#copper age

[thesilicontribesman]

Craig Celynin Ancient Landscape, nr. Rowen, Conwy Valley, Wales

[holidaysincambodia]

Natufian scuplture from from around 11,000, credited as the first artwork portraying sex

[victusinveritas]

They handed me a bowl of cooked wild grasses and they gave me the cosy comfy shoes that didn't give me blisters.

[ancientstuff]

I'd assumed that the wheel was invented somewhere in the ancient Near East. I think the archaeologist is right, though, that multiple cultures invented the wheel at the same time.

[aurelyah]

Strictly August self portraits,

Celebrating my copper age,

My 35th year on earth.

Por siempre dorado.

*forever golden

*

[ancestorsalive]

Dheut-e-Zonja, or Zôja-e-Dheut ("Lady of the Earth"), was the Illyrian/Albanian Earthmother of the ancient Balkans, also called Dheun, Dheu, and Toka ("Earth"), and Mëmë-dheu ("Mother Earth"). The Romans identified her with Tellus Mater, Terra Mater, or Magna Mater (Cybele). The very soil of Dheut-e-Zonja was believed to have the powers of an all-seeing eye that watched humanity from the ground up, knowing everywhere each of us goes. When an Albanian moved to a foreign land, he or she took with them a container of Mother Earth, as the concept of the Earthmother was regionalized. She was Mother of the Sun-goddess, rebirthing Her every morning. She cared for the dead, their remains buried and their soul going to an underworld paradise. Mourners would get on their knees making forlorn wailing sounds, then place their foreheads on Mother Earth. She was sometimes paired with Zoh-z, the Albanian Sky-god, with many formulaic sayings or prayers to Earth and Sky. Presumedly he was her husband. Dheut-e-Zonja was mother of vegetation. Her sacred groves were designated natural sites of great beauty, where it was forbidden to cut down trees, and no house or settlement was permitted, or the offenders' families would suffer longlasting misfortune.

An Albanian and Kosovan folk practice that lasted into the 20th Century provides lingering evidence of an Earthmother cult. Infants and children who were not thriving would be taken to a ritual location by an elderly woman of the family or village, there laid upon the ground, and covered with fresh earth, all except the head, the while reciting prayers or spells of healing. This was believed to impart the Earth's strength to the child.

Figurine: Copper Age ceramic goddess figurine found at Maliqi, Albania.

[1008grams]

[covenawhite66]

The 5,000-year-old burial site was until excavations earlier this year burial site in San Giorgio Bigarello, Italy

[inspofromancientworld]

USGS map of copper distribution

Chalcolithic - The Copper Age or Eneolithic

Africa (2600 BCE - 1600 AD)

West Asia (6000-3500 BCE)

Europe (5500-2200 BCE)

Central Asia (3700-1700 BCE)

South Asia (4300-1800 BCE)

China (5800-2900 BCE)

Mesoamerica (5000-2900 BCE)

Central Asia

The Bronze age initially included the Copper age. Copper smelting often happened before development of bronze, leading archaeologists to propose it as a separate age in the 1870s. Lead might have been smelted first since it's easy to do so. Copper might have been used in the Fertile Crescent (Timna Valley shows evidence of copper mining as early as 7000 BCE) due to the rarity of lead in the area. Lead and copper seem to have rapidly replaced stone tools as the quality of stone tools rapidly decreased.

Arsenic was added to copper to help make it stronger starting as early as 4200 BCE at Norşuntepe and Değirmentepe. The slag there doesn't contain arsenic, so it was added to the copper deliberately. Tennantite is an alloy of copper with iron, zinc, arsenic, and sulfur which may have led to arsenic being added to copper prior to the discovery and importation of tin.

Europe

First undisputed and direct evidence of copper smelting in Serbia dating about 5000 BCE with the discovery of an axe. Ötzi the Iceman, dated to about 3300 BCE, was found with a Mondsee copper axe.

South Asia

Copper bangles and arrowheads were found in Bhirrana, the first Indus civilization site, fashioned with local ore and dated between 7000 and 3300 BCE. This time period also saw the development of painted pottery.

North America

Smelting or alloying is disputed in North America as copper artifacts appear to be cold-worked rather than smelted, though there are copper artifacts dated as early as 6500 BCE, some of the oldest in the world.

China

Copper manufacturing gradually appeared in the Yangshao Period in China (about 5000-3000 BCE), with only Jiangzhai being the only site where they appeared in the earlier Banpo culture. The Yellow River valley appears to have been a major center of smelting.

Africa

In sub-Sahara Africa, scholars previously were unsure if there was a separate Copper Age, whether the region skipped the Copper and Bronze Ages and went directly to the Iron Age, or if copper and iron were smelted at the same time. Recent discoveries in the Agadez Region of Niger showed that copper metallurgy predated iron by about a thousand years. The two metals continued to be smelted and traded throughout the continent because copper was used as a medium of exchange and status symbol. Theories suggest that copper's redness, shine, and the sound it produced caused it to be valued by Africans for so long.

Housing and Cultural Development

Settlements often featured round houses with pointed roofs, potentially with walls around the houses. This time period was one of transition between the beginnings of the settled and stratified developments and the rise of empires that occurred in the Bronze and Iron Ages. There is evidence of trade in several regions due to the spread of copper and pottery, suggesting that people were mobile, or at least traded, between settlements. This is also the earliest we can trace linguistic movements, such as the spread of Proto Indo-European, which also suggest migration even with sedentary lifestyles becoming more dominant.

[thesilicontribesman]

Achnabreck Prehistoric Rock Art Panels, nr. Lochgilphead, Argyll, Scotland

[thesilicontribesman]

Mesolithic Harpoon Head, 4500 BCE, Stewartry Museum, Kirkcudbright, Dumfries and Galloway, Scotland

This is a 6500 year old harpoon made from a Red Deer antler and found in the River Dee. It is of a similar type of harpoon to those found in Mesolithic caves or rock shelters near Oban. This piece has been carbon dated to around 4500 BCE.

[thesilicontribesman]

Ballochmyle Prehistoric Rock Art Panels, Ballochmyle, East Ayrshire, Scotland

[thesilicontribesman]

Prehistoric Petrosphere, Aberdeenshire, 3300 to 2000BCE, Kelvingrove Museum, Glasgow, Scotland

[thesilicontribesman]

Swinside Neolithic Stone Circle, Sunkenkirk, South Lakes.

[thesilicontribesman]

Castleton 7a Prehistoric Rock Art Panels, nr. Falkirk, Scotland

[thesilicontribesman]

Sculpture of a Bison (replica)

This is a replica of a 14,000-year-old sculpture found in the Madeleine Cave in France and is made of reindeer antler.

Museum of Archaeology, Durham University