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Early metallurgy in SE Iberia. The workshop of Las Pilas (Mojácar, Almería, Spain)

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Abstract

Big narratives on the role of metallurgy in social change and technological innovations are common in archaeology. However, informed discussion of these issues requires a contextualised characterisation of metallurgical technology at the local level in its specific social and technological contexts. This paper approaches early metallurgy in Iberia from a technological perspective. We focus on the site of Las Pilas in the Vera Basin (Mojácar, Almería, Spain), where the whole metallurgical chaîne opératoire has been documented in situ through archaeological excavation of a third millennium bc context. The study includes microstructural, mineralogical and chemical analyses of ores, slag, technical ceramics and finished artefacts, as well as domestic pottery used for comparative purposes. These results are discussed with reference to the archaeological context and evidence for other domestic activities and crafts. Our aim is to contribute to better characterise the early metallurgical tradition of Southeast Iberia, paying particular attention to specific technological tools, knowledge and recipes that may allow future comparative approaches to knowledge transmission or independent innovation debates. For this particular case, we demonstrate the direct production of arsenical copper in a low-scale, low-specialisation, low-efficiency set up that involved the crucible smelting of complex oxidic ores in a context that suggests associations with cereal roasting and, indirectly, with basket and pottery making.

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Notes

  1. Three samples of charcoal entrapped in slag fragments were also dated and results are included in Table 1. However, dates discussed in the text are based on short lived samples to avoid the old wood effect.

  2. We are not including here the only tuyérè recovered at Cabezo Juré (Alosno, Huelva) due to its imprecise context and especially its morphology. Regarding its context, a journal article (Nocete 2006, p. 651) claims that it was recovered in the Southern Slope, where the so-called furnaces are described; however, in the Spanish monograph on the site (Nocete 2004), this purported tuyérè is drawn together with the domestic pottery and ascribed to US14 (Nocete et al. 2004, p. 141, Fig. 8.11)—a stratigraphic unit described as sealing a storage structure on the Upper Platform of the site and therefore not related to the ‘furnaces’ in the Southern Slope. Furthermore, in the micro-spatial analysis of the site, this artefact is drawn on Northern Slope (Nocete 2004, p. 349). This micro-spatial analysis also presents significant discrepancies with the spatial description of the site published in the journal paper: while the site is described as markedly functionally divided in the English version (“activities were rigorously demarcated by function: processing of ore took place on the south slope and copper casting in the residential area to the north. The fortress [on the Upper Platform], by contrast, featured no metal-working” [Nocete 2006, p. 647]), remains of ores, crucibles and slags are drawn on both slopes in the Spanish monograph (Nocete 2004, p. 369). The morphology of the tuyérè also raises some doubts on its functionality, as it has a bi-conical profile with a maximum diameter of c. 60 mm. This shape, which would seem inefficient for a tuyérè, is reminescent of a domestic pottery type known in Iberia as a ‘support’ (see, e.g. Hunt 2003). The same morphology and hence dubious ascription applies to as at least two of the items described as tuyérès in Valencina de la Concepción (Nocete et al. 2008, p. 728).

  3. We acknowledge that one of the authors, FMG, is not in agreement with the interpretation of Southeastern Chalcolithic metallurgy as a low-efficiency technology with a low scale of production and a limited degree of specialisation.

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Acknowledgements

This research was supported by a Marie Curie Intra European Fellowship within the 7th European Community Framework Programme (‘Society, Metallurgy and Innovation: The Iberian Hypothesis’—SMITH project, PN623183); by the the R&D Projects HAR2011-29068 and HAR2012-38857 funded by the Spanish Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness as well as by the Culture Office of the Government of Andalucía (Spain).

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  1. UCL Institute of Archaeology, 31-34 Gordon Square, London, WC1H 0PY, UK

    Mercedes Murillo-Barroso & Marcos Martinón-Torres

  2. Departamento de Prehistoria, Arqueología, Antropología e Historia Antigua, Universidad de La Laguna Campus de Guajara, 38205, La Laguna, Spain

    Mª Dolores Camalich Massieu & Dimas Martín Socas

  3. Departamento de Prehistoria y Arqueología, Universidad de Granada Campus Universitario de Cartuja, 18071, Granada, Spain

    Fernando Molina González

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Murillo-Barroso, M., Martinón-Torres, M., Massieu, M.D.C. et al. Early metallurgy in SE Iberia. The workshop of Las Pilas (Mojácar, Almería, Spain). Archaeol Anthropol Sci 9, 1539–1569 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12520-016-0451-8

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