The rise of metallurgy in Eurasia: Evolution, organisation and consumption of early metal in the Balkans

人类历史上最重要的技术成就之一是物质的转化，最引人注目的是冶金术的发明。这引发了经济、社会和文化发生根本性变化的全新时代。该项目的核心成员最近在塞尔维亚Belovode进行的挖掘显示，铜冶炼可以追溯到公元前5000年，使其成为世界上任何地方最早的冶金活动全面发展的记录（Radivojevic etal . 2010）。这种最早的冶金是如何以及为什么在巴尔干半岛出现和发展的，显然是独立于近东的，是这个研究项目的中心。迄今为止，对冶金起源的研究大多是孤立的，脱离了其技术、社会和环境背景。现在需要的是一种系统的和跨学科的方法，利用具有足够高的考古和考古冶金分辨率的遗址和组合来追踪它们相互关系中的这些发展。我们最近在Belovode的研究揭示了这方面的巨大潜力，我们的项目现在寻求在Belovode和其他类似的长春花文化遗址实现这一潜力。由于政治局势，自20世纪90年代以来，塞尔维亚几乎没有与此相关的国际研究；我们的国际团队由早期巴尔干冶金领域的知名和新兴学者组成，旨在克服这一中断。这家英国和塞尔维亚的合资企业，以及著名的德国同事，也是一种旨在交流知识和技能以及为未来建立持久关系的合作。该项目包括在塞尔维亚的三个铜矿开采、生产和消费地点进行有针对性的挖掘和调查，以及在英国和德国的实验室对发现进行深入的科学分析。挖掘的重点是两个地点的已知金属车间，以及一个与史前矿山有关的潜在第三个地点。我们期望从分层良好的聚落环境中获得孔雀石等铜矿物、孔雀石和金属珠等人工制品以及冶金废料，使我们能够了解早期的珠制工艺与冶金在单个聚落中的出现和新角色之间的关系，以及更广泛的温卡文化。对遗骸的实验室研究将使我们能够重建金属生产的技术方面，以及它与用于制作珠子的孔雀石的关系，以及早期引入陶器生产作为全面发展的冶金技术的可能先驱。对铜矿物和金属文物的微量元素和同位素比率的研究将有助于重建矿石和金属的贸易及其消费，揭示Vinca文化不同定居点之间的多层相互作用，通常沿着主要河流路线（多瑙河，萨瓦河等）。通过结合这些不同的考古冶金方法，结合实地考察、技术重建和文化发展的理论考虑，该项目重新审视了金属首次出现并随后在巴尔干地区形成、分布和使用的技术、社会和环境背景。关于冶金学起源的一个主要讨论常常集中在这样一个问题上：金属冶炼是否只被发明一次，可能是在西亚，然后传播到欧亚大陆，或者是否有几个独立的发明实例发生。我们的团队由两种思想流派的代表组成，确保我们的研究和后续解释的平衡方法。

One of the most significant technological achievements in human history is the transformation of matter, most spectacularly the invention of metallurgy. This triggered a whole new era of fundamental economic, social and cultural changes. Recent excavations by the core members of this project at Belovode in Serbia revealed copper smelting dated to c. 5000 BC, making it the earliest record of fully-developed metallurgical activity anywhere in the world (Radivojevic et al. 2010). How and why this earliest metallurgy emerged and developed in the Balkans, apparently independently from the Near East, is at the centre of this research project. The origins of metallurgy have so far been studied mostly in isolation and detached from their technological, social and environmental context. What is now required is a systematic and interdisciplinary approach using sites and assemblages of a sufficiently high archaeological and archaeometallurgical resolution to trace these developments in their mutual relationships. Our recent research at Belovode has revealed the huge potential to do this, and our project now seeks to realise this potential at Belovode and other similar Vinca culture sites. Due to the political situation, little internationally-connected research relevant for this has been done in Serbia since the 1990's; our international team comprises established and emerging scholars on early Balkan metallurgy in an attempt to overcome this hiatus. This UK-Serbian joint venture, together with prominent German colleagues, is a collaboration also designed to exchange knowledge and skills as well as build lasting relationships for the future. The project combines targeted excavations and surveys at three copper mining, production and consumption sites in Serbia with intensive scientific analysis of finds at laboratories in Britain and Germany. The excavations focus on known metal workshops in two sites, and a prospective third site associated with prehistoric mines. We expect to retrieve copper minerals such as malachite, artefacts such as malachite and metal beads, and metallurgical waste from well-stratified settlement contexts, enabling us to understand the relationship between the earlier craft of bead making and the emergence and new role of metallurgy within the individual settlements, and the wider Vinca Culture. The laboratory-based study of the remains will allow us to reconstruct technical aspects of the metal production, and how it related to malachite used for bead making and the earlier introduction of pottery production as possible pre-cursors to a fully-developed metallurgy. The study of trace elements and isotope ratios of copper minerals and metal artefacts will facilitate the reconstruction of trade in ore and metal, and their consumption, revealing the multiple layers of interaction between the different settlements of the Vinca Culture, often along major river routes (Danube, Sava etc.). Through a combination of these different approaches to archaeometallurgy, combining fieldwork, technological reconstruction, and theoretical considerations of cultural development, the project looks afresh at the technological, social and environmental context in which metal first appeared and was subsequently shaped, distributed and used across the Balkans. One major discussion concerning the beginning of metallurgy often centres on the question whether metal smelting was only invented once, probably in western Asia, and then spread across Eurasia, or whether there are several independent instances of this invention happening. Our team comprises exponents of both schools of thought, ensuring a balanced approach in our research, and the subsequent interpretations.