ADVANCED MATERIALS & PROCESSES | NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2025 20 and other artifacts. Figures 3a and 3b are similar plots comparing nickel versus silver contents. Figure 4 shows many ancient Iranian burial sites, which are widely distributed. The Deh Dumen site has a blue background and the nine others from which sampled artifacts came have yellow backgrounds. Figure 5 shows two vessels recovered from the Deh Dumen site. Both are tin bronzes except that D.P.287 has an arsenical copper base[3]. Samples for chemical analyses were taken from the vessel body of D.P.283 and the base of D.P.287. There are four general points to note about the sampled vessels and artifacts: • The vessels and artifacts were known from archaeological and Age (EBA) was succeeded by the Middle Bronze Age (MBA). EXAMPLE 2: MINOR ELEMENT DATA COMPARISIONS FOR BRONZE ARTIFACTS AND ORES Figures 2 and 3 are bivariate scatter plots for four minor elements in nine samples from eight copper-based vessels disinterred from the Early/ Middle Bronze Age Deh Dumen burial site (cemetery) in southwestern Iran, four ore locations from western and central Iran, and artifacts from nine other burial sites. All are dated to the Bronze and Early Iron Ages of the Iranian Plateau. In more detail, Fig. 2a compares antimony versus arsenic contents of the vessels and ores; Fig. 2b shows a similar plot for the vessels Fig. 2 — Arsenic versus antimony scatter plot comparisons for nine samples from copper alloy vessels disinterred from the Bronze Age Deh Dumen cemetery site in southwestern Iran with (a) four ore locations in Iran, and (b) artifacts from nine other Iranian burial sites. SCOPE Provenance refers to the origins of artifacts and materials. Context includes information about their locations and details of discoveries and excavations. In archaeometallurgy these basic concepts include: • Geology and geography: local and regional land areas and cultures. • Artifact excavation sites: combinations and hoards of metallic objects; chemical and isotope analyses; microstructures (metallography); corrosion and soil analyses; and seriation (chronological ordering based on design styles). • Primary production sites: pyro- metallurgical technology levels; and smelting remains (crucibles, furnaces, slags, ores). • Secondary production sites: remelting, possibly including recycling; and thermo-mechanical working and finishing, including stylistic techniques. • Mining sites: mineral and ore types; and changes with time. • Provenances of alloying or impurity elements: notably tin and arsenic in copper-based alloys; and lead and copper in silver alloys. Obtaining some or all of this information is a formidable task. Much has been acquired and documented, for example the multidisciplinary and holistic studies in the book “The Rise of Metallurgy in Eurasia”[8]. Even so, in the concluding chapter the editors state that on a worldwide scale there is scope for many similar studies. EXAMPLE 1: LIA DATA REVEALING DIFFERING EUROPEAN COPPER SOURCES Figure 1 gives examples of conventional bivariate LIA plots derived from many European Bronze Age copper alloy artifacts and hoards[9]. The data show that the copper ores used in metal production came from two different geographical sources, and also that the ores used for Mannersdorf bronzes changed from Slovakian to Eastern Alps locations when the Early Bronze (b) (a)
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