The first metal used by humans was copper.

From the development of the first tools two million years ago
until copper began to be employed, all cutting and piercing tools had been made of naturally occurring materials
stone, antler, or bone. Copper also occurs naturally in the form of metallic nuggets, or native copper, and it was
apparently native copper that was used first by experimenters, who heated it and pounded it into sheets with stone
hammers as if it were an odd, malleable kind of stone. From a copper sheet it was possible to make, by cutting,
bending, hammering, and welding, a wide variety of simple tools (hooks, awls, and blades) and ornaments (beads,
rings, and other pendants). But eventually humans discovered that metallic copper was hidden inside a variety of
bluish and greenish mineral rocks, from which it could be separated and extracted through a process known as
smelting that must have seemed almost magical. When that discovery happened true metallurgy began.(162)

. 2
, , ,
, .
, , ,
,
, , .
, , , ,
(, , ) (,
).
,
, .
(nthony, et al. 2010:162).
The Early Use of Copper in Southeastern Eur
The rich metal finds discovered in 1972 at the cemetery of Varna in Bulgaria, while excavations were still being conducted at the copper mines of
Rudna Glava in Serbia inevitably directed international attention to the metal resources of southeastern Europe. While I. Ivanov was excavating at
Varna, E.N. Chernykh produced the first extensive summary study of Copper Age metal finds and an evaluation of the mining sites in Bulgaria.H.
Todorova followed with a comparative study of Copper Age axes and adzes. Later S. ochadiev published new and further finds at Slatino and
identified new presumed sources of copper minerals in the StrumaValley.Since the 1980s there have been many studies of the copper artifacts and
mines of southeastern Europe.The Russian metallurgist N.V. Ryndina observed that the oldest use of native copper in southeastern Europe,
tomake small beads and other simple ornaments, occurred not in the southern regions, where Near Eastern influencewould be expected to appear
first, but at the northern edge of the Starevo-Cri geographic distribution, wherenatural copper minerals occurred and pieces of nativecopper
could be picked up from the earths surface.Copper awls, fishhooks, and rolled wire beads were the
first things made of native copper, examples having been found in nine Starevo and Cri settlements dated to the final phase of the Early
Neolithic period in southeasternEurope. A good example is Selite, a Late Cri farminghamlet dated 58005600 bc (6830100 BP), where three
small beads made of native copper were found in two separate trash deposits in an otherwise ordinary farming settlement in the forested valleys
of the eastern Carpathian piedmont. Copper was by no means common in Starevo-Cri settlements. It remained a local novelty largely limited to
areas within easy trading distance of a few major copper mineral outcrops, those that probably had already been found by Early Neolithic
explorers in northeastern Serbia and perhaps those in the middle Mure River valley in western Transylvania.During the last two decades, it has
become increasinglyclear that the earliest smelting operations did not take place near the source of the raw material, at the mine orthe outcrop, but
in living areas or settlements. Copper slag was recently found at Belovode in Serbia, a settlement of the early Vina period dated about 5400 bc.
This seems to be the earliest copper-smelting slag presentl yknown in southeastern Europe. Belovode also contained several large collections or
concentrations of malachitelumps, probably the ore that produced the slag; and the lead isotopes in some samples matched those from thedeposit
at Rudna Glava, where there was a Vina-eramine. The sixth-millennium bc discoveries at Belovode are consistent with the discovery of
a cast copper chisel in the oldest occupation phase at the early Vina settlementof Plonik dated 55004700 bc,
and with the presence of many lumps of malachite at Vina throughout the stratigraphy of the settlement, from the
earliest occupation phase to the latest. At Plonik a feature was uncovered that could be the remains of a smelting
oven, although without any identified copper slag. Four hoards of uncertain date,possibly later than the settlement,
were found at Plonik containing forty-five cast copper axe-hammers and chisels.These hoards introduce another
aspect of southeasternEuropean copper metallurgy: its abundance.Southeastern Europe was one of a handful of
places in the ancient world where craftworkers were making casttools of smelted copper during the fifth millennium
bc.But it is distinguished from any other early copperworking region by the sheer number and volume of early
copper and gold artifacts that have been found, which far exceed the known production of all contemporaneous
inventories in any other region. Altogether, the metal finds known today from southeastern Europe, including
Hungary, add up to about 4,700 kilograms of copper and more than 6 kilograms of gold. Most of these objects(figs.
7-3, 7-4) date to a 700-year period between 4500 and 3800 bc.29The immense abundance of copper artifacts in
southeastern Europe from periods before the Bronze Agewas evident already in the nineteenth century, leadingto
the suggestion that a separate period be introduced between the Neolithic and the Bronze Age, namely the
Chalcolithic, or Copper Age.30 Due to the lack of equivalentcopper finds in western and northern Europe,
thisconcept never received full acceptance, however, andindeed is disputed even today.31 Possibly, this is the
reason why Eneolithic is nowadays the much more common term in the archaeology of southeastern Europe. It

wouldappear, however, that Eneolithic and Chalcolithic (or Copper Age) are used in the same way and can thus
beconsidered synonymous. They simply denote a chronological stage between the Neolithic and the Bronze Agethat
is characterized by the more or less regular use of copper.32 There seems to be a growing consensus, however,
that this period in southeastern Europe actually represented a specific era of cultural history between the Neolithic
and the Bronze Age, with specific modes of food production,33 social structure as indicated by settlement patterns,
burial customs, and the exchange systems of material goods.(168-170)