Provenance studies of ancient metals have long been at the forefront of interdisciplinary debate cutting across archaeology, materials analysis, and the Earth sciences. In the last decades, early contentious attempts to ground provenance in object chemistry have largely been superseded by isotopic methods, especially Lead Isotopic Analysis (LIA). Despite its widespread application, however, LIA has spurred a new wave of controversies centering on (a) whether lead isotopes fractionate during high-temperature processes; (b) frequent overlaps in the isotopic signatures of geological sources; and (c) the mixing of metals from different geological sources in workshop practices. These controversies have led to a fractured research landscape, in which LIA, chemistry-based, and non-analytical approaches to metalwork procurement and exchange are often deployed separately, owing to alleged incompatibilities in methods and approaches. These divisions diminish our ability to work across disciplinary boundaries and to advance knowledge and understanding of the life histories of early metals.
This Research Topic aims to initiate a new season of theoretically oriented and science-informed studies on the life histories of ancient metals. We aim to capture multi-method, interdisciplinary, and transdisciplinary research exploring the geological origin, workshop provenance, social procurement, alloying, transformation, circulation, exchange, recycling, and re-fashioning of ferrous and non-ferrous metals from around the world, from prehistory to the birth of the industrial revolution. Any collaborative research cutting across entrenched disciplinary boundaries and employing purportedly incompatible methods is particularly welcome, and so are papers proposing new approaches and models for the study of metal procurement and exchange.
Topics encompass, but are not limited to:
• Explorations of the life histories of ancient metals through isotopic, chemical, GIS-based, network-based, morphological, and other methods of analysis, or any integration thereof.
• Characterizations of metallic histories, with special reference to sourcing, procurement, exchange, alteration, alloying, re-casting, re-forging, re-fashioning, and re-using.
• Critical appraisals of the strengths and limitations of different methods of analysis.
• Original re-evaluations of, and reflections on, disciplinary controversies and debates, including isotope fractionation in pyrotechnology, chemical and isotopic similarities in ore deposits, and changes in isotopic signature and object chemistry due to metal mixing.
• New theoretically informed narratives about the social mechanisms underpinning metal procurement, exchange, and transformation.
• Critical explorations of the concepts of origin, provenance, procurement, and exchange in archaeometallurgy.
Provenance studies of ancient metals have long been at the forefront of interdisciplinary debate cutting across archaeology, materials analysis, and the Earth sciences. In the last decades, early contentious attempts to ground provenance in object chemistry have largely been superseded by isotopic methods, especially Lead Isotopic Analysis (LIA). Despite its widespread application, however, LIA has spurred a new wave of controversies centering on (a) whether lead isotopes fractionate during high-temperature processes; (b) frequent overlaps in the isotopic signatures of geological sources; and (c) the mixing of metals from different geological sources in workshop practices. These controversies have led to a fractured research landscape, in which LIA, chemistry-based, and non-analytical approaches to metalwork procurement and exchange are often deployed separately, owing to alleged incompatibilities in methods and approaches. These divisions diminish our ability to work across disciplinary boundaries and to advance knowledge and understanding of the life histories of early metals.
This Research Topic aims to initiate a new season of theoretically oriented and science-informed studies on the life histories of ancient metals. We aim to capture multi-method, interdisciplinary, and transdisciplinary research exploring the geological origin, workshop provenance, social procurement, alloying, transformation, circulation, exchange, recycling, and re-fashioning of ferrous and non-ferrous metals from around the world, from prehistory to the birth of the industrial revolution. Any collaborative research cutting across entrenched disciplinary boundaries and employing purportedly incompatible methods is particularly welcome, and so are papers proposing new approaches and models for the study of metal procurement and exchange.
Topics encompass, but are not limited to:
• Explorations of the life histories of ancient metals through isotopic, chemical, GIS-based, network-based, morphological, and other methods of analysis, or any integration thereof.
• Characterizations of metallic histories, with special reference to sourcing, procurement, exchange, alteration, alloying, re-casting, re-forging, re-fashioning, and re-using.
• Critical appraisals of the strengths and limitations of different methods of analysis.
• Original re-evaluations of, and reflections on, disciplinary controversies and debates, including isotope fractionation in pyrotechnology, chemical and isotopic similarities in ore deposits, and changes in isotopic signature and object chemistry due to metal mixing.
• New theoretically informed narratives about the social mechanisms underpinning metal procurement, exchange, and transformation.
• Critical explorations of the concepts of origin, provenance, procurement, and exchange in archaeometallurgy.
