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

人类历史上最重大的技术成就之一是物质的转变，最引人注目的是冶金的发明。这引发了一个全新的经济、社会和文化变革时代。该项目的核心成员最近在塞尔维亚的Belovode进行了挖掘，发现铜冶炼可以追溯到公元前5000年，使其成为世界上最早有充分发展冶金活动的记录(Radivojevic等人)。2010)。这一最早的冶金是如何以及为什么在巴尔干地区出现和发展的，显然是独立于近东的，这是本研究项目的中心。到目前为止，对冶金起源的研究大多是孤立的，脱离了它们的技术、社会和环境背景。现在需要的是一种系统和跨学科的方法，使用具有足够高的考古学和考古学分辨率的遗址和组合来追踪这些发展及其相互关系。我们最近在Belovode的研究揭示了这样做的巨大潜力，我们的项目现在试图在Belovode和其他类似的Vinca文化遗址实现这种潜力。由于政治局势的原因，自1990年代的S以来，与此相关的国际研究很少在塞尔维亚进行；我们的国际团队由巴尔干早期冶金方面的知名和新兴学者组成，试图克服这一间歇。这家英国-塞尔维亚合资企业与著名的德国同事一起，也是一项旨在交流知识和技能以及为未来建立持久关系的合作。该项目结合了对塞尔维亚三个铜开采、生产和消费地点的有针对性的挖掘和调查，以及对英国和德国实验室发现的密集科学分析。发掘的重点是两个地点的已知金属车间，以及与史前矿山有关的第三个预期地点。我们希望从分层良好的聚落环境中回收孔雀石等铜矿、孔雀石和金属珠子等人工制品以及冶金废料，使我们能够了解早期珠子制造工艺与个别聚落和更广泛的芬卡文化中冶金技术的出现和新作用之间的关系。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，以及它与用于制造珠子的孔雀石之间的关系，以及早期引入陶器生产作为充分发展冶金的可能先驱。对铜矿物和金属制品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贸易及其消费，揭示通常沿主要河流(多瑙河、萨瓦等)的芬卡文化不同聚落之间的多层次相互作用。通过结合这些不同的考古冶金方法，结合田野调查、技术重建和文化发展的理论考虑，该项目重新审视了金属最初出现的技术、社会和环境背景，以及随后在巴尔干地区塑造、分布和使用金属的背景。关于冶金起源的一个主要讨论往往集中在这样一个问题上，即金属冶炼是否只发明过一次，可能是在西亚，然后传播到整个欧亚大陆，或者是否有几个独立的例子发生了这种发明。我们的团队包括两个学派的倡导者，确保在我们的研究和后续解释中采取平衡的方法。

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.