Essential changes in the composition of copper alloys reveal technological diversities in the transition from the Earliest Iron Age to the Early Roman period in Lithuania
Volume 28 (2021), pp. 39–62
Pub. online: 29 December 2021
Type: Article
Open Access
Open Access
Received
15 September 2021
15 September 2021
Revised
20 October 2021
20 October 2021
Accepted
24 November 2021
24 November 2021
Published
29 December 2021
29 December 2021
Abstract
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.