Mitterbergkupfer am Bodensee? Ein Gusskuchenfragment aus der mittelbronzezeitlichen Siedlung von Engen-Anselfingen (Lkr. Konstanz, Baden-Württemberg)

Abstract

Copper from the Mitterberg on Lake Constance? An Ingot Fragment from the Middle Bronze Age Settlement of Engen-Anselfingen (Lkr. Konstanz, Baden-Württemberg)

In 2016, an almost 2 kg fragment of a plano-convex ingot was recovered during rescue excavations within a Middle Bronze Age settlement near Engen-Anselfingen (Lkr. Konstanz / D). After more elaborate, ring- and rib-shaped copper ingots had circulated during the Early Bronze Age, such raw, plano-convex ingots were increasingly traded from the Middle Bronze Age onwards in Central Europe. However, it has been hardly known which copper deposits and mining areas played a role in the supply of the north-western Alpine foreland at that time due to the hitherto lack of concrete raw material finds and analyses. With its chemical composition, which most probably indicates an origin from the Mitterberg area in the Salzburg region (Bez. Pongau / A), the ingot fragment from Anselfingen now confirms that Eastern Alpine copper was indeed imported into the area of southern Baden-Württemberg and north-eastern Switzerland during the Middle Bronze Age.