Les céramiques à réduire le minerai de cuivre : une technique métallurgique utilisée en Ibérie, son extension en France méridionale

Abstract

Pots used in reducing copper minerals: a metallurgical technological used particularly in Iberia: its extension in southern France. Identified in Spain at the end of the 1980s, the use of common earthenware vessels as containers for prehistoric copper metallurgy has also now been observed in France. The authors propose a synthesis of present knowledge concerning the use of this technology in Spain, its chronological and geographical framework, and the more relevant mineralogical and metallurgical features. This allows the effectiveness and simplicity of the resources brought into play in this early metallurgy to be demonstrated. The finds in France are more modest and have rarely been properly analysed in the laboratory. Notwithstanding this, the review of the archaeological record suggests that specific research, in the light of the results presented in this article, should provide evidence in France - as has been the case in Spain in recent years - of the impact of this technology through the Copper and Bronze Ages.