A new, comprehensive study led by Zsuzsanna M. Virág, Zsuzsanna Siklósi, and their colleagues set out to investigate, using interdisciplinary methods, the regional networks and technological background of Early and Middle Copper Age metalworking in the Carpathian Basin. The research team conducted modern archaeometric analyses on Early and Middle Copper Age copper objects found in Transdanubia and Central Hungary. Using lead isotope and chemical composition analyses, they sought to determine the sources of the raw materials used for these objects.
Located in the heart of Europe, the Carpathian Basin played a key role in the spread of metalworking technology across the continent. The Early and Middle Copper Age (4500–3700 BCE) was particularly rich in copper finds, and based on their variety of forms, archaeologists have long suspected that the region may have belonged to two different metallurgical centres. According to a long-standing theory, while the communities of the Great Hungarian Plain were linked to the Southeastern European (Balkan) metallurgical circle, Transdanubia and Central Hungary were more closely connected to Central Europe. However, this assumption has been based largely on the formal (typological) similarities of the objects, without any natural scientific evidence.
A new, comprehensive study led by Zsuzsanna M. Virág, Zsuzsanna Siklósi, and their colleagues set out to test this duality using interdisciplinary methods. The research team conducted modern archaeometric analyses on Early and Middle Copper Age copper objects found in Transdanubia and Central Hungary. Using lead isotope and chemical composition analyses, they sought to answer the question of where the raw materials for the objects came from.
The results spectacularly confirmed the archaeological theory and even refined it further. The investigations showed that the raw materials for characteristic Central European objects found in Transdanubia, such as the Zalavár copper disc or the famous spectacle-shaped spiral pendants from the Magyaregres hoard, did not originate in the Balkans. Instead, the copper most likely came from ore deposits in the northwestern Carpathians (in present-day Slovakia), such as the mines around Špania Dolina (Úrvölgy). This disproved the idea that Transdanubia belonged to the metallurgical centre in the Eastern Alps;
the connections clearly pointed north.
The research also identified an important technological change in the Middle Copper Age (3900–3700 BCE). This was when a new type of flat axe, known as the Vinča type, appeared. These were no longer made from high-purity copper, but from arsenic-containing copper. This meant processing new types of copper ores, such as fahlore, which made it possible to produce harder, more durable tools. The raw material for these new objects continued to come from the northwestern Carpathians, as well as from newly discovered sources in Northeastern Hungary (Mátra Mountains, Rudabánya) and the Bihor Mountains (Romania).
Perhaps the most significant result of the study is the identification of the earliest clear evidence of local metalworking in the territory of present-day Hungary. Fragments of tuyères, were found at Early Copper Age (4350–3900 BCE) settlements (Budapest-Dobogókő utca and Győr-Szabadrétdomb). These tools were essential for reaching the high temperatures required for smelting or remelting, proving that
local communities knew and used metallurgical technology.
This is supported by a later, Middle Copper Age find: a crucible found in Zalavár-Mekenye. The lead isotope ratios of the slag residue found in the crucible matched that of copper ore from the northwestern Carpathians, which is decisive evidence of local processing. All this shows that at the beginning of the Copper Age, a metallurgical circle based on independent local raw material sources, different from that of the Balkans, had already developed in the northwestern Carpathians, where local communities had already mastered the technology of copper smelting and processing around 4350 BCE, and this had already spread to areas further away from the mining regions, such as Transdanubia and Central Hungary.
figure: The tuyères from Budapest-Dobogókő utca and Győr-Szabadrétdomb (source: M. Virág et al. 2025, fig. 3.).