6,500-year old tin bronze from Serbia
Antiquity Volume: 87 Number: 338 Page: 1030–1045
Tainted ores and the rise of tin bronzes in Eurasia, c. 6500 years ago
Miljana Radivojević et al.
The earliest tin bronze artefacts in Eurasia are generally believed to have appeared in the Near East
Tainted ores and the rise of tin bronzes in Eurasia, c. 6500 years ago
Miljana Radivojević et al.
The earliest tin bronze artefacts in Eurasia are generally believed to have appeared in the Near East
in the early third millennium BC. Here we present tin bronze artefacts that occur far from the Near East,
and in a significantly earlier period. Excavations at Pločnik, a Vinča culture site in Serbia, recovered
a piece of tin bronze foil from an occupation layer dated to the mid fifth millennium BC.
The discovery prompted a reassessment of 14 insufficiently contextualised early tin bronze artefacts
from the Balkans. They too were found to derive from the smelting of copper-tin ores. These tin bronzes
extend the record of bronze making by c. 1500 years, and challenge the conventional narrative of
