Lead isotopes of prehistoric copper tools define metallurgical phases in Late Neolithic and Eneolithic Italy.

The diffuse presence of small copper ore deposits in the Alpine area, mostly exploited since Late Medieval times, led most scholars to assume that these deposits may actually be active much earlier and that many of the circulating prehistoric metal objects found in the area were produced with local copper sources. This assumption was recently validated for the Recent Bronze Age through the use of lead isotope tracers, and well supported by the archaeometallurgical evidences found in the South-Eastern Alps. However, the scarcity of available lead isotope data for pre-Bronze Age metals precluded to date the reconstruction of the metal flow through the Late Neolithic and Eneolithic (or Copper Age).

A heavyweight early whale pushes the boundaries of vertebrate morphology.

The fossil record of cetaceans documents how terrestrial animals acquired extreme adaptations and transitioned to a fully aquatic lifestyle. In whales, this is associated with a substantial increase in maximum body size. Although an elongate body was acquired early in cetacean evolution, the maximum body mass of baleen whales reflects a recent diversification that culminated in the blue whale.

The provenance of the raw material and the manufacturing technology of copper artefacts from the Copper Age hoard from Magyaregres, Hungary.

In 2016, a Stollhof-type copper hoard was found during an excavation in Magyaregres, Hungary. It was placed in a cooking pot, and deposited upside down within the boundaries of an Early Copper Age settlement. Similar hoards dating to the end of the 5th millennium BCE are well-known from Central Europe, however, this hoard represents the only one so far with thoroughly documented finding circumstances.

Correction: Long-distance connections in the Copper Age: New evidence from the Alpine Iceman's copper axe.

[This corrects the article DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.

Long-distance connections in the Copper Age: New evidence from the Alpine Iceman's copper axe.

25 years after the discovery in the Ötztal Italian Alps, the 5,300-year-old mummy keeps providing key information on human biological and medical conditions, aspects of everyday life and societal organization in the Copper Age. The hand axe found with the body of the Alpine Iceman is one of the rare copper objects that is firmly dated to the early Copper Age because of the radiocarbon dating of the axe wooden shaft. Here we report the measurement of the lead isotope ratios of the copper blade.