Some of the earliest Iron Age ornaments found in Poland are made from metal that fell from the sky, a new study has found.
The cosmic ingredient, known as meteoric iron, was discovered in a range of ancient jewellery and tools unearthed from two burial sites around six kilometres apart in southern Poland – Częstochowa-Raków and Częstochowa-Mirów.
Archaeologists found 26 ornaments containing iron, with four including space metal, including three bracelets, an ankle ring, and a pin. The findings suggest ancient inhabitants worked with the metal much earlier than thought, as the artefacts were dated to 750-600 BCE during the Iron Age.
“This modest number of specimens nevertheless forms one of the biggest collections of meteoritic iron products at one archaeological site worldwide,” the authors wrote in the study.
According to Dr Albert Jambon, lead author of the study, the meteorites weren't just a random find. The team suggests that locals might have witnessed a meteor shower and went hunting for small pieces of the rare space rock.
What's more, the researchers suspect iron wasn't considered a valuable metal at the time. Artefacts were found in a wide range of graves without any evidence of other precious items, such as gold or gems. "During the Bronze Age, the price of iron was about ten times that of gold; in the early Iron Age, it sank drastically to less than copper," Dr Jambon said.
The team analysed the artefacts using a variety of techniques, including X-ray microtomography, which allowed researchers to determine the sample's internal structure. This revealed that the iron artefacts were made from an “extremely rare” space rock with high levels of nickel, called an ataxite meteorite.
Dr Jambon set out to understand
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