Problems and Methods of Archaeometallurgy

Abstract

The production and use of metals requires a series of different human activities. They are connected with chemical and physical transformations of materials during the change from ore into metal. These interactions can be summarized — parallel to the ‘chaine operatoire’ (see Stöllner 2003) — in a ‘metallurgical chain’ (Fig. 2.1). The activities start at the ore deposit with the mining of ore followed by technological steps used in smelting processes, when slag, raw metal and other intermediate products are produced. Different methods are used to reconstruct reaction vessels used in this process. Metal is subsequently treated in different steps — if necessary alloyed with other metals — until a final product is achieved (e.g., ingot, axe, chisel etc.).