Lead isotopes of prehistoric copper tools define metallurgical phases in Eneolithic Italy

Abstract

Abstract The diffuse presence of small copper ore deposits in the Alpine area, mostly exploited since Late Medieval times, led most scholars to assume that these deposits may actually be active much earlier and that many of the circulating prehistoric metal objects found in the area were produced with local copper sources. This assumption was recently validated for the Recent Bronze Age through the use of lead isotope tracers, and well supported by the archaeometallurgical evidences found in the South-Eastern Alps. However, the scarcity of available lead isotope data for pre-Bronze Age metals precluded to date the reconstruction of the metal flow through the Eneolithic (or Copper Age). Based on 49 new artefact analyses, here we show that the Northern Italian Copper Age (approximately 3500 − 2200 BC) includes three major periods of metal production, each related to specific ore sources. The Alpine copper was massively used only starting from the middle of the 3rd millennium BC, in connection or slightly earlier than the Beaker event.