Technological rejection in regions of early gold innovation revealed by geospatial analysis

In research on early invention and innovation, technological “firsts” receive enormous attention, but technological “lasts”—instances of abandonment and rejection—are arguably more informative about human technological behavior. Yet, cases of technological discontinuance are largely ignored in studies of early innovation, as the lack of robust datasets makes identification and analysis difficult. A large-scale geospatial analysis of more than 4500 gold objects from the Caucasus, an early center of gold innovation, shows a precipitous decline at 1500 BC in precisely the places with the earliest global evidence of gold mining (c. 3000 BC). Testing various causal models reveals that social factors, rather than resource limitations or demographic disruption, were the primary causes of this rejection. These results indicate that prior models of technological rejection and loss have underestimated the range of conditions in which they can occur, and provide empirical support for theories of innovation that reject notions about the linearity of technological progress

Towards a spatial archaeology of crafting landscapes

Discussions of spatial relationships are persistent features of research on the organization of craft production. Despite the centrality of spatial issues, the correspondence between spatial patterning and economic organization remains relatively under-theorized, especially around questions of power and control. Drawing from the literature on craft ecology, specialization and landscape archaeology, I develop an approach that considers spatial scales of patterning, the power projection of elites and institutions and the articulation between elements of the crafting landscape. This approach recognizes the complex sets of factors affecting spatial patterning and ultimately produces a more robust understanding of how ancient economic systems were organized. These ideas are explored through a case study on Late Bronze and Early Iron Age metal production in the Caucasus, clarifying the organizational logics of the metal economy and highlighting how this industry differed in significant ways from other contemporary metal-producing regions in the ancient Near East.National Science Foundation (BSC-1338893), the Davis Center for Russian and Eurasian Studies and Harvard Universit

Archaeomaterials, innovation, and technological change

The field of archaeomaterials research has enormous potential to shed light on past innovation processes. However, this potential has been only partially recognized outside its immediate practitioners, despite the fact that innovation and technology change are topics of enduring interest in archaeology and the broader social sciences. This review explores the relationship between archaeomaterials research and the interdisciplinary study of innovation, and maps out a path toward greater integration of materials analysis into these discussions. To foster this integration, this review has three aims. First, I sketch the theoretical landscape of approaches to the study of innovation in archaeology and neighboring disciplines. I trace how theoretical traditions like evolutionary archaeology have influenced archaeomaterials approaches to questions of technological change while also highlighting cases where work by archaeomaterials researchers anticipated trends in the anthropology of technology. Next, I distill a series of core concerns that crosscut these different theoretical perspectives. Finally, I describe examples where archaeomaterials research has deepened scholarly understanding of innovation processes and addressed these core questions. The future of archaeomaterials research lies in engagement with these broader discussions and effective communication of the contributions that materials analysis can make to building a comparative understanding of innovation processes

Direct evidence for the co-manufacturing of early iron and copper-alloy artifacts in the Caucasus

Models for iron innovation in Eurasia are predicated on understanding the relationship between the bronze and iron industries. In eastern Anatolia, the South Caucasus, and Iran, the absence of scientific analyses of metallurgical debris has obscured the relative chronology, spatial organization, and economic context of early iron and contemporary copper-alloy industries. Survey and excavation at Mtsvane Gora, a fortified hilltop site close to major polymetallic ore sources in the Lesser Caucasus range, recovered metallurgical debris dating to the 8th-6th centuries BC. Optical microscopy, scanning electron microscopy, and energy and wavelength dispersive spectrometry revealed evidence for both iron and copper-alloy metallurgy, including smithing and alloying. Metal particles trapped within clear iron smithing slags were contaminated with copper, arsenic, and tin, suggesting that iron and copper-alloy working took place in the same hearths. The discovery of a small fragment of unprocessed material consisting of pyrite and jarosite, minerals typical of major nearby polymetallic ore deposits, links the secondary smithing and alloying at Mtsvane Gora with nearby mining activities, though the nature of those connections remains unclear. While the earliest iron in the region probably predates the Mtsvane Gora assemblage, the remains date to a period when iron use was still expanding, and they are at present the earliest analytically confirmed, radiocarbon-dated iron metallurgical debris in the Caucasus. The remains are therefore significant for understanding the spread of iron innovation eastward from Anatolia and the Levant. When considered in light of evidence from other Near Eastern sites, the results support a model for innovation in which early iron manufacturing was at least partially integrated with the copper-alloy metallurgical economy

Obsidian exchange networks and highland-lowland interaction in the Lesser Caucasus Borderlands

Obsidian sourcing studies have a long history in the Near East, but relatively few have focused on obsidian exchange after the Early Bronze Age. Here, we present a multi-technique analysis of an assemblage of 111 obsidian artifacts from excavated Late Bronze and Early Iron Age (LBA-EIA; c. 15th-6th c BCE) contexts at Mtsvane Gora, southern Georgia. Because the site is situated in the lowland Kura Valley and the nearest obsidian sources are in the highlands to the south and west, obsidian provenance can serve as a proxy for mapping highland-lowland interactions. Chemical compositions analyzed via portable X-ray fluorescence spectrometry (pXRF), electron microprobe analysis (EMPA), and laser ablation inductively-coupled plasma mass spectrometry (LA-ICP-MS), were compared with existing geological datasets of chemical analyses to identify the source of all but one of the artifacts analyzed. The results show that Chikiani, a source in the highlands of southern Georgia, was the geological origin of >90% of the objects analyzed. While acknowledging that obsidian exchange is just one aspect of highland-lowland interaction, this finding implies that Mtsvane Gora’s connections with the adjacent highlands were skewed towards greater engagement with some highland areas relative to others. More generally, the research suggests that geographic adjacency of highlands and lowlands does not necessarily mean that they were highly interconnected.Fieldwork at Mtsvane Gora was funded by the American Research Institute of the South Caucasus, the Rust Family Foundation, a Spatial Archaeometry Research Collaborations (SPARC) Grant, the Harvard University Davis Center for Russian and Eurasian Studies, and the Harvard Department of Anthropology. The authors would like to thank Project ARKK team members for their support during fieldwork. Paul Albert is supported by a UKRI FLF (MR/S035478) Note: guessed MRC by grant number but this could be overarching UKRI as it is a Future Leaders Fellowships award. Paul Albert is not a CU researcher

Metal Production in the Land of the Golden Fleece: Economic Organization and Technological Change in the South Caucasus, 1500-500 BC

Analyzing the causes and consequences of technological change is essential not only for the reconstruction of ancient social dynamics, but also for understanding how present-day societies confront the process of innovation. A central issue in the study of innovation is the effect of existing sociotechnical systems on the development of new technologies. In studying the emergence of iron technologies in the Near East, many scholars have theorized about the relationship between bronze and iron, comparing their relative geological availability, organization of production, and modes of distribution in an attempt to explain the rise of iron. The Caucasus is an ideal place to explore the impact of a well-established, large-scale bronze industry on the development of iron technology. Drawing on both social constructionist approaches to technology and theories of innovation diffusion, this dissertation considers whether established traditions of metallurgical practice engendered conservatism, or whether the existence of communities of metalworkers skilled in pyrotechnology stimulated the emergence and spread of iron. Field survey, test excavation, laboratory analysis, and museum research were undertaken to explore how bronze production influenced the adoption of iron in the southeastern Black Sea region, known as Colchis by the ancient Greeks. Field survey of metal production landscapes revealed a highly dispersed distribution of small copper and iron smelting sites. Radiocarbon dating of these sites showed that copper smelting remains clustered in the period 1300-800 BC, while the earliest direct evidence for iron production comes from the mid-late 1st millennium BC. A detailed reconstruction of the technologies of iron and copper smelting, based on optical microscopy (reflected and transmitted light), scanning electron microscopy, and chemical analysis (SEM-EDS, pXRF, and WDS-XRF), highlighted specific techniques in the practice of copper smelting that would have facilitated learning and aided the spread of iron technologies. The integration of spatial and chemical data using GIS showed that there was little direct coordination of production activities between sites. The highly dispersed character of all stages of bronze production suggests that, in spite of its large aggregate scale and shared technological koiné, the industry operated in the absence of an overarching authority. This mode of production contrasts with other areas of the Near East, where contemporary copper smelting landscapes show a correlation between centralization, scale, and top-down control. These results have significant implications for the rise of iron. A reexamination of its chronology in Colchis shows that iron was adopted following a massive expansion of bronze production. The existence of a community of practice based on common traditions of bronze manufacturing likely inhibited the early spread of iron in the region, but resulted in relatively rapid adoption once it was accepted as a culturally appropriate material. During the 8th-6th centuries BC, centralization of social networks through collective grave rituals and the emergence of sanctuary sites created an environment of elite competition and public display of metal wealth, accelerating the adoption of new metals. The result is that the earlier tradition of bronze production was neither purely inhibiting nor purely encouraging of innovation. Rather, its influence shifted, perhaps abruptly, sometime after 800 BC. Traditions of technical knowledge facilitated the rapid spread of iron use, but these effects were contingent upon important shifts in broader social and ritual practices. This research demonstrates that the influence of complex technical systems on innovation is not constant, and that seemingly minor shifts in social relations can abruptly alter the pace and pattern of technological change.Anthropolog

Chapter 43: Materials analysis of ceramics

The versatility and geological ubiquity of clay materials have meant that humans have adapted it to a wide range of different purposes, from building materials to tools for storage, transport, cooking, and eating. Archaeological ceramics range from mundane everyday wares to exquisite pieces of craftsmanship available only to the highest elites. Ceramic ethnoarchaeology has documented a wide range of approaches to clay processing, involving the removal and addition of constituents, as well as homogenization and transformation of raw materials through ageing or ‘souring’ of clays to improve their properties. Most laboratory analyses of ceramic materials can be grouped into three broad categories: compositional analyses, microstructural analyses, and macrostructural analyses. The presence of optical activity in the clay groundmass, when viewed in thin section under crosspolars, suggests a firing process that preserved the crystalline structure of clay minerals and did not result in extensive vitrification

Fortified communities in the South Caucasus: insights from Mtsvane Gora and Dmanisis Gora

Fortresses are defining features of the Late Bronze and Early Iron Age landscape in the South Caucasus, with hundreds of sites recorded in archaeological surveys in Georgia, Armenia and Azerbaijan, and northeastern Turkey. Yet, research on how these communities functioned is dominated by evidence from the small fraction of these sites that have been excavated, and regional variability remains underexplored. This paper discusses excavations at two such fortresses in the Lesser Caucasus borderlands and contextualizes them within global discussions about fortresses and their associated communities. Analysis of architecture, ceramics, and small finds identified evidence for a diverse range of activities within these compounds, including both craft production and ritual activity. While the size and construction of the two fortresses differ, the evidence for significant occupation at both suggests that these fortresses were durable communities, not temporary refugia. Further work is necessary, however, to assess whether these fortresses were highly ordered institutions centralized under elite rule or heterarchical communities joined by common interest

Spatial investigation of technological choice and recycling in copper-base metallurgy of the South Caucasus

Recent research has brought the prolific bronze industry of Bronze Age Colchis (modern western Georgia) into focus, but many aspects are still poorly understood. This study synthesises and re‐interprets legacy copper‐alloy compositional data to investigate technological choices and spatial patterning. It reveals a massive injection of fresh copper into the system during Late Bronze‐Early Iron Age, and a high degree of selectivity in the alloys used for different objects, with colour being as important as hardness in determining these choices. Spatial analyses show significant geographic variability in alloying practices, which map onto topographic zones in unexpected ways. We also explore recycling practices and argue that the term encompasses a range of different re‐use activities, which may be employed under differing economic conditions. Finally, the data suggest relatively extensive primary alloying of tin and copper in the Late Bronze and Early Iron Age, which further substantiates the speculation that some local tin sources were exploited