MINING CAMP OR MINING VILLAGE: MINERALOGICAL CORRELATION OF LATE BRONZE AGE POTTERY TEMPER AND ADJACENT TIN PLACER SANDS, WEST SERBIA

Placer tin occurs in streams that flow from the granitic rocks of Mt. Cer in western Serbia, with ore grades highest in the Milinska River. Abraded Bronze Age pottery sherds are common on the river terrace of Spasovine, on the west bank of the Milinska River where it enters the Lešnica River. These artifacts are thought to be associated with Late Bronze Age habitation associated with tin mining. No Bronze Age structures, hearths, or kilns have as yet been uncovered at Spasovine. This may be due to destruction by modern agricultural activities or erosion. Alternatively, the site may have been a short term seasonal camp where no such structures were constructed. To address this uncertainly, the compositions of pottery sherds from Spasovine were documented to determine if the ceramics were made from local materials (i.e., pottery was produced on site), which would indicate that kilns existed, and that longer-term habitation was likely.

Sherds were examined to identify minerals that comprised the sand temper, first on the surface and then in the crushed fragments. SEM-EDS analysis of heavy mineral sand grains indicates that they are predominantly (up to 50%) spessartine-almandine garnets with a limited compositional range (~1:1 Fe:Mn). Other heavy minerals present within the ceramics include two Sn-bearing minerals, cassiterite (SnO2) and ixiolite ([Ta,Nb,Sn,Mn,Fe]O₂). This is consistent with the mineral composition of sand collected from the Milinska River, in which spessartine-almandine garnet comprises 70% of the medium to coarse-grained heavy mineral sand component, and tin-bearing minerals are present. Thus, the mineralogical composition of the pottery sherds indicates that the ceramics were constructed using temper sands obtained from the Milinska River, thereby supporting the hypothesis that moderate to long term habitation occurred on the site in the Late Bronze Age.