The faerie smith meets the bronze industry: Magic versus science in the interpretation of prehistoric metal‐making

Abstract

In this article we address the question of the emergence and development of copper and iron metallurgy in Eurasia in relation to a historical debate within archaeology and archaeometallurgy concerning appropriate technological scales and social organizational models. We believe that the concepts of large‐scale extraction and production and concomitant reconstruction of specialized activities and monoplex social roles that figure strongly in the prevailing, orthodox ‘industrial model’ are either underdetermined or unsupported by archaeological data. Such concepts represent an anachronistic back‐projection of the modern notion of technological change as driven by rational science. We suggest that ritual and magical dimensions need to be given a more central place in interpretation and hypothesis formulation, and we tentatively suggest a broad social‐developmental perspective that would incorporate them.