Archaeometry & Materials Analysis: Metallurgical Analysis (Other Keyword)
26-50 (56 Records)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2021: General Sessions" session, at the 86th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. In both historical texts and modern narratives, the southern frontiers of China throughout the Pre- and Early Imperial era have been oversimplified as a geographical and cultural composite with underdeveloped conditions that have been slowly, but effectively, penetrated by the more civilized, powerful central state. This research aims to break such conceptual...
The medieval Basque iron industry, cultural traits in technological traditions (2019)
This is an abstract from the "The Movement of Technical Knowledge: Cross-Craft Perspectives on Mobility and Knowledge in Production Technologies" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The Basquesmith project investigates ironworking production during Early Medieval times ‒mostly utilitarian iron implements such as ladles or keys‒ excavated in rural settlements in the Basque Country (northern Spain), focusing on the characterisation of the manufacture...
Metal Production at Abu Muslim qala: An Analysis of Metallurgical Waste from a Medieval Site in Central Asia (2024)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2024: Individual Abstracts" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Abu Muslim qala is a multi-phase site located west of the Sultanuizdag mountain range in Karakalpakstan, Uzbekistan, with an occupation beginning as early as the seventh century AD. Situated along the route connecting two of the region’s most prominent medieval cities, Abu Muslim qala may have played a role in the broader network of medieval metals trade...
The Metallurgical Cycle and Human Responses to Material Fatigue (2018)
Innovations in metallurgy had and continue to have significant and transformative effects on society. From mineral exploration and mining to primary metal production, manufacturing, and consumption across a range of social contexts, metallurgy influenced a wide range of distinctly human conditions. However, while metals are particularly transmutable, they also rapidly corrode back into increasingly stable mineral compounds in processes that people tried to mitigate and often unsuccessfully...
A Metallurgical Study of Early Bronzes from Northern Vietnam: Some Thoughts on Methodology, Local Practices and Inter-regional Interaction (2019)
This is an abstract from the "The Current State of Archaeological Research across Southeast Asia" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. This paper presents the results of the metallurgical analysis of 43 fragments of bronze artifacts recovered from Bronze Age sites in northern Vietnam. It represents the largest systematic study undertaken so far of early north Vietnamese bronzes using a range of archeo-metallurgical techniques. The artifacts, which are...
Metallurgy in the Arc: Technological Choice and Resource Management Strategy during the Late Shang Period (2024)
This is an abstract from the "Resources and Society in Ancient China" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The concept of the Arc, proposed in 1980s by Tong Enzheng and further developed by J. Rawson in the last 10 years, refers to the vast landscape stretching from northeast to southwest China. Its unique geography incorporates both pastoralism and agriculture, vital to the communication between the Eurasian Steppe to the Central Plains of China in...
Mining, Extractive Metallurgy and Imperialism in the Inka Empire (2018)
The Inka empire directed significant resources and labor towards the extraction of metals from the provinces. Using the examples of Porco (silver), Viña del Cerro (copper) and the Tarapacá Valley (copper and silver), this poster explores Inka strategies for obtaining metallurgical wealth. These case studies show that, as suggested by ethnohistoric sources, large-scale silver extraction was directly overseen by the state. In contrast to models of more indirect state involvement typically...
Miskwabik’s Journey beyond Minong: Copper Production Systems among Hunger-Gatherers in the Northern Lake Superior Basin 4,000–6,000 Years Ago (2023)
This is an abstract from the "From Hard Rock to Heavy Metal: Metal Tool Production and Use by Indigenous Hunter-Gatherers in North America" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Over the past 10,000 years, hunter-gathers in the Lake Superior Basin have utilized primary and secondary deposits of native (elemental) copper in a production and exchange network that spanned across and beyond the North American Midcontinent. The production system that...
A Morphometric Comparison of Copper versus Stone Weapon Tips from the Old Copper Culture (2023)
This is an abstract from the "From Hard Rock to Heavy Metal: Metal Tool Production and Use by Indigenous Hunter-Gatherers in North America" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The Old Copper Culture in the western North American Great Lakes region is one of the few areas in the world in which people produced both copper and stone weapon tips. However, a robust quantitative comparison of these implements has, to our knowledge, never been conducted....
Museums Are Repositories of Knowledge: Using Museum Collections to Recontextualize Culture Contact and Colonial Entanglements in the Pacific Northwest (2021)
This is an abstract from the "Cabinets of Curiosities: Collections and Conservation in Archaeological Research" session, at the 86th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Museum assemblages enable and support conservation archaeologies by facilitating comprehensive and multifaceted studies that consider large study areas, time depth, and multiple artifact types. Museums can also work to facilitate ethical research practices by supporting conversation and collaboration...
New Insights for Provenance Studies of Iron Artifacts (2018)
The study of the production and trade of metals is one of the means to highlight the technical and social organization of societies. Among several issues, the question of the provenance of the metal is of primary importance and can lead to enlighten the organization of the production (spatial and temporal structures of the chaine opératoire) and of the supply networks. Concerning iron and its alloys, these last years have seen important developments in archaeological sciences to address the...
A New Perspective on the Ore Source Supply and Potential Provenience of Han Bronzes from the Broader Lingnan Region (2024)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2024: Individual Abstracts" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Previous lead isotopic studies have noted significant shifts in the choice of ore sources for Western Han bronzes, coinciding with the expansion of the imperial network. While existing literature has highlighted the prevalence of ore sources from the Eastern Qinling region during this era, the importance of ore sources from the broader southern frontiers,...
Niche Construction and Iron Smelting Technology: Some Thoughts on the Development of Regional Metallurgical Economies (2019)
This is an abstract from the "The Movement of Technical Knowledge: Cross-Craft Perspectives on Mobility and Knowledge in Production Technologies" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Linking the evolution of smelting technology to the development of regional economies remains one of the greatest challenges for archaeometallurgy. It is neither possible to explain technological evolution without reference to its costs and benefits in a given...
On the Origins of Metalworking in China: Technology and Art (2023)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2023: Individual Abstracts" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The “independent invention versus diffusion” argument remains undecided regarding the inception—or rather inceptions—of copper-based metallurgy in China. The intriguing course leading to the substantial rise of a distinctive metallurgical tradition that can be confidently called “Chinese” was probably too perplexing to be explained by a single theoretical...
Pastoral Societies, Holocene Climate and Technology: Perspectives from Iron Age Southern Jordan (Session 4400) (2019)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2019: General Sessions" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. How did pastoral societies evolve into more complex social organizations in what is today a hyper-arid desert zone? This paper examines the Iron Age (ca 1200 - 500 BC) data from southern Jordan that indicates relatively little climate change from today, yet the rise of complex pastoral nomadic societies.
Precolumbian Metallurgy at the Late Moche–Transitional site of Huaca Colorada, Jequetepeque Valley, North Coast of Peru (2024)
This is an abstract from the "Bridging Time, Space, and Species: Over 20 Years of Archaeological Insights from the Cañoncillo Complex, Jequetepeque Valley, Peru, Part 2" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Since 2009, the Late Moche–Transitional site of Huaca Coloroda (ca. 700–900 CE), located in the Jequetepeque Valley on the North Coast of Peru, has been a focus for excavations by the Proyecto Arqueológico Jatanca-Huaca Colorada-Tecapa. These...
Precontact Native Copper Innovation in the North American Arctic, Subarctic, and Northwest Coast (2023)
This is an abstract from the "From Hard Rock to Heavy Metal: Metal Tool Production and Use by Indigenous Hunter-Gatherers in North America" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Precontact Indigenous copper technological practices within the North American Northwest vary along regional, cultural, and temporal axes. After being screened for smelted metals and alloys using pXRF compositional data, we identified multiple significant patterns of...
Prehispanic and Colonial Technology Transition in Metallurgy Gold Work in Oaxaca: A Comparative Study (2023)
This is an abstract from the "Technological Transitions in Prehispanic and Colonial Metallurgy: Recent and Ongoing Research at the Archaeological Site of Jicalán Viejo, in Central Michoacán, West Mexico" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. In the northern Sierra of Oaxaca, it has been demonstrated that gold-copper-silver alloys were widely used between different prehispanic groups (Zapotecs and Chinantec). Nevertheless, with the conquest of the Sierra,...
Produccion metalurgica en la Costa Sur: de Paracas a Nasca (2018)
Las sociedades de Paracas y Nasca que habitaban el actual territorio de Ica, desarrollaron una tradición metalúrgica con características locales particulares dentro de los Andes Centrales. Los orígenes de la producción metalúrgica en esta zona se relacionan con la presencia de Chavín durante el Horizonte Temprano, y se caracteriza por el predominante uso de oro laminado y trabajado en formas y diseños simples. Esta tradición metalúrgica se mantuvo durante varios siglos en el sur, casi a espaldas...
Range and Variation of Copper Tools from Two Archaic Localities in Wisconsin (2018)
Great Lakes Archaic copper artifacts have been well documented and typed for many decades. However, there is a lingering tendency to think of copper as primarily a social signifier and to shy away from development of economically oriented copper theory. One component of the problem is rooted in copper’s innately malleable nature. Copper was made into a wide range of tools and non-utilitarian items during prehistory. While most of these types have been enumerated, there are no published...
Reassessing Evidence for Early Iron Production in the Near East (2023)
This is an abstract from the "Archaeological Science and African Archaeology: Appreciating the Impact of David Killick" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Work by David Killick and colleagues has documented rich landscapes of iron production sites in sub-Saharan Africa. By contrast, iron smelting and smithing sites have proven far more elusive in the Caucasus and the rest of the Near East. This situation has severely hampered our understanding of iron...
Reconstructing Ironworking on the Fifth- and Sixth-Century Osaka Plain (2021)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2021: General Sessions" session, at the 86th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Excavated sporadically for over 30 years, Ogata in Kashiwara City and Mori in Katano City are the largest-scale Kofun period ironworking sites in Osaka Prefecture, Japan. Large numbers of forging slags have been unearthed from both sites, which alongside partially preserved hearth features, provide the bulk of evidence for ironworking. Following methods...
Red Metal, Domestic God: Prehistoric Copper Use in the Middle Atlantic Region (2023)
This is an abstract from the "From Hard Rock to Heavy Metal: Metal Tool Production and Use by Indigenous Hunter-Gatherers in North America" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Raw metals have been used by prehistoric peoples throughout the world. In the Middle Atlantic region of the United States, the most favored metal was copper. Copper objects of all kinds were seen as holding major religious and ceremonial significance. While there is evidence of...
Sicán Political Economy: Converting Regional Productivity to Interregional Prestige Economy and Religious Eminence (2023)
This is an abstract from the "Political Economies on the Andean Coast" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Within a matter of a few generations, during the late tenth century AD, the Middle Sicán polity with its geospatial focus in the extensive Lambayeque Complex on the north coast attained seemingly unprecedented material wealth and established an interregional sphere of trade and influence primarily along the coast of Peru and Ecuador. The truly...
Silver against Skin: Exploring the Materiality of the Cividade de Bagunte Torques (2021)
This is an abstract from the "The Iron Age of Northwest Portugal: Leftovers of Behavior" session, at the 86th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Among the most dazzling traces of behaviour left behind by the Castro people of the Cividade de Bagunte in northwestern Iberia are the five silver torques discovered together in a hoard in the mid-twentieth century. The items in the Bagunte hoard share stylistic similarities with other Castro torques, but their material, silver...