K. Aslihan Yener - Bronze Age Tin Discoveries

Bronze Age Tin Discoveries

Next, she turned to studying the origins of Bronze Age tin because of high trace levels of tin in the polymetallic ores of Turkey. Tin was as scarce and valuable as petroleum is today in the Bronze Age. It was a vital ingredient of bronze, used with copper to make the alloy. In 1982, she found traces of tin in the Taurus Mountains. This was somewhat surprising because old Assyrian records indicated that they imported tin into Anatolia, suggesting that the area did not have a supply of its own. In turn, the Assyrians imported large quantities of tin from the east possibly Afghanistan.

Working with the Turkish Geological Research and Survey Directorate (MTA), she directed archaeometallurgy surveys in the Taurus Mountains as well as the Pontic Mountains sampling ores for lead isotope analysis. In 1987 cassiterite (tin ore) crystals in a stream in the Taurus foothills were found by the MTA geologists. Together with these teams she researched an Early Bronze Age mine called Kestel that proved to hold a tin mine. Additionally, fragments of Bronze Age pottery, charcoal for radiocarbon dating were found in and near the mine. Inside, there were veins of bright purple tin ore.

The Kestel mine has two miles (3 km) of tunnels, many of which are only about two feet wide, just large enough to allow children to do the mining work. In one abandoned shaft, a burial of twelve to fifteen children was found, presumably killed while working in the mine.

In 1989, on a hill opposite the mine, Bronze Age pottery, an estimated 50,000 ground stone tools, and evidence that this site had been continuously occupied from 3290 BC-1840 BC. A great deal of the city was semi subterranean. The pottery at the site, named Göltepe, provided the final proof of the tin industry in the Bronze Age. Many thick crucibles, lined with slag were found at the site and tests revealed the slag to have very high concentrations of tin, 30% to almost 100%. It is likely that after the ore nuggets were washed, stone tools were used to grind them to a powder, and then the powder was smelted to obtain the tin metal. All of this can be accomplished with Bronze Age tools and methods.

In 1993, Yener had found enough evidence to state that tin mining in Anatolia was, "a fully developed industry with specialization of work" by 2870 BC, around the beginning of the Bronze Age. This meant that trade in the Bronze Age was probably more complicated than had been thought, as competition for tin existed.