(July 6, 2017) New discovery from the team of researchers of Archeometallurgy of the University of Padua. From the research published on "Plos One", it emerges that the origin of the Similaun Man, nicknamed Ötzi, originates from the area of southern Tuscany. Until today it was believed that the production and circulation of copper in the Alpine area in the 4th millennium BC originated only from Central European and Balkan deposits. Thanks to the research team led by Gilberto Artioli of the Department of Geosciences at the University of Padua, the maps of socio-economic exchanges between the eneolithic cultures of central Italy and the north of the Tuscan-Emilian Apennines can be extended to the populations that occupy the eastern alpine arch where lived of the man who came from the ice. The copper ax found 25 years ago among the tools of the Similaun Man was an incredible source of information for metallurgy of the Copper Age. The ax, the only copper in the Fourth Millennium that has been fully recovered from organic parts (handle, limbs and pitch), has been analyzed with Carbon 14 allowing its unmistakable dating to 3200 BC. Innovative non-invasive crystallographic analysis performed by the research group of the University of Padua a dozen years ago (Applied Physics A - Gilberto Artioli) allowed to scrutinize the manufacturing technique in detail. The ax was fused into a bivalve mold and despite extensive use in daily activities, it never underwent mechanical hardening to preserve its ductility, except perhaps the edge, which, on the contrary, shows signs of use and Metal recrystallization. (Red)

ABOUT / THE TEAM

The Archeology Group of the University of Padua, composed by Gilberto Artioli, Caterina Canovaro and Gregorio dal Sasso of the Department of Geosciences at the Padua University, Ivana Angelini of the Department of Cultural Heritage of the University of Padua, in collaboration with Günther Kaufmann of the Archaeological Museum Of South Tyrol, Bozen and Igor Villa of the University of Milano Bicocca, completed the first full chemical and isotopic analysis of the copper that constitutes the ax. The study was possible thanks to a micro-sampling of the metal made at the Archaeological Museum of South Tyrol in Bozen, where archaeological findings were kept. The chemical analysis carried out at the Padua University laboratories and the Isotopic analysis, carried out in collaboration with the University of Bern, have produced results that are revolutionizing the consolidated evidence of the presence of copper in the IV millennium BC in the alpine area. According to the scientific findings available until today it was believed that the production and circulation of copper in the Alpine area in the IV millennium a. C. originated only from central European deposits (Austria, Germany or Slovakia) and Balkans (Serbia and Bulgaria). "On the contrary - says Gilberto Artioli - the results published on PLOS ONE unequivocally demonstrate how the metal of the ax was extracted from minerals in southern Tuscany. The mineral deposits in southern Tuscany", continues Artioli, "have an unmistakable signal of lead isotopic ratios, a signal that can discriminate the origin of copper from all the other metal deposits known in Europe and the Mediterranean. "