Elemental Composition of Tagar Copper-Bronze Sickle-Shaped Tools

Abstract

The article features the elemental composition of copper and bronze sickle-shaped tools of the Tagar culture. The structure and composition of metal sickles have been the focus of chemical and spectral quantitative analyses since the 1950s. The paper introduces new data obtained by X-ray fluorescence, energy dispersive, and atomic emission spectral methods. The chemical and chemical-metallurgical features of the alloys add to the external descriptions of the Tagar metal tools. The research objective was to identify the features of Tagar copper-bronze sickles based on the chemical-metallurgical profile of the alloys. The authors also analyzed the effect of the alloy formulations on the morphological and metric characteristics of the tools, compared the bronze formulations with surface patterns, and established the copper ore sources. The study revealed no relationships between the bronze formulations and the morphological and metric indicators. An attempt to search for correlations showed two types of sickle-shaped tools. By measuring the length of the base and the height of the blade, the authors restored the actual sickles and reaping knives. The second type tools came from the Mariinsk-Achinsk foreststeppe. An analysis of the geochemical impurities in high-concentration copper indicated that the ore used in the Tagar tools was similar to that mined in the Glafirinsk and Kharadzhul-Butrakhty mines in the eastern foothills of the Kuznetsk Alatau. The sickle-shaped tools might also have been used to harvest fodder for livestock.

Keywords

• tagar culture
• mariinsky-achinsk forest-steppe
• minusinsk basins
• agriculture
• copper-bronze alloys
• elemental composition
• sickles