been carried out here for many millennia. When exactly it began is a question that is still controversial. It is believed that the mining of native copper began here around the 6th-5th millennia BC. But there is another point of view, according to which this deposit began to be developed several millennia before the specified time, and the legendary Atlanteans were still developing them!
A knife blade made entirely of copper. Archaeological Museum of the Palazzo del Podesta. Bologna. Italy.
However, the Atlanteans are Atlanteans, but nowhere else in the world is there such clear evidence that humanity in its development had such a period as the Copper Age. In other regions, artifacts made of native copper are so rare for archaeologists that it is not possible to conclusively identify the time of their appearance in a separate period and call it the “copper age”. In addition, due to their venerable age, these products are sometimes in such a deplorable state that it is simply impossible to carry out a correct analysis of their chemical composition on their basis, let alone determine what kind of copper went into their manufacture - native or smelted from ores. And the dating of such artifacts is also often highly questionable. So it is North America that remains the only real place on the planet where once upon a time in antiquity there really was a "copper age"! A certain conditionality of this definition is due to the fact that here the use of stone tools also took place, as in the Eneolithic era on the territory of Eurasia. But there, the technology of cold forging was quickly replaced by casting in open molds, while the North American Indians still continued to forge the bulk of their products until the arrival of the Europeans from pieces of native copper, and they did not know how to smelt copper from ore, that is, they did not master metallurgy itself. ! And why this never happened is unknown!
For those who are interested in the works of E. N. Chernykh, we can offer the following works for in-depth study:
• History of the oldest metallurgy in Eastern Europe. M., 1966.
• Metal - man - time. M., 1972.
• Mining and metallurgy in ancient Bulgaria. Sofia, 1978.
• Ancient metallurgy of Northern Eurasia (Seima-Turbino phenomenon) (together with S. V. Kuzminykh). M., 1989.
• Metallurgical provinces and radiocarbon chronology (with LI Avilova and LB Orlovskaya). M., 2000.
* In an artistic form, how it all happened, that is, how a person got acquainted with the "new stone", very clearly showed in his historical story "The Tale of Manko the Bold - a hunter from the tribe of Coastal people" S. S. Pisarev.
** S. V. Kuzminykh "Copper Mountain Nugget": to the 80th anniversary of E. N. Chernykh // Russian archeology. 2016. No. 1. P. 149 - 155.
(To be continued)
