Archaeometallurgy, Eurasia and Beyond: Papers in Honor of Vince Pigott

Part of: Society for American Archaeology 90th Annual Meeting, Denver, CO (2025)

This collection contains the abstracts of the papers presented in the session entitled "Archaeometallurgy, Eurasia and Beyond: Papers in Honor of Vince Pigott" at the 90th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology.

A session honoring the scholarship, mentorship, and career of Prof. Vincent Pigott. Papers will be presented by colleagues and scholars on archaeology and archaeometallurgical research centered in regions where Prof. Pigott has made scholarly contributions. Presentations will span a range of topics, from recent advancements in the field of Archaeometallurgy to historical insights that build upon Dr. Pigott’s foundational contributions.

Other Keywords
Material Culture and Technology • Asia: Southeast Asia • Archaeometry & Materials Analysis: Metallurgic Analysis • Asia: Southwest Asia and Levant

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  • Documents (12)
Documents
  • 50 years of North America archaeometallurgy in 15 minutes (2025)
    DOCUMENT Citation Only David Killick.

    This is an abstract from the "Archaeometallurgy, Eurasia and Beyond: Papers in Honor of Vince Pigott" session, at the 90th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. From about 1973 through the early 1990’s the University of Pennsylvania group of Maddin, Muhly, Pigott and Stech were among the world leaders in archaeometallurgy. In this presentation I try to situate their work within a brief history of his topic in North America. With two notable exceptions (the consultant...

  • Analyses of metallurgical remains from Failaka, Kuwait: Exploring the Persian Gulf metals trade in the 2nd millennium BCE (2025)
    DOCUMENT Citation Only Lloyd Weeks.

    This is an abstract from the "Archaeometallurgy, Eurasia and Beyond: Papers in Honor of Vince Pigott" session, at the 90th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. This paper reviews the exchange of metals within the greater Persian Gulf region during the 2nd millennium BCE, considering archaeological, archaeometric and documentary evidence. The specific focus is the metallurgical assemblage from Failaka Island (Kuwait) and its implications for the continued production and...

  • Early iron metallurgy in the eastern Mediterranean and beyond (2025)
    DOCUMENT Citation Only Vanessa Workman.

    This is an abstract from the "Archaeometallurgy, Eurasia and Beyond: Papers in Honor of Vince Pigott" session, at the 90th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The appearance of iron in southwest Asia in the late second to early first millennium BCE is currently understood as a complex social phenomenon, and yet pinpointing even broad details of a technological emergence that led to a full-fledged Iron Age has proven to be a major challenge. Since the work commemorated in...

  • Eurasian discoveries in Bronze- an archaeological tribute to Vincent Pigott (2025)
    DOCUMENT Citation Only Michael Frachetti.

    This is an abstract from the "Archaeometallurgy, Eurasia and Beyond: Papers in Honor of Vince Pigott" session, at the 90th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Bronze technology transformed the a range of Eurasian societies in prehistory, shaping the economic, political, and symbolic landscape for millennia. In Central Eurasia, tin-bronze (in particular) held a particular role. This paper will explore the innovation and integration of tin-bronze in Central Eurasian...

  • Gold and heterarchy: from Crete to Colombia (2025)
    DOCUMENT Citation Only Marcos Martinón-Torres.

    This is an abstract from the "Archaeometallurgy, Eurasia and Beyond: Papers in Honor of Vince Pigott" session, at the 90th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The role of metals in prehistoric societies is typically linked to concepts of power and hierarchy. Challenging established assumptions, the project led by Vince Piggott and colleagues in the KWPV of Thailand was one of the first to introduce heterarchy in archaeometallurgy. They demonstrated that large-scale,...

  • High-tin Bronze in Southeast Asia: Where Did it Come from, How was it Made, and Who Used it? (2025)
    DOCUMENT Citation Only Elizabeth Hamilton.

    This is an abstract from the "Archaeometallurgy, Eurasia and Beyond: Papers in Honor of Vince Pigott" session, at the 90th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. <html> One noteworthy feature of metallurgy in Southeast Asia is the appearance of quenched high-tin (tin between 20% and 30%) artifacts in the later 1<sup>st</sup> millennium BC. This intractable alloy cannot be worked cold but only hot-worked. Thin-walled (o.2-0.3mm) vessels of quenched high-tin bronze have been...

  • Phu Lon and back again: following the steps of the Father of holistic Southeast Asian archaeometallurgy, Professor Vincent C. Pigott (2025)
    DOCUMENT Citation Only Thomas Pryce.

    This is an abstract from the "Archaeometallurgy, Eurasia and Beyond: Papers in Honor of Vince Pigott" session, at the 90th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Prehistoric metal artefacts have been studied archaeometrically since the outset of scientific archaeology in Thailand in the mid-1960s, sometimes by renowned archaeometallurgists like Bob Maddin, Cyril Stanley Smith, Igor Selimkhanov, Nigel Seeley and Tamara Stech Wheeler. However, it was only with the founding of...

  • Reviewing arsenical copper production in western Eurasia: new evidence from the Balkans (2025)
    DOCUMENT Citation Only Miljana Radivojevic.

    This is an abstract from the "Archaeometallurgy, Eurasia and Beyond: Papers in Honor of Vince Pigott" session, at the 90th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. <html> Copper metallurgy in the Balkans is famous for its massive copper metal implements circulating this area throughout the 5<sup>th</sup> millennium BC. The first known copper alloy, arsenical copper, occurred in the Balkan Late Chalcolithic cultures by the end of this period. However, very little evidence is...

  • Surviving the Crisis Years? Exploring the Bronze Age-Iron Age Transition in the South Caucasus (2025)
    DOCUMENT Citation Only Nathaniel Erb-Satullo.

    This is an abstract from the "Archaeometallurgy, Eurasia and Beyond: Papers in Honor of Vince Pigott" session, at the 90th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. From the Balkans to the Iranian Plateau, the end of the Bronze Age and the beginning of the Iron Age was a critical period of transformation, defined by crisis, collapse, resurgence and reorganization. The South Caucasus appears an unusual exception to this broader trend, one whose significance for the broader study...

  • TAP’ing the Origins of Angkor: Incipient research on iron and the expansion of the Khmer Empire, Cambodia (2025)
    DOCUMENT Citation Only Mitch Hendrickson.

    This is an abstract from the "Archaeometallurgy, Eurasia and Beyond: Papers in Honor of Vince Pigott" session, at the 90th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. <html> Late 20<sup>th</sup> century metallurgical research in mainland Southeast Asia, led by the Thai Archaeological Project, spearheaded interest in the relationship between copper alloy production and increasing prehistoric social complexity (mid-2<sup>nd</sup> m to mid-1<sup>st</sup> m. BCE). Lack of prehistoric...

  • Tiptoeing Across the Threshold: Early Copper use and inter-regional interaction in Chalcolithic Greater Mesopotamia (2025)
    DOCUMENT Citation Only Gil Stein.

    This is an abstract from the "Archaeometallurgy, Eurasia and Beyond: Papers in Honor of Vince Pigott" session, at the 90th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The earliest evidence for copper artifacts in Northern Mesopotamia (N Syria, SE Anatolia, and N Iraq) derives from the Ubaid period and the Uruk Period. These technological developments were contemporaneous with the operation of two major economic systems of inter-regional exchange: the “Ubaid interaction sphere”...

  • Vince Pigott's Impact on Iranian Archaeometallurgy (2025)
    DOCUMENT Citation Only Christopher Thornton.

    This is an abstract from the "Archaeometallurgy, Eurasia and Beyond: Papers in Honor of Vince Pigott" session, at the 90th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The Iranian Plateau is widely acknowledged to be one of the original 'heartlands' of metallurgical production in the Old World, from the early adoption of native copper to the large-scale production of arsenical copper to the eventual adoption and production of iron. But our understanding of Iran's place in the...