South-East Europe

Copper was the first metal used by humans, a practice that began at different times in various parts of the world. The earliest evidence comes from the Near East around 10,000 years ago, when some early farming communities started to experiment with surface finds of native copper. Initially collected for their golden colour, it was soon discovered that these small pieces of pure copper could be cold-hammered into desired shapes, making them different from rock minerals. This first occurred in areas such as northern Iraq and eastern Anatolia where native copper occurs naturally. By 7000 BC there is evidence from sites such as Cayönü in Anatolia for the heating of native copper (annealing) to improve the production of beads, awls, and other small objects (Muhly 1988, 1989). In time, this led to another important discovery, namely that native copper could be melted and poured into moulds at temperatures around 1083º C. It is not certain when this first occurred, but most probably in the sixth millennium BC (see Pernicka and Anthony 2010 for overview). One of the reasons for the slow development of metallurgy in the Near East was the scarcity of native copper. The growing interest in metal eventually led to experimentation with copper minerals, such as malachite or azurite (Wertime 1973). These were initially used for non-metallurgical purposes, with malachite beads dating to the eleventh millennium BC known from a number of sites, including Shanidar Cave in northern Iraq (Solecki 1969). They were first recognized during the search for native copper, when rock outcrops were discovered bearing the distinctive green or blue staining produced by oxidation of copper minerals. The extraction of these surface minerals must have led in some instances to underground mining. It is not certain when copper ore was first smelted in the Near East. The dating of copper smelting slag at Catal Höyük in south-central Anatolia to the seventh millennium BC remains contentious. The earliest secure evidence comes from the later fifth millennium BC, at sites such as Norsuntepe in southeast Anatolia and Abu Matar in the northern Negev, Israel (Pernicka 1990; Golden et al. 2001).