Lead Isotope Geochemistry and the Trade in Metals

Abstract

The application of lead isotope analysis (LIA) to archaeological copper alloy objects was seized upon in the 1980s as a way of evading the apparent impasse surrounding the use of trace elements as a way of determining provenance. It was widely used in the study of metalwork from the Aegean and Eastern Mediterranean Bronze Age, especially on the oxhide ingots, thought to consist of traded copper from Cyprus. An increasingly tense debate ensued about the validity of the competing archaeological interpretations presented by the various parties involved in this activity. This chapter presents the geochemical background to the use of lead isotopes as an indicator of metal provenance, and then summarizes the elements of that debate. It concludes by showing that, thirty years later, new interpretative methodologies and a slightly different set of archaeological questions can once again put LIA at the centre of archaeological interpretations of the supply of metal.