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Early metallurgy in Sardinia: characterizing the evidence from Su Coddu

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Abstract

This paper contextualizes analyses of a collection of metal artifacts and ostensible metallurgical slag from the prehistoric settlement of Su Coddu in south-central Sardinia (ca. 3400–2850 BCE). To characterize the types of metals and associated alloys utilized by the earliest residents of Su Coddu, two pins and an unshaped lump of unknown composition were analyzed using portable XRF spectrometry. In addition to metal artifacts, a large quantity of putative slag was discovered at the site that is consistently cited as the earliest evidence of in situ smelting in prehistoric Sardinia. To reconstruct firing temperatures and characterize mineral phases, four samples of the overfired material were selected for thin section petrography and powder XRD analysis. The results of this study indicate that the two pins were made of copper while the unshaped lump was composed of pure lead, making it the earliest lead-based artifact on Sardinia. XRD and petrographic analyses of the fired “slags” reveal that these samples are unrelated to metallurgical smelting and are likely burnt wall coatings whose mineralogical phases correspond with unfired plasters also recovered from the site. These results in combination contribute towards understanding early metallurgical practices in Sardinia and are relevant in reconstructing the events that have shaped the life history of Su Coddu.

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Acknowledgments

We gratefully acknowledge the Soprintendenza per i Beni Archeologici per le Province di Cagliari e Oristano and specifically Dott. Fausto Martino and Dott.ssa Gianfranca Salis for assistance in obtaining permission to export artifacts to Germany for analysis. S.A. and C.B. would also like to acknowledge the Excellence Initiative of the Eberhard Karls Universität Tübingen and the Ministry for Science, Research, and Art of Baden-Württemberg for the generous support they provided to this research. We would also like to thank Lars Heinze for his help in editing several of the figures.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Anthropology, Indian River State College, Fort Pierce, FL, USA

    Kyle P. Freund

  2. Competence Center Archaeometry - Baden-Wuerttemberg, University of Tübingen, Tübingen, Germany

    Silvia Amicone & Christoph Berthold

  3. Institute of Archaeology, University College London, London, England

    Silvia Amicone & Umberto Veronesi

  4. Department of Anthropology, University of South Florida, Tampa, FL, USA

    Robert H. Tykot

  5. Soprintendenza per i Beni Archeologici per le Province di Cagliari e Oristano, Cagliari, Italy

    Maria Rosaria Manunza

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  1. Kyle P. Freund
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Contributions

Kyle Freund: conceptualization, funding acquisition, investigation, methodology, project administration, pXRF analysis, writing (original draft); Silvia Amicone: conceptualization, investigation, methodology, thin section petrography, writing (petrography and XRD methods and analysis), reviewing and editing the original draft; Christoph Berthold: funding acquisition, methodology, XRD analysis, reviewing and editing the original draft; Umberto Veronesi: SEM-EDX analysis, reviewing and editing the original draft; Robert H. Tykot: methodology, pXRF equipment and calibration; reviewing and editing the original draft; Maria Rosaria Manunza: conceptualization, sampling, excavation, reviewing and editing the original draft.

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Correspondence to Kyle P. Freund.

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Freund, K.P., Amicone, S., Berthold, C. et al. Early metallurgy in Sardinia: characterizing the evidence from Su Coddu. Archaeol Anthropol Sci 11, 6595–6602 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12520-019-00928-y

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