Abstract
SHORTLY after the end of the War, the Royal Anthropological Institute formed a Committee, with representatives of various branches of science concerned, to investigate problems of ancient mining and metallurgy. This Committee is prepared to advise excavators concerning the technology of metal tools and other artefacts, and in certain cases to carry out complete analyses of such material. One of the most crucial problems in study of the development of technology and applied science is the extent to which native copper was used in prehistoric times, and how far the discoveries of its properties of malleability and fusibility preceded that of the art of extracting copper from its ores. It is generally admitted that native copper was used before smelted copper. Indeed, one school holds that early metal- using cultures were dependent upon native copper for a considerable time, so that there would be two phases in intelligent metallurgy (apart from a supposedly still earlier phase in which, as in pre-Columbian North America, copper was worked cold as a superior kind of stone). Data are badly needed to determine how far cultures using only native copper preceded those using the smelted copper; but this is bound up with a further problem, namely, the best method of distinguishing the native copper from the metal from oxidized ore. The Committee has started to investigate the problem and has issued a preliminary report (see Man, Art. 3 and 17; 1948). In order to make further progress, a large body of material must be examined, and therefore archseologists are asked to advise the secretary of the Com mittee (Miss S. Benton, c/o Royal Anthropological. Institute, 21 Bedford Square, London, W.C.I) of material from early cultures of which they have knowledge, or which they could send for examination and report.
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Royal Anthropological Institute : Ancient Mining and Metallurgy Committee. Nature 163, 522 (1949). https://doi.org/10.1038/163522b0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/163522b0