Chalcolithic

The Chalcolithic (also called the Copper Age and Eneolithic) was an <a href="/facts/List_of_archaeological_periods/nApLF8E2">archaeological period</a> characterized by the increasing use of smelted <a href="/facts/Copper/I8PEE8oX">copper</a>. It followed the <a href="/facts/Neolithic/wRS0Bnh4">Neolithic</a> and preceded the <a href="/facts/Bronze_Age/c09qWcTt">Bronze Age</a>. It occurred at different periods in different areas, but was absent in some parts of the world, such as Russia, where there was no well-defined Copper Age between the Stone and Bronze Ages. Stone tools were still predominantly used during this period.
The Chalcolithic covers both the early <a href="/facts/Cold_working/aH1dveDu">cold working</a> (hammering) of near pure copper ores, as exhibited by the likes of North American Great Lakes <a href="/facts/Old_Copper_complex/rPTnj5ez">Old Copper complex</a>, from around 6,500 BC, through the later <a href="/facts/Copper_smelting/Ghdvhlga">copper smelting</a> cultures. The archaeological site of Belovode, on <a href="/facts/Rudnik_(mountain)/jzlvy30Y">Rudnik mountain</a> in <a href="/facts/Serbia/U0LVzPdI">Serbia</a>, has the world's oldest securely dated evidence of copper smelting at high temperature, from c. 5,000 BC. The transition from Copper Age to <a href="/facts/Bronze_Age_Europe/kaqyoMry">Bronze Age in Europe</a> occurred between the late 5th and the late <a href="/facts/3rd_millennium_BC/csYpGrX5">3rd millennium BC</a>. In the <a href="/facts/Ancient_Near_East/Ipt8t839">Ancient Near East</a> the Copper Age covered about the same period, beginning in the late <a href="/facts/5th_millennium_BC/UGAYsP0f">5th millennium BC</a> and lasting for about a millennium before it gave rise to the <a href="/facts/Early_Bronze_Age/c09qWcTt">Early Bronze Age</a>.
A study in the journal <a href="/facts/Antiquity_(journal)/GRBJmDYJ">Antiquity</a> from 2013 reporting the discovery of a <a href="/facts/Bronze/YCYCVIKt">tin bronze</a> foil from the <a href="/facts/Plo%25C4%258Dnik_(archaeological_site)/kokUwoP7">Pločnik archaeological site</a> dated to c. 4,650 BC, as well as 14 other artefacts from <a href="/facts/Bulgaria/Er5pY3YS">Bulgaria</a> and <a href="/facts/Serbia/U0LVzPdI">Serbia</a> dated to before 4,000 BC, showed that early tin bronze was more common than previously thought and developed independently in Europe 1,500 years before the first tin bronze alloys in the <a href="/facts/Near_East/gD1vyGQI">Near East</a>. In Britain, the Chalcolithic is a short period between about 2,500 and 2,200 BC, characterized by the first appearance of objects of copper and gold, a new <a href="/facts/Ceramic/9JKudpqX">ceramic</a> culture and the immigration of <a href="/facts/Beaker_culture/agsDNprM">Beaker culture</a> people, heralding the end of the local late Neolithic.

Chalcolithic open-in-new

Chalcolithic