62 replies to this topic

[Maju]

I'd also like to mention that, while Chalcolithic 'strictu sensu' means early "easy" metallurgy (not just copper but also gold and silver often) many prehistorians give it a wider sense: much like Neolithic is not anymore defined by polished stone or pottery but by a different way of life based on agriculture, the social markers of Chalcolithic are a higher degree of organization, larger economical areas and the beginning of social differentiation. In this sense, cultures like the SE French one of Chassey are not Chalcolithic in the narrow meaning, as they never used copper or other metals, but are Chalcolithic in the socio-economical sense, with centralized extraction of honey-colored flintstone and stuff like that. Inversely, in West Asia, the usage of hammered copper for ornaments does not mark any transition in the Neolithic: it just happens since the beginning of it. The usage of copper (a soft metal) was not really a very central element but the social and economical changes actually, but the same as pottery is most often associated with agriculture (Neolithic), simple metallurgy is most often associated with that qualitative sociological jump of Chalcolithic - but not necessarily.

In this broader sense, surely Britain had a "Chalcolithic without copper" much earlier than basic metallurgy appears in the islands. And I would say that, using continental standards, British Chalcolithic (without copper) begins with Megalithism or at least with the advanced megalithic monuments that imply ample social organization in a wide geographical frame.

[stonecarver]

The most recent definitions of the (insular) Neolithic in Britain suggest it is a period marked by the adoption of:-

i) ground stone tool technology
ii) ceramics
iii) domesticates (cereals/animals)

and more recently,

iv) the construction of monuments (megalithic)

(See Bradley 2007: The Prehistory of Britain and Ireland, pp27-87, and see Thomas, J. 1991 (reprinted 1999): Understanding the Neolithic, pp13-33)

As these are the defining components of the Neolithic, most archaeologists (even those arguing for a Chalcolithic in Britiain) accept that the term 'Chalcolithic' refers to the period when metals were first used (copper mainly, but including gold/silver).

One of the problems with identifying the first use of metals in Britain and Ireland is due to the fact that unlike stone, metal can be recyled by melting it down again... so the earliest evidence for its use comes from the Corlea Trackay in Ireland (a metal, presumable copper axe) was used to cut the timbers of the trackway which was found preserved in peat there.

What we Can say with a degree of certainty, is that by the time stone elements were being incorporated into the monument at Stonehenge, metals were being used (flat axes certainly).

[Maju]

Well, outside of Britain (depending who you read of course), the term Chalcolithic is often used in a wide sense, meaning increased socio-economical complexity. There's no rule for that but yes, French cultures like Chassey (pre-megalithic and pre-metallurgy) of Western Megalithism (pre-metallurgy too) can easily be described as Chalcolithic just because they display the same kind of complexity as Lengyel (with early metallurgy). The term, when used in this sense, does not necesarily refer to the less important details like the use or not of copper, a metal that is no any technological revolution in itself and that often was sidelined in favor of flintstone (for practical uses) or dolerite (for ritual ones) but to the centralization and complexity displayed by the cultures. The builders of Carnac, even if never used copper probably, would surely be described as Chalcolithic, in contrast with their much more simple predecessor Neolithic cultures, that did not participate of long distance exchange, did not have any visible hierarchies or did not cooperate in large numbers to make for instance those huge monuments.

But yes, it's a loose usage of the term. And alternative terms as Late Neolithic would be equally valid just that in pan-European chronology, late Neolithic is the period that precedes the early Chalcolithic, not the early Bronze Age. And while the Bronze Age is defined by this metal (or its sucedaneous: arseniated copper alloy), copper was never, even in the most metallurgic of all cultures an essential piece of the puzzle.