Strategic Industries and Tin in the Ancient Near East: Anatolia Updated

Abstract

ÖZET

Patterns of metal procurement, manufacture and exchange in Early Bronze Age northwestern Anatolia: Demircihüyük and beyond

“…Even though the deposits of the Black Sea mountains (Pontide block) and the Antitaurus mountains (Tauride block) contain ca 98% of the total modern copper reserves of Turkey (MTA 2001a), numerous copper deposits elsewhere were certainly exploited during the Early Bronze Age for local and regional consumption (see Wagner, Öztunalı 2000, among others). On the other hand, silver and gold are much rarer and concentrated in smaller areas, particularly northwestern and western Anatolia, the Bolkardağ mountains (eastern Taurus), the eastern Black Sea range and the Antitaurus mountains (Yener 1983;Bayburtoğlu, Yıldırım 2008;Legeranlı 2008). Limited occurrences of tin minerals (stannite and cassiterite) in the form of veins or placer deposits have also been identified in the eastern Taurus range and the Marmara Sea area (Kaptan 1995;Yener et al 1989;Yalçın, Özbal 2009;Yener 2009).…”

“…On the other hand, silver and gold are much rarer and concentrated in smaller areas, particularly northwestern and western Anatolia, the Bolkardağ mountains (eastern Taurus), the eastern Black Sea range and the Antitaurus mountains (Yener 1983;Bayburtoğlu, Yıldırım 2008;Legeranlı 2008). Limited occurrences of tin minerals (stannite and cassiterite) in the form of veins or placer deposits have also been identified in the eastern Taurus range and the Marmara Sea area (Kaptan 1995;Yener et al 1989;Yalçın, Özbal 2009;Yener 2009). In view of the discussion of the chemical composition analysis (see above), it is also important to stress that many of the aforementioned deposits are polymetallic, something that may to some extent explain trace and minor concentrations of secondary metals in many of the identifiable alloys.…”

New tin mines and production sites near Kültepe in Turkey: a third-millennium BC highland production model

“…The realisation that multiple tin sources could have been exploited in the Near East was surprising, and the viability of extrapolating the sourcing of tin from second millennium BC contexts backwards into the earlier periods from c . 3000–2000 BC was called into question (Yener 2000, 2009).…”

“…Prior to the identification of Anatolian tin, scholars argued that tin was necessarily traded into the region from Central Asia, Afghanistan or Europe for consumption in the Near East (see Muhly 1985, 1993; Stöllner et al 2011). Rather than seeing early copper-tin alloys as products of long-distance exchange, we can now hypothesise that innovations in technology, which focused on the primary extraction of tin ores, allowed Early Bronze Age Anatolian alloys to be produced locally (Yener 2009). They were also probably traded through regional networks that linked these regions to other areas of production and consumption in Anatolia.…”