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Lookup NU author(s): Professor Andrea Dolfini
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License (CC BY-NC 4.0).
This paper considers the early copper and copper-alloy metallurgy of the entire Alpine region. It introduces a new approach to the interpretation of chemical composition data sets, which has been applied to a comprehensive regional database for the first time. The Alpine Chalcolithic and Early Bronze Age each have distinctive patterns of metal use, which can be interpreted through changes in mining, social choice, and major landscape features such as watersheds and river systems. Interestingly, the Alpine range does not act as a north-south barrier, as major differences in composition tend to appear on an east-west axis. Central among these is the prevalence of tin-bronze in the western Alps compared to the east. This ‘tin-line’ is discussed in terms of metal flow through the region and evidence for a deeply rooted geographical division that runs through much of Alpine prehistory.
Author(s): Perucchetti L, Bray P, Dolfini A, Pollard AM
Publication type: Article
Publication status: Published
Journal: European Journal of Archaeology
Year: 2015
Volume: 18
Issue: 4
Pages: 599-632
Print publication date: 01/11/2015
Online publication date: 16/03/2015
Acceptance date: 27/01/2015
Date deposited: 01/03/2016
ISSN (print): 1461-9571
ISSN (electronic): 1741-2722
Publisher: Maney Publishing
URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.1179/1461957115Y.0000000001
DOI: 10.1179/1461957115Y.0000000001
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