In the context of archaeometallurgical studies of copper alloys, it is relevant to record the essential

changes in the elemental composition of copper alloys that occur during changes in technology

and transitions in human history. This article presents the shift in the elemental composition of

copper alloy from bronze-based alloys to brass ones during essential changes in archaeological

material which happened at the turn of the Earliest Iron Age (500–1 BC) and the Early Roman

period, from the 1st century BC to the middle of the 1st century AD. As early as the 2nd and

1st centuries BC, in the Antique world and the Roman Empire and its provinces, brass was already

starting to partly replace bronze. Even if the Earliest Iron Age is the least knowable period

in Lithuanian prehistory, the few pieces of jewellery attributed to this period show the changes

in the composition of the copper alloy. The territorial growth of the Late Antique world and

internal contacts within the Barbaricum led to the expanding strength of commodities, including

raw materials, technologies, cultural ideas and ideological attitudes. Goods and ideas spread

throughout the vast barbarian lands, and eventually reached the forest zone of northeast Europe.

Sudden changes during the Early Roman period were first of all connected with the development

of settlement structure, and this has therefore made it possible to identify some major places of

the production of artefacts and partly changed directions of exchange. All this was accompanied

by the emergence of new jewellery types produced by skilled jewellers according to sophisticated

techniques. These changes are clearly visible in Early Roman period Lithuanian archaeological

material, including the elemental composition of copper alloys. The present article uses X-ray

fluorescence (XRF) spectrometry to investigate the composition of copper alloys. Radiography

was used to understand the construction of artefacts, and to assess the degree of their inner corrosion

and sophisticated manufacturing techniques. Solder samples were taken from the surfaces

of several finds, and were analysed by qualitative microchemical analysis.