Traces of destruction on bronze objects in scrap hoards

The project attempts to place causal research on an interdisciplinary methodological basis that brings together archaeological, restorational and technological, archaeometric, experimental archaeological, and materials science expertise. The traces of intentional or unintentional fragmentation that can be detected on non-ferrous metal objects from selected hoards will be systematically recorded, the damage patterns documented and characterised, then analysed from the viewpoints of natural science and materials science, and finally experimentally reproduced. The aim is to identify traces by analysing materials and to work out the parameters and processes behind the fragmentation by means of experimental archaeological research based on these traces. This material science research approach is intended to generate results that provide a transparent and material science-based foundation in data for statements about the causes and motives for fragmentation. The use-wear analysis, which has been increasingly applied to Stone Age artefacts in recent years, has so far been comparatively rarely used on metal objects, with studies largely concentrating on individual groups of objects. Experiments were often carried out on replicas according to their intended use and the resulting traces were documented. The experimentally produced traces were then compared with those on the archaeological artefacts (e.g. Sáez/Lerma 2015; Dolfini/Crellin 2016). However, traces of use are mainly dependent on the way they are used (and thus very susceptible to “handling errors”), whereas the traces left behind when objects are fragmented are strongly influenced by the primary and secondary material properties as well as the respective metal alloy of the object. In research, the variability of material properties generated by different alloys has so far only been rudimentarily taken into account through broad-based analysis and experimental design (Dolfini/Crellin 2016; Knight 2017).