THE ORGANIZATION AND DEVELOPMENT OF EARLY COPPER METALLURGY IN THE POLIS REGION, WESTERN CYPRUS (ARCHAEOMETALLURGY, MEDITERRANEAN, ARCHAEOLOGY)

The role of metallurgy in the development of culture has been a long-standing concern of anthropologists, historians, and others. Much of the previous study of the subject has either had a narrow technical focus or has taken a very broad theoretical approach. Case studies of specific industries, integrating the study of technology and organization in a regional and ecological framework, are needed. Cyprus, with a long history of copper metallurgy, is one obvious location for such studies.;Analyses of resource use, copper production, and site distribution provide a picture of organizational patterns in the local copper industry through time when considered in conjunction with historical and archaeological information on economic and political relations. Three possible alternative models of the organization of the local copper industry are proposed and tested with the data from this survey and other studies. The organizational information is supplemented by data on the technology of copper production obtained through archaeology and by chemical analyses of the slag samples. Alternative models of smelting technology are considered and tested. A case is made for the use of hydrometallurgy by early metallurgists.;Copper metallurgy in the Polis region is seen as an essentially local enterprise based on part-time, seasonal production in a peasant economy. Changes in the political and economic context affected the pattern of distribution and comsumption of copper products but production remained relatively small in scale and locally organized throughout the 2,000 years of its history. Economic and political factors, rather than technology, technological innovation, or resource distribution were the chief determinants of the form and changes in the local copper industry.;A physiographically and culturally defined region near the modern town of Polis in western Cyprus was chosen as the location for a program of archaeological survey and test excavation of metallurgical sites in 1980. Forty-nine metallurgical and other sites were located, recorded, and dated. These sites represent more than 2,000 years of local metallurgy in the Polis region from the Late Iron Age to the Late Medieval period (ca. eighth century B.C. to fifteenth century A.D.).