What is one of the advantages of the TOPWAR site is that in the process of discussing the materials published on it, its readers constantly suggest, or even suggest to the authors new interesting topics. "Directly on demand", for example, a series of articles about the uprising of Spartacus was born, from the topic of "Russians and Hyperboreans" - material about haplogroups, but numerous questions on the topic of bronze weapons simply force us to raise the topic of the emergence of metallurgy on the planet. We will not consider here its origin millions of years before our era, in the era of thinking reptilians, and about the planet Nibiru, and its nahuaks, who allegedly brought metal to people, there will also be nothing in it. So those who find all these ideas significant and interesting can be directly advised not to read it. Well, for everyone else, you can start with the fact that the famous triad - the Stone Age, the Bronze Age and the Iron Age at one time, namely back in 1836, was proposed by the curator of the Copenhagen Museum collections, Christian Thomsen, who compiled a guide to the museum's exposition, and now in it, all his archaeological materials were arranged according to the cultural-chronological scheme of three eras or three centuries - stone, bronze and iron, developed by him.
Ancient copper knives and their modern remakes.
At the same time, he briefly substantiated his idea that the Stone Age was the most ancient, followed by a period of using bronze tools, after which the Iron Age came with its iron tools and weapons. At the end of the 50s of the last century, the outstanding researcher and public figure Marcelin Berthelot took up the analysis of archaeological objects made of metal. Studying the chemical composition of ancient bronzes, he noticed that a number of them are made of pure copper and do not contain tin additives. The French explorer was able to appreciate this discovery only after his trip to Egypt in 1869 for the grand opening of the Suez Canal. Then, after analyzing some of the most ancient Egyptian artifacts, he found that they also lacked tin, and based on this, he suggested that copper tools were older than bronze ones. After all, they were made even when people did not know tin. Well, he decided so simply because he considered the technology for the production of bronze to be more complicated than the processing of pure copper. And that is why the Egyptians, for example, earlier than all other metals knew lead, which is very easy to smelt from ore.
Neophytes, who have only a little "dug up" historical science, love to talk about the massive counterfeiting of bronze artifacts. But if they looked into the storerooms of at least some of the major museums, they would be presented with such a tremendous amount of unseen specimens that a significant part of the GDP of even an economically developed country would have gone to fake them. And … in this case, what was the purpose of producing all this, delivering it to different countries, burying it in the ground at different depths, and then waiting for everyone to find it? And if they don’t find it, what then? And this, not to mention the fact that many of the finds were made back in the Renaissance and under Peter the Great, when no one had even heard of radiocarbon analysis and the potassium-argon method. That is, it is difficult to even imagine a more stupid invention.
Only after many decades will it be possible to prove that there are many artificial copper alloys that do not contain tin at all. It was from them that those objects were made, which Berthelot analyzed and recognized as "pure copper". However, in general, he made the correct conclusion, on the basis of which the Chalcolithic (or Eneolithic) was added to the Thomsen triad - the Copperstone Age or the intermediate era between the Neolithic and the Bronze Age, or the initial period of the latter.
Metal products approx. 7000 BC and up to 1700 BC: copper knives and their replica schemes. Archaeological Society of Wessex.
But even with the discovery of the Chalcolithic, which apparently occupied a significant place in the history of mankind, Thomsen's triad was by no means destroyed. After all, bronze is an alloy derived from copper. After all, we do not use the term "steel age", since steel is a derivative of iron, and nothing more.
Stone ax of the Ashelian era. Museum in Toulouse.
Archaeological finds have proved that people usually got metal after they mastered ceramic production. In addition, as a rule, these were not nomadic hunters, but sedentary farmers and pastoralists. Moreover, this happened when people began to build and live in the first cities or proto-cities, as these settlements are called by some scientists, but which, nevertheless, had walls and towers surrounding them, built of stone.
Jadeite ax. Canterbury, Kent, UK, c. 4,000 - 2,000 BC. British museum.
However, a number of interesting details have also emerged. So, for example, as it turned out, the ceramic Neolithic was preceded by the Pre-ceramic Neolithic, when in some settlements of this type, utensils were still made of wood and stone, but metal was already known. But in other cities they also did not know ceramics, they also used dishes made of stone, but they did not know metal …!
Late Neolithic obsidian arrowheads c. 4300 - 3200 BC BC. Archaeological Museum in Naxos.
The fact that all this was exactly so, and not otherwise, is confirmed by the discovery in Palestine of such an ancient city as Jericho, dating back to the pre-Pottery Neolithic era! It was unearthed by the English researcher M. Kenyon back in the 50s of the last century. It was a real city, already in the 9th century, occupying an area of about 1.6 hectares, with powerful cultural deposits 13.5 m thick! A completely unique moat was found, carved into the rock, and a massive stone tower 7.5 m high, 10 m in diameter at the base, equipped with a stone spiral staircase inside.
Drilled stone ax from Nasby, Sweden. Eneolithic.
Its inhabitants did not know ceramics and, apparently, used only stone and wooden vessels. At the same time, they molded masks from clay on the turtles of their dead relatives and knew how to grow cereals and graze cattle. Obviously, this was the very end of the Stone Age, and other settlements are also known where people had a similar ritual. For example, in the villages of Basta and Al-Ghazal in Jordan, residents also kept the skulls of their ancestors with faces realistically sculpted from clay, which suggests that this custom was massive at that time, although in time these settlements were older than Jericho by a whole thousand years!
Cyprus. Choirokitia. UNESCO cultural heritage.
For seven thousand years BC, that is, in the Neolithic era, an extremely strange civilization arose on the island of Cyprus. There were discovered several settlements belonging to the pre-ceramic culture, the largest of which was named Choirokitia, after the name of the village that lies today on the hill where it was excavated.
Excavations here were carried out from 1934 to 1946 by the Greek archaeologist Porfirios Dikaios, but later they were interrupted due to the Greco-Turkish conflict. Only in 1977, French archaeologists were again able to engage in excavations in Khirokitia and study the artifacts found there. As a result, a truly unique picture of Neolithic town planning was revealed to scientists. The fact is that this was not an ordinary settlement. It was a real ancient city, representing a single architectural ensemble, consisting of residential and utility buildings, a powerful wall separating it from the surrounding world, and a three-span stone-paved stairway leading from the foot of the hill to its top, which rose above the plain by more than 200 meters.
Real hives, aren't they?
Yes, there was already an ancient "city" in Khirokitia, but there was no metal yet. To begin with his description, it occupied the entire southern slope of the hill, picturesquely descending in three ledges to the river bank, and was also located along its course, and their location suggests that the river at that time was much more full-flowing than it is now. time. The city was surrounded by a stone wall 2.5 meters wide. We can only guess about its height, since the highest level that has come down to our time is equal to three meters, but, most likely, at that time it should have been at least a little higher. Archaeologists have excavated 48 buildings, but it turned out that this is only a small part of the settlement, which was huge at that time, in which there were thousands of houses. The structures of the buildings, some of which have been restored today and which can be entered, are extremely original. These are cylindrical buildings - tholos - with an outer diameter of 2.3 m to 9.20 m, and an inner diameter of 1.4 m to 4.8 m. Walls in some houses were repeatedly coated with clay, therefore, in some dwellings, up to 10 of these were found layers. Some houses have two stone pillars that are believed to have supported the floor of the second floor, which could have been made of branches and reeds. The hearth was on the ground floor between these pillars. The doors had a high threshold and a floor buried in the ground. So in order to get inside it was necessary first to step over it, and then go down the steps to the dwelling. It is interesting that near each such building there are small round annexes, most likely for household purposes. Moreover, all buildings are located so close to one another that together they give the impression of a hive.
Or maybe they were like this?
For a long time it was believed that the roofs of these dwellings were domed. But when the remains of a flat roof were found on one of them, it was decided that they were flat, which was done on the buildings restored today in this settlement.
Pomos Idol is an ancient sculpture from the Cypriot village of Pomos. Belongs to the Eneolithic era (XXX century BC). It is currently on display at the Cyprus Archaeological Museum in Nicosia. The sculpture depicts a woman with her arms spread apart. Most likely, it is an ancient symbol of fertility (fertility). In Cyprus, at one time, quite a few figurines similar to it were found, including smaller ones, which were most likely intended to be worn around the neck as amulets.
It is interesting that for some reason the inhabitants of this ancient "city" buried their dead right in their homes. The deceased was laid in a hole dug in the middle of it, sometimes they pressed him down with stones, after which they covered him with earth, and the floor was tamped, leveled, and continued to live in this house further. Why they did this, today we can only guess, but there is a fact that there was a special spiritual closeness between the living and the dead inhabitants of ancient Khirokitia, and it was she who made them do this, and not bury the dead away from their homes, as was practiced by most others peoples.
Ceramic figurines. Aiani Archaeological Museum. Macedonia.
However, archaeologists only benefited from this form of burial, since each new house provided them with rich material for studying the life and life of the people who lived here. However, before we talk about the objects found in these burials, let's try to restore their appearance, which became possible only thanks to such a specific form of burial.
It turned out that the Chirokitians were not very tall - for men the average height did not exceed 1.61 meters, women were even shorter - only about 1.5 meters. Life expectancy was also low: about 35 years for men and 33 years for women. Not a single burial of old people has been found, and this is very strange, because for more than a thousand years of residence of a sufficiently large group of people in one place, several old people could well have been found. But there are a lot of burials of children, which indicates a high child mortality. The deceased in the graves are found in "folded" poses, and along with them lie various household items and decorations. First of all, these are stone bowls, often broken, apparently for some kind of ritual purpose (they say, the person "left", so they broke his bowl!), Stone beads, bone hairpins, pins, needles, as well as anthropomorphic stone figurines without any signs of gender. It is also very interesting that no special places of worship were found in this settlement, from which it was concluded that in the Neolithic settlement of Khirokitia, as such, religion or cult, in the modern sense of the word, did not exist. Although it is possible that they still had a religion, only its rituals in places of worship simply did not need.
This is what the excavation site looks like. Of course, for a layman, this is not a very impressive sight.
As for stone tools, the inhabitants of the city reached a high level in their manufacture, which, as a rule, is a very characteristic feature of the pre-ceramic cultures of the Neolithic era. Almost all of the utensils found here were made of greenish-gray andesite, a volcanic rock. Archaeologists have found round, rectangular, and oblong stone bowls up to 30 centimeters long. Some of them were decorated with carvings in the form of stripes or rows of ribs, indicating that the Choirokitians had a very definite aestheticization of everyday life. There is also unknown for what used river pebbles, covered with carvings. Women's jewelry found in burials was represented by stone beads and pendants made of carnelian and gray-green picrite - one of the varieties of basalt, as well as beads from dental shells, shaped like wild boar tusks. The fact that sickles, arrowheads and spearheads and a number of other items were found among the finds, and obsidian itself is not found in Cyprus, indicates that the inhabitants of Choirokitia have contacts with Asia Minor and Northern Syria. And it is clear that they could carry them out only by sea. Consequently, the Hirochitians either sailed on the sea themselves, or contacted those who sailed and, accordingly, traded with them. During the excavations, even a small fragment of fabric was found, which will make it possible to find out what people of the Neolithic era could wear. Well, the finds of bone needles indicate that they already knew how to sew their clothes.
Early Bronze Age. Knives from the Cyclades 2800 - 2200 BC. Archaeological Museum in Naxos.
The Choirokitians were engaged in agriculture. And although no cereal grains were found during the excavations, the archaeologists made this conclusion on the basis of the sickle blades they found, hand graters and stones for grinding grain. Accordingly, the arrowheads and spearheads testify that they were also engaged in hunting, and the bones of sheep, goats and pigs, that they knew about animal husbandry, although not necessarily that these were the bones of domestic animals. What scientists cannot explain why the Choirokitians, who settled in the seventh millennium BC. here by the river, on these picturesque slopes, they lived here in this city for a thousand years, reached the apogee in the development of their pre-ceramic stone culture, and then disappeared without a trace, it is not clear where and why. And only one and a half thousand years later, this place attracted the attention of people who settled here and brought with them a completely new Neolithic culture with very characteristic and very beautiful ceramics painted in red and cream tones.
Prehistoric copper mine in the Negev desert in Israel.
That is, there have always been exceptions to the rules and will probably be. True, it is rather difficult to judge this, because archaeologists have excavated far from everything, including in Cyprus. But, as we have already noted, no metal was found in Khirokitia or in other settlements of this culture. Those who settled in these places after a thousand years did not have metal either! And where then were the first metal items found by archaeologists? This will be discussed in the next article.
