Tracing Europe-Wide Copper and Bronze flow in the Dutch Late Neolithic to the Early Iron Age.

Abstract

The study of the production, movement, processing and consumption of copper and bronze objects in the European Bronze Age (c. 2500-800 BC) reveals the underlying mobility and interconnectedness of Bronze Age societies. Long-distance exchange networks spanned the European Continent, and this paper fills an important geographic gap in Bronze Age metal research improving our understanding of the metal flows across Europe. The Netherlands as maritime/riverine east-west and north-south crossroad is a key piece to the Bronze Age metal supply puzzle. More than 200 lead isotope and elemental analyses of copper and bronzes from the Netherlands, featuring the strategic use of portable laser ablation, constitute a key opportunity to test and reshape theories on Bronze Age metal flow. Our analyses indicate that the earliest copper is of Balkan and Slovakian origin with some import of Iberian arsenical alloys followed by an intensification of Slovakian/Únětice metal imports during the Early Bronze Age. In the early phase of the Middle Bronze Age, the Netherlands received fresh copper with nickel and arsenic impurities from both the Great Orme mine in Wales and Mitterberg in Austria, shifting towards Italian Alpine copper in the late Middle Bronze Age. Italian Alpine copper was widely used, probably reaching the British Isles via trade routes through the Netherlands. In the Late Bronze Age, high-impurity antimony-bearing copper sources prevailed in both the Netherlands and in Britain and highly leaded bronze became commonplace, with the added lead being consistent with British sources. The high-impurity element pattern can be linked to recycled Alpine metal with almost no visible contribution of Iberian metal arriving via Atlantic trade routes.