Middle and Late Bronze Age Metal Tools from the Aegean, Eastern ...

Chapter 2: Avenues for metallurgical research and project design
This chapter describes the research structure and methods of analysis for Middle
and Late Bronze Age metal tools from the Aegean, eastern Mediterranean and Anatolia.
To frame and enrich this study, various metallurgical studies that address cross-cultural
links are appraised. The initial chapter section evaluates the methods used in previous
scholarship for assessing interregional contact with metallurgy, and then identifies how
the current study differs. Subsequent chapter segments present the research procedures,
variables, and limits that drive the inquiries of the project. As terminology has played a
decisive (and occasionally problematic) role in classifying metal objects, issues of
nomenclature pertinent to the study are addressed. The chapter concludes by reviewing
the limitations of and caveats for the investigation.
I. Assessing regional interaction through metallurgy
Metallurgy is a popular lens by which to examine cross-cultural interdependence
in the Mediterranean Bronze Age, since the quantification of international trade in raw
materials provides a useful metric for interaction. Moreover, similar metallurgical
practices and traditions among different regions may reflect cultural links. One premise
of this project is that the final stage of the metallurgical process—the distribution,
consumption, and use of the finished products—represents a viable and underappreciated
method for evaluating cultural contacts. A brief history of the past archaeometallurgical
approaches used to assess interregional contact contextualizes the tactic undertaken by
this study, which emphasizes tool distributions.
The wide distribution of Cypriot copper in Late Bronze Age contexts, particularly
in the Aegean and central Mediterranean, has steered the discussion about proto-historic
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