Early technologies for metal production in the Iberian Peninsula

This paper focuses on the characterization of technological processes used for producing copper, tin-bronze and silver in the Prehistory and Protohistory of the Iberian Peninsula. To this purpose, slags and slaggy materials have been analyzed by optical microscopy (OM) and scanning electron microscopy (SEM-EDS). In particular, the results obtained allow us to characterize the main technological features for smelting copper ores since the 3rd millennium BCE, a process that was performed in simple fire structures using a non-slagging process. Regarding tin-bronze, the analytical data suggest that prehistoric bronzes were obtained by co-smelting copper and tin oxidic ores or by cementation of copper with cassiterite. Finally, some metallurgical debris dated to the Phoenician time, in the early 1st millennium BCE, points to the extraction of silver from argentiferous copper ores employing a method similar to the 15th century liquation process. This is a unique discovery to date as this type of materials is unknown in any other Mediterranean region settled by the Phoenicians.