Experimental study of Late Bronze Age palstaves hardness of Southern Iberian Peninsula

Interdisciplinarity in Archaeology. UISPP2023

Timisoara. Rumanía
Congreso. 2023

Palstaves are very common in the Atlantic Europe during the Late Bronze Age, being located in the Iberian Peninsula mostly in the NW. A significant number of these axes were never used, as they retain their productive stigmas (casting sprues and burrs) and some have very high lead values (up to 60%) and very flimsy structures incompatible with their use as weapons/tools. On the contrary, in the Mediterranean territory from the Iberia, especially in the South, they are very scarce and generally are finished pieces, ready for use.

This work focuses on the study of these pieces from the south of the Iberian Peninsula, given their interest as long-distance exchange products. In order to understand the potential functionality of these displaced specimens, a study is carried out through Experimental Archaeology, with the archaeological and archaeometallurgical background as a basis.

Three copies of palstaves have been produced following the model of one recovered in Baza (Granada-SE Spain) with different alloys, based both on the specimen from Baza itself and on two others recovered in Totana (Murcia-SE Spain) and Fuente-Tójar (Córdoba-S Spain). Their alloys are clearly different from each other, which were, a rich tin-bronze, a poor tin-bronze with some lead and another about 20% lead.

Different heat and mechanical treatments have been applied to these reproductions (cold working and annealing), consistent with the archaeologically documented, samples were taken after each new operation. On these samples, metallographies were made, to check how thermo-mechanical operations are reproduced in the microstructure of the different metal alloys, and micro hardness analysis, to compare them with those of synchronous archaeological metals.

The aim is to assess the functional potential of each archaeological specimen as a weapon / tool from the different thermo-mechanical applicable recipes, in order to improve the understanding of the long journey made by these specimens. They could have ranged from the mere exchange of metal in this format, to the exchange of effective tools, or might have been a materialization of long-distance political relation in the Iberian Peninsula in terminal phases of Prehistory.

Experimental Archaeology. Chaine Operatoire. Metal Microstructure. Vickers Microhardness Testing. Iberian Late Bronze Age.