Tin and Bronze Production in the Iron Age of Southern Africa

南部非洲铁器时代的锡和青铜生产

• 批准号: 0542135
• 负责人: David Killick
• 金额: $ 14.67万
• 依托单位: University of Arizona
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Standard Grant
• 财政年份: 2006
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2006-05-01 至 2009-04-30
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=0542135&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: Tin; Bronze; Production; Iron; Age

The Rooiberg valley in northwest South Africa, close to its border with Botswana, is notable for its abandoned prehistoric tin mines and associated furnaces for smelting tin, and for alloying tin with copper to make bronze. When tin mining was restarted here in the early 1900's, mining engineers estimated prehistoric production at about 2000 tons of tin metal. These are the only known instances of tin or bronze production in southern Africa, but after a century of unsystematic research at Rooiberg, basic questions remain unanswered. When did tin mining begin here, and why? When did it end, and why? And what happened to the large quantities of tin produced here? With National Science Foundation support, a team of American, British, South African and Zimbabwean researchers will begin to study these questions through one field season of excavations in 2006. This will be followed by a year of intensive scientific analysis of the excavated remains, and of related materials from prior excavations and museum collections in both South Africa and Zimbabwe. The fieldwork will concentrate upon locating and excavating smelting sites. We anticipate that the earliest evidence of tin production can be dated by radiocarbon. We do however expect that the peak of smelting activity was from the 17th through the early 19th centuries CE, a period in which radiocarbon dating is unusable. Sites in this period will be dated by optically-stimulated luminescence, backed up by the use of archaeomagnetism as a relative dating technique.The technology of tin and bronze production in the Rooiberg valley will be reconstructed by chemical analysis, metallography and thin-section petrography of the excavated remains. Since it is certain that the large quantity of tin mined here was not consumed in the Rooiberg area (which appears to have been lightly populated throughout the presumed time period of production) a major aim of this project is to develop trace element and isotopic fingerprints for tin and bronze produced from Rooiberg tin and copper ores. We will measure the concentrations of trace elements in excavated tin and bronze by plasma mass spectrometry, and the ratios of stable lead isotopes by high-precision multicollector plasma mass spectrometry. The final stage of the project will be to compare the trace element fingerprints for Rooiberg tin and bronze to those of tin and bronze objects from archaeological sites elsewhere in south Africa, Botswana and Zimbabwe, and to tin produced from other potential ores in southern Africa. The archaeological finds range in age from the 13th through the 19th centuries CE, while the find spots are up to 700 km distant from Rooiberg. Thus the main aim of the project is to document the emergence of an indigenous southern African industry and the extent of the trade network through which its products passed. The project will provide valuable postdoctoral training for a Zimbabwean archaeological scientists and predoctoral training for at least three graduate students from South Africa and one from America.

南非西北部的鲁伊贝格山谷靠近博茨瓦纳边境，以其废弃的史前锡矿和相关的炼锡炉以及将锡与铜合金化制成青铜而闻名。20世纪初，当锡矿开采在这里重新开始时，采矿工程师估计史前锡金属产量约为2000吨。这些是南部非洲唯一已知的锡或青铜生产实例，但经过鲁伊贝格世纪的非系统研究，基本问题仍然没有答案。这里的锡矿开采开始是什么时候，为什么？ 什么时候结束的，为什么？这里生产的大量锡又发生了什么？在国家科学基金会的支持下，一个由美国、英国、南非和津巴布韦研究人员组成的小组将于2006年开始通过一个实地挖掘季节来研究这些问题。随后将对挖掘出的遗骸以及先前在南非和津巴布韦挖掘和博物馆收藏的相关材料进行为期一年的密集科学分析。实地工作将集中于寻找和挖掘冶炼场地。我们预计，锡生产的最早证据可以通过放射性碳测年。然而，我们预计冶炼活动的高峰期是从17世纪到19世纪初，这是一个放射性碳测年无法使用的时期。 这一时期的遗址将通过光激发发光法测定年代，并以考古磁学作为相对年代测定技术。将通过对出土遗迹的化学分析、金相学和薄片岩相学，重建鲁伊贝格河谷锡和青铜生产技术。 由于可以肯定的是，这里开采的大量锡没有在Rooiberg地区消费（在整个假定的生产时间段内，该地区似乎人口稀少），因此该项目的主要目的是为Rooiberg锡和铜矿石生产的锡和青铜开发微量元素和同位素指纹。我们将用等离子体质谱法测定出土锡和青铜中的微量元素浓度，用高精度多接收器等离子体质谱法测定铅的稳定同位素比值。 该项目的最后阶段将是将Rooiberg锡和青铜的微量元素指纹与南非其他地方、博茨瓦纳和津巴布韦考古遗址的锡和青铜物品的指纹以及从南部非洲其他潜在矿石中生产的锡进行比较。考古发现的时代从公元13世纪到19世纪不等，而发现地点距离鲁伊贝格最远700公里。因此，该项目的主要目的是记录南部非洲土著工业的出现及其产品所经过的贸易网络的范围。 该项目将为一名津巴布韦考古学家提供宝贵的博士后培训，并为至少三名来自南非的研究生和一名来自美国的研究生提供博士前培训。