The arrival of the “Lapita peoples” ca. 3300 years ago signals an abrupt change in the 50,000-year archaeological record of Papua New Guinea. Marked by a heavy coastal focus for settlement, the use of a unique range of portable items of material culture, and the movement of material and people through expansive interaction networks, the Lapita populations represent a significant deviation from what had come before. Despite the significant impact of these populations on the trajectory of the prehistory of the region, their arrival into the Bismarck Archipelago is only chronicled by thirteen currently known sites. This paper will contribute to the study of these early populations by presenting the results of formal, decorative and motif analyses on pottery, alongside new radiocarbon determinations, from four sites, including Adwe (FOH), Tamuarawai (EQS), Talepakemalai (ECA), and Kamgot (ERA), located in the Bismarck Archipelago of Papua New Guinea. The results from these analyses are used to further our understanding of the timing of the first arrival of these populations in the western Pacific, elucidate the cultural backgrounds of the populations involved, and model the social connections they established and maintained with communities around the region.

Evolving from purely ‘origins’-based research, significant advances have been made in our understanding of early Southeast Asian copper metallurgy in the last decade, partly through new excavations of metal production sites, and partly through the application of established provenance methodologies to assemblages covering almost two millennia. Lead isotope analyses in the region have demonstrated the complexity and plurality of the exchange networks in Southeast Asia at the end of the Prehistoric period. But some regions are still lacking known and studied archaeological sites needed to complete the map of ancient copper metallurgy. The ancient copper mining and smelting sites at the Vilabouly Complex (VC, formerly known as Sepon) in Savannakhet Province, Central Laos, have been excavated by a Lao-Australian team since 2008. The VC, with a radiocarbon sequence from the early Bronze Age (c. 1000 BC) to the late Iron Age/beginning of the Historical Period (c. 700 AD), is one of only three prehistoric copper production sites currently physically identified in Southeast Asia, the other two being in Thailand. The VC lead isotope signature has been identified in copper exchange networks across Southeast Asia, involving metal consumers in Myanmar, Thailand, and Cambodia. This presentation on the archaeometric studies of the Vilabouly Complex production will illustrate how the technologies involved for the production of copper have been reconstructed and help to better place Laos on the map of Southeast Asian exchanges during the late prehistoric period.

The traditional chronological and cultural framework of the Greek mainland and the Cyclades has a significant impact on the study on Early Bronze Age Attica (early 3rd millennium BC). The previous research essentially identified two major cultural horizons based on the 'Helladic' settlement context in the Greek mainland and the 'Cycladic' burialcontext in the islands. Such bias in research raises some difficulties in the identification of the mixed Helladic and Cycladic cultural characters of the Attic communities. In addition, the prehistoric Attica has been underestimated for a long time, being seen as a peripheral area towards the southern mainland that plays a passive role in the Aegean network. The new ceramic assemblages from a rescue excavation at Kontopigado, Alimos in west Attica provide an opportunity to reconstruct the nature of the Attic settlements. The site reveals two successive phases, Early Bronze I and II along with evidence of metallurgy, obsidian working and pottery production that greatly enhance our understanding of the previously sparse information on the Early Bronze Age in Attica as a whole. In addition, the variety and richness of pottery deposits at Kontopigado may suggest the intensive communication between west Attican and the Aegean. Through the typological characterisation and thin section petrography of Kontopigado assemblage, combined with previous literature, this work carries out an investigation of pottery production and exchange between local communities and the Aegean world to elucidate the cultural connotation and distinct character of the Attica peninsula and to compare the differences between Attica and the other two cultural horizons.

Fire assay is a small-scale metallurgical and chemical process aimed at determining the presence and proportion of specific metal in a given material or mineral sample. Essentially, it involves a series of small-scale, carefully monitored version of reactions that could be reproduced in a larger and industrial scale. Reagents and products are weighed, and the process is conducted under well-controlled conditions using standardised vessels, allowing assayers to draw inferences based on the analysis of small samples. The technique was seen as the birth of modern quantitative analytical chemistry. One of the most diagnostic archaeological materials of silver assaying is the cupel: a small, thick and porous ash-based vessel, where silver was refined and separated from lead in a high-temperature, oxidising reaction. Cupels have been found at European minting, mining and alchemical laboratories sites dating from the 14th century onwards, and their manufacture have also been widely documented in historical treatises. In order to further our understanding of the medieval assaying techniques and facilitate the interpretation of analytical results on archaeological remains, recipes of cupels documented in treatises were recreated in an experimental project in order to assess technical parameters of cupel regarding their manufacture and performance. An assaying furnace based on 16th century descriptions has been built. Seven types of cupels were made with different proportions of wood ash, bone ash, clay and with/without bone-ash facings. All the experimental cupels and silver beads were analysed by SEM-EDS for chemical and microstructural analysis in order to unpick the relationship between the material of cupels, the amount of lead added, and the efficiency of cupellation. The experiment will provide important data and a technological baseline to interpret the fire assaying/cupellation materials found in archaeological contexts.