Marcos Martinón-Torres
Biographic Data
| ID | 72982 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Marcos Martinón-Torres |
| GIVEN NAMES | Marcos |
| FAMILY NAME | Martinón-Torres |
| SIGNATURE | MARTINÓN-TORRES M |
| AFFILIATIONS | University of Cambridge |
| ORCID | 0000-0003-2124-2837 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 113 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 823 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 113 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2001 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2026 |
| H-INDEX | 17 |
An early lead-smelting tradition in north-east Iberia
The polymetallic origins and non-linear development of metallurgy have only relatively recently attracted more scholarly attention. Within this framework, the identification of three lead-smelting slag nodules in early second-millennium BC contexts at Minferri (Catalonia, Spain) provides what is currently the earliest direct evidence of lead smelting in Iberia. These materials are linked to previous indirect evidence of lead smelting in the area …
Next generation archaeological science
This paper celebrates a double occasion as 2024 marked the 50th anniversary of the Journal of Archaeological Science as well as the year when Robin Torrence retired after 12 years leading the journal as Co-editor in Chief. It is organized in three parts. The retrospective traces the field's trajectory through a bibliometric review, showing the steady dominance of isotopic analysis, the later rise of computational, remote-sensing, 3D and legacy-da…
Exogenous metal dependence in the upper Yangtze
Aesthetics and technology
Among the many spectacular finds associated with the mausoleum of China's First Emperor (259–210 BCE), by far the most well-known are the life-sized clay soldiers known as the Terracotta Army. However, also widely depicted in popular portrayals, and extremely important scientifically are two intricately made, half-sized bronze models, of a lighter chariot and a heavier two-wheeled cart. Among the huge number of components brought together to make…
Brass and high-tin bronze use at Siraf, a prosperous Persian Gulf port city of the late first millennium CE
Brass is recognised to have a dominant role in Islamic metalworking, valued for its golden colour and versatility in cold working and ornamentation. However, the development and timing for this dominance – and its relationship with earlier Sasanian and Byzantine traditions – is yet to be fully explained. In addition, the continuity of bronze and other copper-base working in early Islamic metallurgy is evidence for the limits of brass adoption, wh…
Brass in the Sasanian frontiers
While the bronze metalworking traditions of ancient Iran are well-known, a growing body of data is revealing the role and extent of brass usage in this region. Brass objects are well-documented in neighbouring Roman/Byzantine and, to a lesser extent, Central Asian communities of the first millennium CE, but almost nothing is known about brass use in the Sasanian empire. This, however, is a key region and period for understanding the process of in…
A method to assess inter- and intra-vessel shape variation in pottery using outline-based geometric morphometrics
Important aspects of craft organisation, such as standardisation and artisanal skill, are encoded into the final shape of ceramic vessels. Here, the authors present a quantitative method for assessing inter-/intra-vessel morphological variation using metrics and geometric morphometrics obtained from 3D models and open-source software. Within the wider framework presented, novel analyses that assess rotational symmetry and intra-vessel variation b…
Dos mil años de orfebrería Herrera y Muisca
El conjunto metalúrgico de Nueva Esperanza (Colombia) permite un estudio diacrónico y contextualizado de la orfebrería muisca desde sus raíces en el periodo Herrera (400 BCE-200 CE) hasta el contacto europeo. El análisis de 140 piezas, en su mayoría adornos corporales, muestra una tradición sostenida, basada en la cera perdida, complementada por martillado. La producción alcanzó su auge en el Muisca Temprano (200-1000 CE), con diversidad tipológi…
A Visual Method to Compare the Quality and Complexity of Archaeological Textiles
Concepts such as cost, value, skill, complexity, and quality are central to archaeological interpretations of material culture, yet often they remain undefined, resulting in subjective and inconsistent analyses. This is particularly true in archaeological textile studies, where technological complexity, cost, and craftsmanship are frequently underexplored or assessed informally. This paper proposes a formal method for evaluating and comparing the…
Gold and sweat
The patination of copper alloys using chemical means to turn their surfaces black is well-documented historically in China and Japan, and purportedly used in ancient Egypt, Greece, Mycenae, and the Roman world, but we know remarkably little about the origins and eventual transmission of this technology. To solve this question, there is the need to compare the materials and technologies used in different cultures, as well as to understand the corr…
Technological and compositional variation in pink and white pastes from a coffin set of the late Third Intermediate Period (Thebes, ca. 680–664 BCE)
Disentangling Technological Traditions
Occurring throughout the Americas, ceramics with negative decoration have been variously used as archaeological markers of chronology, provenance, ethnic affiliation, or cultural interaction. In the highlands of the adjacent regions of Nariño (Colombia) and Carchi (Ecuador), they are recovered and discussed frequently, but the lack of technical studies has prevented any conclusive inferences about their technology, craft organisation, or diachron…
The Chalcolithic metallurgical tradition of Northeast Iberia and its later influence
Our knowledge of Chalcolithic copper smelting practices across Iberia is extensive but lacks regional nuance. This prevents an assessment of regional trajectories that may depart from a general ‘Iberian technological tradition’, including their origins and diachronic evolution. This paper contributes to these questions by analysing 3rd millennium BC copper production residues from various sites in Northeast Iberia: Covas Cartanyà, del Buldó, Jose…
Towards a new history of bronze making
The arsenical copper smelting tradition of the Vera Basin (Southeast Iberia)
The early chronology, important archaeological settlements, and extensive archaeometallurgical remains make the Vera Basin in Southeast Iberia a fundamental area to understand the development of metallurgy. Here we present the analyses of a set of technical ceramics, slag and copper ores from Santa Bárbara (Huércal-Overa, Spain) and Zájara (Cuevas del Almanzora, Spain) Chalcolithic sites (3100-2250 cal. BC) using pXRF, OM, SEMEDS, and XRD. Techno…
Amber Networks in Prehistory
This study concerns prehistoric amber networks in north-eastern Iberia, emphasizing its distinct exchange dynamics compared to other regions of the Iberian Peninsula. Baltic amber dominated assemblages in this area from the Late Neolithic to the Bronze Age, contrasting with the prevalence of Sicilian amber in southern Iberia, or Cretaceous Iberian amber in the northern region. The findings underscore the region’s connection to southern France, wi…
Resolving resources and reality in early Thai iron markets
A Catalogue of British Bronze Age Axes, Including Basic Typology, Compositional Analyses and Associated Radiocarbon Dates
This archive lists ~8000 Bronze Age British axeheads, alongside associated compositional analyses, isotopic measurements and radiocarbon dates. It integrates several major existing data collection efforts and published catalogues, whilst also providing a self-consistent basic typology. It is archived as four related flat-sheet text files and could be reused to support quantitative assessment of geographic and temporal patterns in metalwork style,…
Debunking Deterministic Narratives of Technological Development Through Experimentation
The currently accepted narrative on the prehistory of bronze alloying technology follows deterministic, outdated assumptions of technological progression that ignore the role of contextual and performance factors in the decision-making processes, thus neglecting human agency. In essence, it is expected that newer techniques were overarchingly more advanced than older ones and hence replaced them. The validity of this narrative should be challenge…
Beyond baselines of performance
Chemical analyses of archaeological artefacts are often used for provenance studies and for assessing whether specific performance characteristics were targeted by craftspeople in the past. Traditionally, the answers to these questions were sought by identifying compositional averages and by studying their correlations with either the geochemical signatures of candidate raw material sources or the corresponding physical or chemical properties of …
Beyond tools and weapons
Robin Torrence, we salute you
Archaeological science, globalisation, and local agency
Great Zimbabwe (CE1000-1600) is world famous for outstanding cultural innovations and localised and globalised entanglement with trans-Africa and trans-Indian Ocean exchange. New excavations yielded fragments of over a hundred gold processing vessels comprising reused pottery and purpose-made crucibles from stratified contexts in the Eastern Ridge Ruins and adjacent areas. Selected samples were studied using archaeological, microscopic, and compo…
Iron production in the Qin state during the late Warring States period
Agricola and Zwickau
The technology of brass production in the Renaissance has received only little \nattention so far. This paper concentrates on late 15th-century brass production by studying \ncrucibles recovered in Zwickau (SE Germany). Their scientific analysis by optical microscopy, \nED-XRF and SEM-EDX is presented in conjunction with a little known text on brass making \nwritten by Agricola in the mid 16th century. As a result, two main crucible types are def…
Slag inclusions in iron objects and the quest for provenance
Forty Thousand Arms for a Single Emperor
The Provenance, Use, and Circulation of Metals in the European Bronze Age
Bronze is the defining metal of the European Bronze Age and has been at the center of archaeological and science-based research for well over a century. Archaeometallurgical studies have largely focused on determining the geological origin of the constituent metals, copper and tin, and their movement from producer to consumer sites. More recently, the effects of recycling, both temporal and spatial, on the composition of the circulating metal sto…
Prehistoric copper production and technological reproduction in the Khao Wong Prachan Valley of Central Thailand
Investigating the production provenance of iron artifacts with multivariate methods
The quest for suitable data, data treatments and statistical methods for identifying the provenance of iron artifacts has led to a variety of analytical strategies. Researchers working on the problem have been slow to develop or adopt the use of multivariate statistical techniques, despite their successful implementation in other archaeomaterials sourcing frameworks. This paper explores the analytical potential of a comprehensive multivariate sta…
Variability in single smelting episodes – a pilot study using iron slag from Uganda
Amber Sources and Trade in the Prehistory of the Iberian Peninsula
The use of amber is documented in the Iberian peninsula since the Palaeolithic. The procurement and trade of this fossil resin has often been considered in discussions of long-distance trade and the emergence of social complexity, but so far no comprehensive view of the Iberian evidence has been produced to allow a more overarching interpretive model. This paper presents the Fourier-transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR) characterization of archa…
Dhar Néma
Dhar Néma, easternmost of the Tichitt escarpment chain, was neglected by archaeologists throughout the twentieth century. However, since 2000, two separate archaeological teams have conducted survey and test excavation work in the region. This article presents the final research results of one of these teams. Two sites in particular are closely examined: the settlement mound of Djiganyai with stratified intermittent occupation between c. 2000 and…
Iron decarburisation techniques in the eastern Guanzhong Plain, China, during Late Warring States period
Pastoralist iron production on the Laikipia Plateau, Kenya
Experimental design of the Cu-As-Sn ternary colour diagram
From Iberia to the Southern Levant
The origins of the silver trade across the Mediterranean, and the role of the Phoenicians in this phenomenon, remain contentious. This is partly because of difficulties encountered when trying to assign archaeological silver to its geological sources. Here we present a reanalysis of Iron Age silver hoards in the southern Levant, which demonstrates not only that recycling of silver was widespread in the Early and Late Iron Age, but that the compon…
Hanzhong bronzes and highly radiogenic lead in Shang period China
Khao Sam Kaeo – an archaeometallurgical crossroads for trans-asiatic technological traditions
The prehistoric individual, connoisseurship and archaeological science
Computer vision, archaeological classification and China's terracotta warriors
Structure-from-motion and multiview-stereo together offer a computer vision technique for reconstructing detailed 3D models from overlapping images of anything from large landscapes to microscopic features. Because such models can be generated from ordinary photographs taken with standard cameras in ordinary lighting conditions, these techniques are revolutionising digital recording and analysis in archaeology and related subjects such as palaeon…
Years old Egyptian iron beads made from hammered meteoritic iron
The earliest known iron artefacts are nine small beads securely dated to circa 3200 BC, from two burials in Gerzeh, northern Egypt. We show that these beads were made from meteoritic iron, and shaped by careful hammering the metal into thin sheets before rolling them into tubes. The study demonstrates the ability of neutron and X-ray methods to determine the nature of the material even after complete corrosion of the iron metal. The iron beads we…
Copper metallurgy in prehistoric upper Ili Valley, Xinjiang, China
Post‐medieval Crucible Production and Distribution
This paper is concerned with the manufacture and trade of post‐medieval crucibles (14th–19th centuries). The analytical study of crucibles from different contexts in Europe and America employed optical microscopy and SEM–EDS, coupled with archaeological and historical data. We identified two major producers of crucibles, both of them in Central Europe, whose products appear widely distributed internationally. The analytical data allow an explanat…
Metals, microanalysis and meaning
Iridium to provenance ancient silver
Prehistoric iron production technologies in the Upper Thai-Malay Peninsula
The production and exchange of moulded-carved ceramics and the ‘Maya Collapse’
Traditions and innovations
Established around 575 BC, Emporion was a Greek colonial enclave in north-east Iberia and hence constitutes a good context to study Mediterranean innovations and their adaptation with indigenous technologies. Here, we present an analytical study of the archaeometallurgical assemblage from a workshop context dated to the first occupational moment of Emporion's Neapolis (second half of the sixth century BC), including slag and technical ceramics. W…
Bloomery iron smelting in the Daye County (Hubei)
Los megalitos de término. Crónica del valor territorial de los monumentos megalíticos a partir de las fuentes escritas
A lo largo de la Historia, los monumentos megalíticos han desempeñado, entre otras, una función espacial, como marcos de territorio. Para este artículo se recogen y analizan las referencias escritas a megalitos gallegos funcionando como marcadores o identificadores espaciales, entre los siglos VI y XIX d.C. A partir de este registro de fuentes se reconstruye la evolución de este papel social-territorial de los monumentos en las distintas épocas. …
Defying God and the king
At the beginning of the 17th century, the priest Vázquez de Orjas received from the Spanish King Philip III a franchise that allowed him to excavate the mámoas or megalithic barrows of Galicia (northwest Iberian Peninsula). His task would be to recover for the Royal Treasury all the gold supposedly held in them. However, the priest's activities and claims gave rise to a widespread gold rush that resulted in hundreds of looted monuments and ended …
Holtorf, Cornelius J. 2000-2. Monumental Past
Defying God and the king
At the beginning of the 17th century, the priest Vázquez de Orjas received from the Spanish King Philip III a franchise that allowed him to excavate the mámoas or megalithic barrows of Galicia (northwest Iberian Peninsula). His task would be to recover for the Royal Treasury all the gold supposedly held in them. However, the priest's activities and claims gave rise to a widespread gold rush that resulted in hundreds of looted monuments and ended …
“34Th International Symposium on Archaeometry
The "34 th International Symposium on Archaeometry" was held in Zaragoza (Spain), 3 rd -7 th May 2004.The local committee, led by Josefina Pérez-Arantegui (University of Zaragoza) and Marius Vendrell-Saz (University of Barcelona), should be commended for their excellent organisation, which allowed nearly 200 international delegates to enjoy a wide-ranging scientific programme as well as an exciting social agenda, including guided tours and many o…
El Padre Sarmiento y el megalitismo gallego
Se recogen y analizan, dentro de su contexto histórico, las referencias del Padre Fray Martín Sarmiento (1695-1772) al megalitismo gallego. A partir de ellas se estudia su aportación al conocimiento de este fenómeno y se comprueba cómo él inaugura la consideración de los monumentos como verdaderos documentos que informan sobre el pasado. Finalmente, se presenta una tabla con sus alusiones más específicas a monumentos megalíticos que podría facili…
Diversifying the picture
There is a growing interest in cultural contact between indigenous peoples and Europeans following their arrival in the New World. In this article the authors explore local responses to European arrival in Cuba, through analysis of metalwork found in indigenous graves. These studies demonstrate that the local communities valued particular metals quite differently from the Europeans, as the imported materials were incorporated into pre-existing sy…
Metals, microanalysis and meaning
Some problems and potentials of the study of cupellation remains
Bone-ash cupels are increasingly identified in medieval and later archaeological contexts related to the refining of noble metals in alchemy, assaying, jewellery or coin minting. These small finds may provide information on metal refining activities, the technical knowledge of different craftspeople, and the versatility of laboratory practices, which often differed from the standard protocols recorded in metallurgical treatises.This paper is cent…
Variability in single smelting episodes – a pilot study using iron slag from Uganda
Post-Medieval Crucible Production and Distribution
Modern and ancient gold jewellery attributed to the Etruscans
A fibula with a lion and a pair of cluster earrings from the collection of the Florence National Museum of Archaeology, attributed to the Etruscans and said to originate from Populonia but suspected to be modern productions, were studied in the framework of the European project AUTHENTICO. They were compared to genuine objects from this same collection and from the collection of the National Museums Scotland. The study was carried out in situ in …
Small size, high value
This investigation introduces a new dimension to the previous typological analyses of the metal bead assemblages from Zimbabwean archaeological sites. Here we present the microstructural and chemical characterisation of 50 copper-based metal beads from the collections of the Zimbabwe Museum of Human Sciences (ZMHS) in Harare, most of them from Later Farming Community period sites in northern Zimbabwe (AD 1000 to AD 1900). The analytical study emp…
Pastoralist iron production on the Laikipia Plateau, Kenya
Slag inclusions in iron objects and the quest for provenance
Post‐medieval Crucible Production and Distribution
This paper is concerned with the manufacture and trade of post‐medieval crucibles (14th–19th centuries). The analytical study of crucibles from different contexts in Europe and America employed optical microscopy and SEM–EDS, coupled with archaeological and historical data. We identified two major producers of crucibles, both of them in Central Europe, whose products appear widely distributed internationally. The analytical data allow an explanat…
Dhar Néma
Dhar Néma, easternmost of the Tichitt escarpment chain, was neglected by archaeologists throughout the twentieth century. However, since 2000, two separate archaeological teams have conducted survey and test excavation work in the region. This article presents the final research results of one of these teams. Two sites in particular are closely examined: the settlement mound of Djiganyai with stratified intermittent occupation between c. 2000 and…
Inscriptions, filing, grinding and polishing marks on the bronze weapons from the Qin Terracotta Army in China
Khao Sam Kaeo – an archaeometallurgical crossroads for trans-asiatic technological traditions
Prehistoric copper production and technological reproduction in the Khao Wong Prachan Valley of Central Thailand
Making Weapons for the Terracotta Army
The Terracotta Army of the First Emperor of China is one of the most emblematic archaeological sites in the world. Many questions remain about the logistics of technology, standardisation and labour organisation behind the creation of such a colossal construction in just a few decades over 2,000 years ago. An ongoing research project co-ordinated between the UCL Institute of Archaeology and the Emperor Qin Shihang's Terracotta Army Museum is begi…
Distilling zinc for the Ming Dynasty
Orígenes del dorado por amalgama
Los orígenes y difusión de la técnica del dorado por amalgama de mercurio siguen planteando numerosos interrogantes. Recientemente se ha sugerido la posible existencia de un foco independiente para la invención de esta técnica en el sur de la Península Ibérica (Perea et al. 2008). En este artículo se presentan los análisis por fluorescencia de rayos X (FRX) de dos fragmentos de torques protohistóricos del noroeste de la Península Ibérica dorados …
Southeast Asia's First Isotopically Defined Prehistoric Copper Production System
Southeast Asian metallurgical developments have been a focus of international academic interest since Solheim (1968) and Bayard (1972) first published bronze artefacts in claimed early/middle third millennium bce contexts from northeastern Thailand, igniting a regional ‘origins’ of metallurgy debate that has smouldered for 40 years (e.g., White and Hamilton 2009, Higham in press). In this paper, we present the results of a lead isotope pilot stud…
Typology, technology, composition and context of Muisca metalwork (Colombia, AD 600-1800)
This database presents a compilation of previously published and unpublished data on the chemical composition of over 200 Pre-Columbian gold and gold-alloy artefacts recovered in the archaeological region inhabited by the Muisca of Colombia (AD 600-1800), in addition to 35 analyses of geological gold from Colombia. The chemical data have been supplemented with information such as museum reference codes, dimensions, typologies and dates where avai…
Archaeology (80 works) · Archaeology and ancient environmental studies (69 works) · Geography (60 works) · History (55 works) · Cultural Heritage Materials Analysis (43 works) · Materials Science (43 works) · Metallurgy (43 works) · Metallurgy and Cultural Artifacts (39 works) · Art (31 works) · History (31 works)