Is possibly metallurgy born with hunter-gatherers ?

halfalp

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Hi ! I would like to ask a question about an idea. The actual consensus about metallurgy its, that it was born in different places of the world but, everywhere linked with some kind of " farming civilization ? ". But if, early metallurgy, cold forging, or at least the metal was found by HG and work by sedentary people, was in fact born with hunter gatherers. I base my little idea of the fact that both Balkans and Caucasus, shows trade between sedentary farmers and obsidian, flint and others minerals finders whoes like in northern europe mesolithic people linked with hunter-gatherers. If we think rationnaly of the link between farming and metallurgy there is a total contradiction in the " way of thinking " of these two differents cultural entity. Do somebody knows some archeological sites where metallurgy seems to live without real farming society ? One of the archeological sites and natural region for wich a pattern like that can be accepted seems to be Caucasus and Maykop culture, but even before we see in Samara Culture and Khwalynsk a kind of proto-chalcolitic culture and proto-herding, that can be a consequence of trade between Steppe / Caucasus with Balkan / Transcaucasia.
 
Hi ! I would like to ask a question about an idea. The actual consensus about metallurgy its, that it was born in different places of the world but, everywhere linked with some kind of " farming civilization ? ". But if, early metallurgy, cold forging, or at least the metal was found by HG and work by sedentary people, was in fact born with hunter gatherers. I base my little idea of the fact that both Balkans and Caucasus, shows trade between sedentary farmers and obsidian, flint and others minerals finders whoes like in northern europe mesolithic people linked with hunter-gatherers. If we think rationnaly of the link between farming and metallurgy there is a total contradiction in the " way of thinking " of these two differents cultural entity. Do somebody knows some archeological sites where metallurgy seems to live without real farming society ? One of the archeological sites and natural region for wich a pattern like that can be accepted seems to be Caucasus and Maykop culture, but even before we see in Samara Culture and Khwalynsk a kind of proto-chalcolitic culture and proto-herding, that can be a consequence of trade between Steppe / Caucasus with Balkan / Transcaucasia.

No, it's not possible.
 
No, it's not possible.
That was an intense response. But why is it not possible ? And i dont want an " Farmer Gene " response or i'm gonna laugh. In one hand you've got Hunter-Gatherer who knows their environnement better than anybody, on the other hand we've got sedentary people, who live in general in flat lands. Their is no logic that a Farmer with a Farmer logic gonna decide to go in a mountain found some new things, and the idea of an Uruk Expension who gone in Caucasus and Bam ! Discover Metalurgy seems like an Cradle of Civilization agenda. But now imagine that hunter-gatherers from caucasus exchange Herds or Cattle against Metals with Mesopotamians and then goes with the Cattle in the Pontic Steppe.
 
That was an intense response. But why is it not possible ? And i dont want an " Farmer Gene " response or i'm gonna laugh.

It's not possible because we already KNOW how and in what context metallurgy developed. Have you missed all of that? Use the search engine and find all the threads.

We also know that wherever metallurgy developed, in the Near East and Europe, in the far east, in the Americas, it developed in the context of settled farming communities. Each advancement in civilization is built on what went before.

As for the steppe hunter gatherers, we know they HAD no metallurgy of their own. The first metal objects that appear are little metal beads, the metal for which has been sourced to the "Old Europe" Neolithic sites, and which were obviously trade goods. Then metal tools appear, again with metal from Europe and identical in style to goods produced there, and so again, trade goods. After a long time, along with the adoption of domesticated animals, and farming in some suitable places along rivers, some metallurgy does appear, but it is rudimentary and derivative in style. With the passage of time and a change in the culture, the metallurgy does greatly improve, but under the influence of Maykop this time. If you want to read about it in detail, you might want to pick up a copy of David Anthony's "The Horse, The Wheel and Language". It's all in there. Also, in our own threads there are links to a lot of papers.

Hunter-gatherers might find a piece of metal and hammer it into some kind of shape, but that's not metallurgy.

Can we try not to re-invent the wheel every other day, pun intended?
 
Yes, you dont understand my point, i dont said HG invente the Furnace and Crafting, but the possibility of the discovery of the metal and his trade with Farming Society, for wich your " proofs " ( wich ar not, but only physical facts, without an contexte or an history, of his discovery. ) Dont tell us anything by the circumstance of Early Metallurgy.
 
If what you're asking is did some hunter-gatherers discover some seams of ore and trade the ore for finished goods, yeah, I'm sure it's possible. More likely, prospectors were scouting far afield and found it.

In either case, so what? Are you going to award a posthumous medal for finding some shiny rocks and trying to palm them off on somebody for trade goods? In no way does this equate to metallurgy being "born with hunter-gatherers". End of story.
 
No i mean exactly what archeology show, that in middle neolithic especialy in balkan the arrival of metallurgy, affect the society, create social stratification and " goods " culte, people buried with artefacts. That kind of behavior is related, with a new " fashion " arrival, people is not focusing on farming anymore but on luxury goods, this condition became outstanding in bronze age especially in Creta. So my theory is, that maybe, hunter-gatherer, become herders, and herding become with hunter-gatherer and not with farming society in term of neolithic sedentary, with the trade of mineral goods from HG and animals and maybe crops from farmers, but HG being different, in their logical, created the proto-herding and abandonned farming ( crops ) by cultural reasons ( semi-nomadism, sedentary farming demographic explosion... ) or by incapacity to understand how grow the crops.
 
No i mean exactly what archeology show, that in middle neolithic especialy in balkan the arrival of metallurgy, affect the society, create social stratification and " goods " culte, people buried with artefacts. That kind of behavior is related, with a new " fashion " arrival, people is not focusing on farming but on luxury, this condition became outstanding in bronze age especially in Creta. So my theory is, that maybe, hunter-gatherer, become herders, and herding become with hunter-gatherer and not with farming society in term of neolithic sedentary, with the trade of mineral goods from HG and animals and maybe crops from farmers, but HG being different, in their logical, created the proto-herding and abandonned farming ( crops ) by cultural reasons ( semi-nomadism, sedentary farming demographic explosion... ) or by incapacity to understand how grow the crops.

Last response. You don't know what you're talking about. Go to the library and get a copy of David Anthony's book.
 
Last response. You don't know what you're talking about. Go to the library and get a copy of David Anthony's book.

While you're at it, do some reading on "Old Europe".

http://www.eupedia.com/forum/thread...ification-and-its-demise?highlight=Old+Europe

http://www.eupedia.com/forum/threads/30625-David-Anthony-on-Metallurgy?highlight=Old+Europe

http://www.eupedia.com/forum/threads/29813-Old-Europe?highlight=Old+Europe

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/12/01/science/01arch.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0

Metallurgy moved from the Balkans and the Caucasus into the steppe before it moved out again much later.

Done. There's a limit to how much time I can spend on the tinfoil hat ideas of anthrofora.

We have a wealth of wonderful content on this site. It's a mystery to me why more people don't bother to read it before spouting off.
 
what is strange, the melting proces was not done nearby the ore mining places
the ores had to be transported to the melting ovens
the melting ovens were even often not processing the ores from the nearest sources of ores, but from mines further away

also, as for the earliest melting in the Balkans, it seems to coincide with the first use of oxen as draught animals to transport the ores
and who brought the first oxens? farmers or herders?

I think ore melting was a very special trade, a family bussiness with very specific know how
and they had a special relation with the crew responsable for digging and transporting the ores

http://scindeks-clanci.ceon.rs/data/pdf/0354-6306/2006/0354-63060603093S.pdf
 
Angela, you can not make the difference in Europe Neolithic between real Farmers and " neolithization " Do you ? No, i know everything about David Anthony and Old Europe. The consensus is, that where their is metallurgy, their is farming, but you can not say, in a Old Neolithic culture wich one of the sites where who. In fact i cant prove my idea, you cant prove that my idea is wrong. But put farming, herding, metallurgy, pottery, like a environnmental or cultural adaptation by the same farmers who first in preceramic levant has domesticated crops or animals, is a total non-sens...
 
What is nonsense is to ignore archaeology for some half baked, a-scientific idea.

You're the one with a new idea, that metallurgy developed in mobile hunter-gatherer societies. Where is your proof? Where is this confusion over sites? Where do you have metallurgy practiced in a hunter gatherer setting...not where they dug the damn ore but where they produced something, where they had the technology to produce something?

If you have no concrete evidence for it then the whole thing is bogus.

I don't have to prove anything. The burden of proof is on you. All I have to point out is that there is no evidence for any such thing.

OK, now I mean it. No more wasting time, even if I want to make sure newbies aren't confused.
 

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