Moving metals II: Provenancing Scandinavian Bronze Age artefacts by lead isotope and elemental analyses

• The first part of this research published previously proved without doubt that the metals dated to the Nordic Bronze Age found in Sweden were not smelted from the local copper ores. In this second part we present a detailed interpretation of these analytical data with the aim to identify the ore sources from which these metals originated. The interpretation of lead isotope and chemical data of 71 Swedish Bronze Age metals is based on the direct comparisons between the lead isotope data and geochemistry of ore deposits that are known to have produced copper in the Bronze Age. The presented interpretations of chemical and lead isotope analyses of Swedish metals dated to the Nordic Bronze Age are surprising and bring some information not known from previous work. Apart from a steady supply of copper from the Alpine ores in the North Tyrol, the main sources of copper seem to be ores from the Iberian Peninsula and Sardinia. Thus from the results presented here a new complex picture emerges of possible connectivities and flows in the Bronze Age between Scandinavia and Europe. © 2013 Elsevier Ltd.

Subject headings

HUMANIORA  -- Historia och arkeologi -- Arkeologi (hsv//swe)

HUMANITIES  -- History and Archaeology -- Archaeology (hsv//eng)

NATURVETENSKAP  -- Geovetenskap och miljövetenskap (hsv//swe)

NATURAL SCIENCES  -- Earth and Related Environmental Sciences (hsv//eng)

Keyword

Amber & metal networks

Bronze objects

Copper ores

Flow of metal

Lead isotopes

Nordic forms & foreign content

Trace elements

artifact

Bronze Age

copper

lead isotope

metal

provenance

smelting

trace element

Austria

Sweden

Tyrol

archeology bronze age lead isotope artefacts

The changing Earth

Publication and Content Type

ref (subject category)

art (subject category)