Chalcolithic

Chalcolithic
Eneolithic, Aeneolithic,
or Copper Age
↑ Stone Age
↑ Neolithic
By region
Africa (2600 BC–1600 AD)
Naqada culture, Gerzeh culture, A-Group culture, C-Group culture, Kerma culture

West Asia (6000–3500 BC)

Ghassulian culture, Uruk period

Europe (5500–2200 BC)

Metallurgy during the Copper Age in Europe
Vinča culture, Varna culture
Cucuteni–Trypillia culture
Yamna culture, Corded Ware
Cernavodă culture, Decea Mureşului culture, Gorneşti culture, Gumelniţa–Karanovo culture, Petreşti culture, Coțofeni culture
Remedello culture, Gaudo culture, Monte Claro culture

Central Asia (3700–1700 BC)

Botai culture, BMAC culture, Afanasevo culture

South Asia (4300–1800 BC)

Periodisation of the Indus Valley civilisation, Bhirrana culture, Hakra Ware culture
Ahar–Banas culture
Kaytha culture, Malwa culture,
Savalda Culture, Jorwe culture, Anarta tradition
Ajay culture

China (5000–2900 BC)

Mesoamerica (6500–1000 BC)
Related topics
Metallurgy, Wheel,
Domestication of the horse
↓ Bronze Age
↓ Iron Age
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Prehistory
Stone Age
Lower Paleolithic
Middle Paleolithic
Early Homo sapiens
Upper Paleolithic
Behavioral modernity
Neolithic
Cradle of civilization
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Copper Age
Bronze Age
Bronze Age collapse
Iron Age
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The Chalcolithic (/ˈkælkoʊˌlɪθɪk/ cal-co-LI-thik) (also called the Copper Age and Eneolithic)[a] was an archaeological period characterized by the increasing use of smelted copper. It followed the Neolithic and preceded the Bronze Age. It occurred at different periods in different areas, but was absent in some parts of the world, such as Russia, where there was no well-defined Copper Age between the Stone and Bronze Ages.[1] Stone tools were still predominantly used during this period.[2]

The Chalcolithic covers both the early cold working (hammering) of near pure copper ores, as exhibited by the likes of North American Great Lakes Old Copper complex, from around 6,500 BC,[3] through the later copper smelting cultures. The archaeological site of Belovode, on Rudnik mountain in Serbia, has the world's oldest securely dated evidence of copper smelting at high temperature, from c. 5,000 BC.[4] The transition from Copper Age to Bronze Age in Europe occurred between the late 5th and the late 3rd millennium BC. In the Ancient Near East the Copper Age covered about the same period, beginning in the late 5th millennium BC and lasting for about a millennium before it gave rise to the Early Bronze Age.[5]

A study in the journal Antiquity from 2013 reporting the discovery of a tin bronze foil from the Pločnik archaeological site dated to c. 4,650 BC, as well as 14 other artefacts from Bulgaria and Serbia dated to before 4,000 BC, showed that early tin bronze was more common than previously thought and developed independently in Europe 1,500 years before the first tin bronze alloys in the Near East.[5] In Britain, the Chalcolithic is a short period between about 2,500 and 2,200 BC, characterized by the first appearance of objects of copper and gold, a new ceramic culture and the immigration of Beaker culture people, heralding the end of the local late Neolithic.[1]


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  1. ^ a b "Chalcolithic". British Museum. Retrieved 12 August 2023.
  2. ^ Pearsall, Judy (1998). "Chalcolithic". The New Oxford Dictionary of English. Clarendon Press. p. 301. ISBN 0-19-861263-X.
  3. ^ Pompeani, David P.; Steinman, Byron A.; Abbott, Mark B.; Pompeani, Katherine M.; Reardon, William; DePasqual, Seth; Mueller, Robin H. (April 2021). "On the Timing of the Old Copper Complex in North America: A Comparison of Radiocarbon Dates from Different Archaeological Contexts". Radiocarbon. 63 (2): 513–531. Bibcode:2021Radcb..63..513P. doi:10.1017/RDC.2021.7. ISSN 0033-8222.
  4. ^ Radivojević, Miljana; Rehren, Thilo; Pernicka, Ernst; Šljivar, Dušan; Brauns, Michael; Borić, Dušan (1 November 2010). "On the origins of extractive metallurgy: New evidence from Europe". Journal of Archaeological Science. 37 (11): 2775–2787. Bibcode:2010JArSc..37.2775R. doi:10.1016/j.jas.2010.06.012. ISSN 0305-4403. Archived from the original on 25 December 2015. Retrieved 6 September 2022.
  5. ^ a b Radivojević, Miljana; Rehren, Thilo; Kuzmanović-Cvetković, Julka; Jovanović, Marija; Northover, J. Peter (2015). "Tainted ores and the rise of tin bronzes in Eurasia, c. 6500 years ago" (PDF). Antiquity. 87 (338): 1030–1045. doi:10.1017/S0003598X0004984X. Archived (PDF) from the original on 19 November 2018. Retrieved 11 June 2019.