Prehistoric Copper Technology in India : A Review

Abstract

Copper has been used by mankind from 5" to 2nd Millennia BC. The paper traced how metal technology has been part of the reparative of the technologies pertaining to ceramics, stone industry, and even architecture. No doubt, the first use of copper must have been of native copper. With the growth of urbanization, especially of the Indus civil-ization, the abundance of metal and technology advance progressed by leaps and bounds. The Archaeo-Metallurgical studies help a lot to know about typology of artifacts, technologies used, source of metal, what techniques diff-erent cultures used to make them artifact, mining tech-nology? A lot remains to be done: relating ore bodies to the artifact, metallographic studies to known techniques of artifact making, alloying pattern minerals used, geo-chemistry of ore bodies to devise ways to fingerprint them through trace impurity patterns and lead isotope geochemistry etc. No less important are the ethno-archaeological studies to understand the man behind the technology and his artifact. A lot more can be achieved with the joint effort of metallurgical labs. and the archeologists.