Searching for Gold. Resources and Networks in the Bronze Age

The publication Searching for Gold Resources and Networks in the Bronze Age of the Eastern Balkans focusses on Bronze Age mining in the Balkan regions, presented in the regional and inter- regional context. The archaeological excavations on the Ada Tepe located in the Bulgarian Rhodopes are the point of departure. Not only did those excavations bring to light one of the earliest known gold mines of Europe, but they uncovered the mining areas, the work places and the adjacent settlement areas almost in their entirety a singular case regarding gold mining sites of the Bronze Age. This provided an excellent opportunity to study Bronze Age metallurgy as well as its social and economic context in the Balkan regions as well as its connections with and dependence on exchange networks from the 3rd to the 1st millennia BCE. Those networks extended towards the south and were connected with the state societies of Asia Minor and the Aegean. With the presentation of the strata and buildings on the Ada Tepe this key site of Bronze Age mining will be published for the first time in its entirety. The volume provides data on the topography and spatial organization of mines and mining settlement, the exact chronological dates of its consecutive phases as well as important find categories. In addition, this volume contains new research results on other Bronze Age sites in the eastern Balkan regions, in order to contribute to our understanding of how those mining communities were economically and socially structured. Dedicated studies on copper and gold metallurgy in the regions of the Balkans, the Carpathian Basin and the Aegean follow. The articles in the last part of the book treat inter-regional exchange of gold, silver, copper and other luxury goods between the Carpathian Basin and the eastern Mediterranean as well as the Middle East. The gold analyses published in this volume were produced with the innovative laser ablation technique combined with mass spectrometry e. g. on objects from the hoard find of Valcitran and the grave goods of Izvorovo (both in Bulgaria). Further scientific analyses combined with archaeological methods elucidate the distribution routes of raw materials and finished products as well as their processing 40003000 years ago.