The Rise of Metallurgy in Eurasia is a landmark study in the origins
of metallurgy. The project aimed to trace the invention and innovation
of metallurgy in the Balkans. It combined targeted excavations and
surveys with extensive scientific analyses at two Neolithic-Chalcolithic
copper production and consumption sites, Belovode and Plocnik, in
Serbia. At Belovode, the project revealed chronologically and
contextually secure evidence for copper smelting in the 49th century BC.
This confirms the earlier interpretation of c. 7000-year-old metallurgy
at the site, making it the earliest record of fully developed
metallurgical activity in the world. However, far from being a rare and
elite practice, metallurgy at both Belovode and Plocnik is demonstrated
to have been a common and communal craft activity. This monograph
reviews the pre-existing scholarship on early metallurgy in the Balkans.
It subsequently presents detailed results from the excavations, surveys
and scientific analyses conducted at Belovode and Plocnik. These are
followed by new and up-to-date regional syntheses by leading specialists
on the Neolithic-Chalcolithic material culture, technologies, settlement
and subsistence practices in the Central Balkans. Finally, the monograph
places the project results in the context of major debates surrounding
early metallurgy in Eurasia before proposing a new agenda for global
early metallurgy studies.
