New map of the diffusion of the Copper Age in Europe

I posted the papers mostly for the dating aspect. Dolfini is reacting to scholarship which has held that metal working developed gradually in Italy during the mid-third millennium, and he is saying that a local tradition of copper and aresenical copper working emerged in central Italy in the early Copper Age (3600-3300 calendar B.C.), presumably following a short but momentous intensification period during the Final Neolithic, which might go all the way back to 4351 B.C.

The comment about "shepherd warriors" from the Balkans introducing copper metallurgy is made in the context of explaining the earliest theories about metallurgy in Italy, and contrasting them with the views of Renfrew among others, that posited a blend of independent invention and cultural influence from the Balkans to explain it. Although, at the end of the paper he dismisses the possibility of independent invention on Sicily, or a transmission from either Iberia or the Aegean, and instead seems to tentatively see a source in the Balkans.

However, he doesn't say anything about whether this influence would have involved a substantial movement of peoples from the area of the Balkans.

As you know, I'm no longer so convinced that the spread of copper technology into Italy was accompanied by a necessarily large movement of people. Oetzi is the quintessential Neolithic farmer genetically even if he did have a copper ax and had arsenic in his blood. Of course, maybe the people in the Balkans whom I believe might have been the source of any such movement weren't so different yet either. Perhaps what change occurred came later in the mid third millennium with the Bronze Age proper.
 
Good discussions of early copper mines (including the Ligurian ones) are found here
http://books.google.de/books?id=hef...Bw#v=onepage&q=copper Harz bronze age&f=false (map on p 439!) and
http://books.google.de/books?id=EbI...AA#v=onepage&q=copper Harz bronze age&f=false

Note that central Alpine mines, especially the Mitterberg south of Salzburg and Brixlegg in North Tyrol, emerged as main Central European supply sources by the beginning of the Bronze age, though the other mines mentioned played as well important roles at least on a regional, possibly also on a continental scale (there remains a lot of archeometry to be done, especially in the Mediterranean).
Hensler_Pfedelbach_Oe-Ringe-1.jpg

Typical Ösenring early bronze age copper ingots from Tyrolia & Salzburg, which possibly may also have served as currency. A distribution map (too large to be attached directly) is here: https://www2.uni-frankfurt.de/47388825/Hensler_Verbreitungskarte.jpg

Aberdeen said:
It's too bad the paper didn't address the issue of glazed pottery in the context of copper smelting, since I'm convinced that copper smelting is easily discovered by anyone who tries to use copper ores to colour glazed pottery, and glazed pottery also provides the equipment necessary for copper smelting. That raises the possibility or probability that copper smelting could have been invented separately in several places, whereas something like the deliberate production of bronze tools with a specific percentage of another metal present requires much more specialized knowledge, so may have been more dependent on diffusion for its spread.
Click to expand...
I have seen several papers that support this thesis (due to a browser crash for too many pages opened simultaneously, I have unfortunately lost the links). In addition to the discovery of copper smelting, trade networks allowing for the dissemination of the technology are as well of interest. That would primarily be obsidian and flintstone trade, both of which imply a source population specialised in, and experienced with mining.

Obsidian trade in the Western Mediterranean is, among others, discussed here: http://books.google.de/books?id=0He...nepage&q=Obsidian trade mediterranean&f=false and here
http://shell.cas.usf.edu/~rtykot/PR22 - AccChemRes 2002.pdf (note the maps on the second page and in the discussion!). I personally think that this trade, as well as subsequent copper trade from Ligurian and Sardinian mines, can explain a lot about the distribution of the Sardinian I2a sub-clade.

Wikipedia has a good overview on known prehistoric flint mines in Europe: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flint_mine
Many of those mines supplied flint across several hundred km distances. The flint mining complex around Arnhofen (near Regensburg in East Central Bavaria), e.g., has been shown to have supplied the Lake Constance area, as well as Bohemia up to Prague: http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Feuersteinstraße (in German only).
This article http://www.pasthorizonspr.com/index.php/archives/02/2014/otzis-flint-one-sided-relationship shows, for the chalcolithic, the overlap of supply regions between the Arnhofen mines and Monte Lessini in Northern Italy.
http://arbannig.blogspot.de/p/regional-limburg-nl-neolithic.html puts the Limburg flint mines (southern Netherlands, supplying a/o the Rhineland between Cologne and Duisburg) into the context of LBK expansion from the upper Danube to the Rhineland and the Paris basin.

Of particular interest are flint mines located close to copper mines that are known or supposed to have been exploited in the bronze age:

Btw: Unlike commonly claimed, the flint mines of Spiennes, Belgium, are neither Europes oldest nor largest prehistoric flint mines. The Arnhofen mines in Bavaria, e.g. predate Spiennes by several centuries (which is consistent with the archaeological record of LBK expansion from the Danube to the Rhine and Belgium /northern France). The mines in Krzemionki (SE Poland) appear to have been at least as large, if not larger than the ones in Spiennes.
 
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wiki on the 'Nuragic Civilization' article, at the 'Pre-Nuragic Sardinia' sections says - During this period copper objects and weapons also appeared in the island, ie BEFORE the coming of Beaker people around 2000bc. You also say that the oldest evidence of copper metallurgy is from Vinca/Serbia around 5500bc. Sardinia could be a hub for the neolithic expansion by sea just like Cyprus and Crete. I see on several maps that this neolithic expansion can be seen in 3 steps - 1] Old Europe/Vinca, 2] Croatia plus S of Italy (and o bit of central Italy, E shores) and Sardinia, than 3]S of Spain which appears on your map as early Iberian bronze. So could we think about a logical bronze expansion from Vinca to Spain through Sardinia? Sardinia was rich in copper mines, it later developed the Nuragic Bronze Culture, which was exporting copper products all over Mediterana, probably in relation with the Phoenicians also.
 
Vinca:The oldest evidence of copper metallurgy is from the Vinča culture in Serbia around 5500 BCE. From there is quickly spread to Bulgaria (Gumelniţa-Karanovo culture, etc.), then to the Carpathians (Cucuteni-Tripyllian culture) and the Danubian basin. These cultures of 'Old Europe' would have included haplogroups E1b1b, G2a, J and T (as well as I2a1 for Cucuteni-Tripyllian).
　where　did they come? Is there any information about their roots?
 
Is there any vague chance that copper metallurgy was spread independently in some few different sites?
 
Another point to add here. Seems that Maciamo is another time not correct. As far as I know there's not yet been found any J2b2 nor J2b1 in southeast Europe during the copper age. How can be J2 related with the copper spread as long as the dominant Y-dna of Vinca culture was G2, and some less common as I2 and E1b1 ! Modern Albanians have a lot of J2b2 , but it is of Caspian steppe origin. It has nothing to do with the native calcolithic haplogroups. Stop speculating.
 
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