White Iron and Red Gold: How to Identify Tin, Copper, and Bronze Derived from Rooiberg Mineral Deposits, South Africa

Summary

This is an abstract from the "Geological and Technological Contributions to the Interpretation of Radiogenic Isotope Data" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology.

Tin and copper ores around Rooiberg, South Africa, were exploited from 1000–1300 CE until about 1840. Geologists estimated that around 1,000 tons of the tin mineral cassiterite, equivalent to 792 tons of metallic tin, were mined there. Archaeological survey showed only a small amount of evidence for tin smelting near Rooiberg. Therefore, the ore deposits appear to have been an open resource, with tin carried away to sites near and far for smelting. Isotopic and chemical analysis of bronze and tin metal from archaeological sites across southern Africa has established that Rooiberg was the primary source of tin for the manufacture of bronze in South Africa, Botswana, Zimbabwe, and southern Zambia (the latter about 800 km from Rooiberg). Missing from this discussion is the possibility that copper was also moved long distances from Rooiberg. In this presentation, we establish the isotopic and chemical signature of copper from Rooiberg. Our results prove that copper from Rooiberg was distributed around the region, and we use these data to reconstruct networks of mobility and interaction in the southern African Iron Age.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Geological and Technological Contributions to the Interpretation of Radiogenic Isotope Data   •
• Society for American Archaeology 89th Annual Meeting, New Orleans, LA (2024)

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Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 38677.0