@article{8fe1f650b4d84b7a97f6eb9d60f9ca43,
title = "Non-ferrous metal artefacts from the northern Lowveld, South Africa, ca. 1000 CE to ca. 1880 CE",
abstract = "We report metallographic studies of copper ingots and metal artefacts recovered during sporadic surface surveys and excavations over the past fifty years in the northern Lowveld of South Africa. These include primary copper ingots, copper droplets or prills, a nodule of tin bronze, a bimetallic copper/iron ingot, cast copper bars and rods, and finished items like finger rings and beads. Metallographic study of these items shows that copper smelters had difficulty in controlling reducing conditions sufficiently to prevent the co-reduction of iron, despite the use of smaller furnaces for copper smelting than local iron production. Copper probably was refined by melting in crucibles, allowing the iron contaminant to float to the surface, where it was skimmed off. Despite former suggestions to the contrary by geologists, brass could not have been produced locally by smelting of zinc‑copper ores from the Murchison Range. Bronze and brass first appeared in this region at the end of the thirteenth century CE, probably as imports from the Islamic world.",
keywords = "Archaeometallurgy, Brass, Bronze, Copper, Ingot, South Africa, Technology",
author = "Duncan Miller and David Killick",
note = "Funding Information: We are indebted to Professor Emeritus Nikolaas van der Merwe for initiating the archaeological study of mining and metallurgy in the Lowveld in the 1960s. We thank the Palabora Mining Company; the Maranda Mining Company; Charles More, Ike Lombaard and Jan Scholtemeyer of Phalaborwa, all now deceased, and the many farmers for access to their land. We also thank the Department of Archaeology, University of Cape Town (UCT); Professor W.J. Verwoerd; Professor Tom Huffman; Dr. Julius Pistorius; and Dr. Udo K{\"u}sel for access to materials under their care. For assistance in the analysis of samples we thank the Director, Electron Microscope Unit at the University of Cape Town for access to the scanning electron microscope, and Dr. Ken Domanik for expert assistance with the electron microprobe at the University of Arizona. Duncan Miller would like to thank the University of the Free State for access to research facilities since 2012. Two anonymous reviewers made detailed suggestions for improvement of the report, for which we are grateful. Archaeometallurgical studies were funded by part of National Science Foundation Grant SBR-9602033 to David Killick, and by multiple grants to Duncan Miller from the National Research Foundation (South Africa), Anglo American PLC, De Beers PLC, and AngloGold PLC. Opinions expressed in this report, and conclusions arrived at, are those of the authors and are not necessarily to be attributed to any of the supporting agencies. None. Publisher Copyright: {\textcopyright} 2019 Elsevier Ltd",
year = "2019",
month = apr,
doi = "10.1016/j.jasrep.2019.03.014",
language = "English (US)",
volume = "24",
pages = "913--923",
journal = "Journal of Archaeological Science: Reports",
issn = "2352-409X",
publisher = "Elsevier B.V.",
}