Dataset

Copper isotope fractionation during prehistoric smelting of copper sulfides: experimental and analytical data

Rose, Thomas; Klein, Sabine; Hanning, Erica K.;

2020 || GFZ Data Services

The project from which the data derived aimed to establish the first systematic study of Cu isotope fractionation during the prehistoric smelting and refining process. For this reason, an experimental approach was used to smelt sulfide copper ore according to reconstructed prehistoric smelting models. The ore was collected by E. Hanning as part of her PhD thesis work from a Bronze Age mining site, the Mitterberg region, Austria (Hanning and Pils 2011) and was made available for the experiments.
All starting materials for the experiments such as the natural ore, roasted ore, construction clay, flux, dung (used for the roasting), wood and charcoal (fuel) were natural materials. All firing conditions including the amount of fuel or charging material and the temperatures in the furnaces were recorded, and the experimental procedures were documented in the very detail. In total, 30 experiments were carried out in 4 experimental series. The smelting products, both intermediate products and final products were sampled during or after the respective experiment. Slag, matte and copper metal were the major smelting products. All other materials used in and produced by the experiments were sampled, too. Materials used and produced in the two most promising experimental series with regard to potential Cu isotope fractionation were analyzed. Based on the analytical results, the potential of Cu isotopes as a tool in archaeometallurgical research was systematically evaluated and consequences for the copper isotope application as a provenance tool in archaeometry were identified.
The data include the documentation of the experiments, laboratory procedures and analytical methods. An experimental outline was previously published in Rose et al. (2019). Analytical methods applied were ICP-MS (elemental analysis, 80 samples), MC-ICP-MS (copper isotopes, 98 samples), and XRD (phase analysis, 25 samples). The experiments were carried out at the Römisch-Germanisches Zentralmuseum, Labor für Experimentelle Archäologie, Mayen, Germany. Laboratories used for the analytical part of the project were the research laboratories at the Deutsches Bergbau-Museum Bochum and FIERCE (Frankfurt Isotope and Element Research Center), Goethe-University Frankfurt, both Germany. Data were processed and plots created with R (R Core Team 2019) in RStudio®. Data are provided as data tables or text files, the R scripts used to create the time-temperature plots of the smelting experiments are also included.
The full description of the data and methods is provided in the data description file.

Originally assigned keywords

Corresponding MSL vocabulary keywords

MSL enriched keywords

MSL enriched sub domains	geochemistry microscopy and tomography
Source	http://dx.doi.org/10.5880/fidgeo.2020.013
Source publisher	GFZ Data Services
DOI	10.5880/fidgeo.2020.013
Authors	Rose, Thomas 0000-0002-8186-3566 Deutsches Bergbau-Museum Bochum, Forschungsabteilung Archäometallurgie, Bochum, Germany; Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, Department of Bible, Archaeology and Ancient Near East, Be’er Sheva, Israel; Sapienza University of Rome, Department of Antiquity, Rome, Italy; Klein, Sabine 0000-0002-3939-4428 Deutsches Bergbau-Museum Bochum, Forschungsabteilung Archäometallurgie, Bochum, Germany; FIERCE, Frankfurt Isotope & Element Research Center, Goethe Universität, Frankfurt am Main, Germany; Hanning, Erica K. RGZM Mainz, Kompetenzbereich Experimentelle Archäologie, Mayen, Germany;
Contributors	Rose, Thomas ProjectMember 0000-0002-8186-3566 Deutsches Bergbau-Museum Bochum, Forschungsabteilung Archäometallurgie, Bochum, Germany; Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, Department of Bible, Archaeology and Ancient Near East, Be’er Sheva, Israel; Sapienza University of Rome, Department of Antiquity, Rome, Italy; Rose, Thomas DataCollector 0000-0002-8186-3566 Deutsches Bergbau-Museum Bochum, Forschungsabteilung Archäometallurgie, Bochum, Germany; Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, Department of Bible, Archaeology and Ancient Near East, Be’er Sheva, Israel; Sapienza University of Rome, Department of Antiquity, Rome, Italy; Klein, Sabine Supervisor 0000-0002-3939-4428 Deutsches Bergbau-Museum Bochum, Forschungsabteilung Archäometallurgie, Bochum, Germany; FIERCE, Frankfurt Isotope & Element Research Center, Goethe Universität, Frankfurt am Main, Germany; Klein, Sabine ProjectLeader 0000-0002-3939-4428 Deutsches Bergbau-Museum Bochum, Forschungsabteilung Archäometallurgie, Bochum, Germany; FIERCE, Frankfurt Isotope & Element Research Center, Goethe Universität, Frankfurt am Main, Germany; Klein, Sabine DataCollector 0000-0002-3939-4428 Deutsches Bergbau-Museum Bochum, Forschungsabteilung Archäometallurgie, Bochum, Germany; FIERCE, Frankfurt Isotope & Element Research Center, Goethe Universität, Frankfurt am Main, Germany; Hanning, Erica K. ProjectMember RGZM Mainz, Kompetenzbereich Experimentelle Archäologie, Mayen, Germany; Hanning, Erica K. DataCollector RGZM Mainz, Kompetenzbereich Experimentelle Archäologie, Mayen, Germany; Bode, Michael DataCollector Deutsches Bergbau-Museum, Bochum, Germany; Sessing, Jan DataCollector Deutsches Bergbau-Museum, Bochum, Germany; Kutz, Regina DataCollector Deutsches Bergbau-Museum, Bochum, Germany; Seitz, H.-Michael DataCollector Goethe‐Universität Frankfurt, Institut für Geowissenschaften, Facheinheit Mineralogie, Germany; Herdick, Michael Other RGZM Mainz, Kompetenzbereich Experimentelle Archäologie, Mayen, Germany; Mayen, Laboratory for Experimental Archaeology of the RGZM; smelting experiments HostingInstitution Laboratory for Experimental Archaeology of the RGZM, Mayen, Germany; Bochum, German Mining Museum: sample preparation, XRD, chemistry analyses HostingInstitution German Mining Museum, Bochum, Germany; Frankfurt, FIERCE: Cu isotope analyses HostingInstitution FIERCE, Frankfurt, Germany;
References	Cites Cites Borrok, D. M., Wanty, R. B., Ridley, W. I., Wolf, R., Lamothe, P. J., & Adams, M. (2007). Separation of copper, iron, and zinc from complex aqueous solutions for isotopic measurement. Chemical Geology, 242(3–4), 400–414. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.chemgeo.2007.04.004 10.1016/j.chemgeo.2007.04.004 Cites Cites Ehrlich, S., Butler, I., Halicz, L., Rickard, D., Oldroyd, A., & Matthews, A. (2004). Experimental study of the copper isotope fractionation between aqueous Cu(II) and covellite, CuS. Chemical Geology, 209(3–4), 259–269. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.chemgeo.2004.06.010 10.1016/j.chemgeo.2004.06.010 Cites Gražulis, S., Chateigner, D., Downs, R. T., Yokochi, A. F. T., Quirós, M., Lutterotti, L., Manakova, E., Butkus, J., Moeck, P., & Le Bail, A. (2009). Crystallography Open Database – an open-access collection of crystal structures. Journal of Applied Crystallography, 42(4), 726–729. https://doi.org/10.1107/s0021889809016690 10.1107/S0021889809016690 Cites Gražulis, S., Daškevič, A., Merkys, A., Chateigner, D., Lutterotti, L., Quirós, M., Serebryanaya, N. R., Moeck, P., Downs, R. T., & Le Bail, A. (2011). Crystallography Open Database (COD): an open-access collection of crystal structures and platform for world-wide collaboration. Nucleic Acids Research, 40(D1), D420–D427. https://doi.org/10.1093/nar/gkr900 10.1093/nar/gkr900 Cites Grolemund, G., & Wickham, H. (2011). Dates and Times Made Easy withlubridate. Journal of Statistical Software, 40(3). https://doi.org/10.18637/jss.v040.i03 10.18637/jss.v040.i03 Cites Cites Cites Maréchal, C., & Albarède, F. (2002). Ion-exchange fractionation of copper and zinc isotopes. Geochimica et Cosmochimica Acta, 66(9), 1499–1509. https://doi.org/10.1016/s0016-7037(01)00815-8 10.1016/S0016-7037(01)00815-8 Cites Maréchal, C. N., Télouk, P., & Albarède, F. (1999). Precise analysis of copper and zinc isotopic compositions by plasma-source mass spectrometry. Chemical Geology, 156(1–4), 251–273. https://doi.org/10.1016/s0009-2541(98)00191-0 10.1016/S0009-2541(98)00191-0 Cites Cites Cites Peel, K., Weiss, D., Chapman, J., Arnold, T., & Coles, B. (2008). A simple combined sample–standard bracketing and inter-element correction procedure for accurate mass bias correction and precise Zn and Cu isotope ratio measurements. J. Anal. At. Spectrom., 23(1), 103–110. https://doi.org/10.1039/b710977f 10.1039/b710977f Cites Cites Ramette, R. W. (1986). Copper(II) complexes with chloride ion. Inorganic Chemistry, 25(14), 2481–2482. https://doi.org/10.1021/ic00234a044 10.1021/ic00234a044 Cites Rose, T., Hanning, E., & Klein, S. (2019). Verhüttungsexperimente mit Chalkopyrit-Erz nach Vorbildern aus dem bronzezeitlichen Ostalpenraum und Nepal. FID GEO. https://doi.org/10.23689/FIDGEO-3706 10.23689/fidgeo-3706 Cites Sato, T., & Kato, T. (1977). The stability constants of the chloro complexes of copper(II) and zinc(II) determined by tri-n-octylamine extraction. Journal of Inorganic and Nuclear Chemistry, 39(7), 1205–1208. https://doi.org/10.1016/0022-1902(77)80346-1 10.1016/0022-1902(77)80346-1 Cites
Citation	Rose, T., Klein, S., & Hanning, E. K. (2020). Copper isotope fractionation during prehistoric smelting of copper sulfides: experimental and analytical data [Data set]. GFZ Data Services. https://doi.org/10.5880/FIDGEO.2020.013
Collection period(s)	2018-03-28 - 2018-09-26
Geo location(s)	Mayen, Laboratory for Experimental Archaeology of the RGZM; location of the smelting experiments Bochum, German Mining Museum; sample preparation, XRD, chemistry analyses Frankfurt, FIERCE; Cu isotope analyses Mitterberger Hauptgang