ABSTRACT
The sources of native copper are widespread and it can be argued that it would not be long before the successive early stages of physical metallurgical development were reached, leading finally to the smelting of copper ores. It is unlikely that they were seeking copper ores merely for pigments since there were traces of smelting in the first and third areas. In an area such as Cornwall it would be possible for the smelting of a tin-bearirig copper ore to give a bronze. Coffey has investigated this question and found that tin occurred in considerable quantities in some of the Cornish copper ores arriving in South Wales. The spread of copper metallurgy to the British Isles has long been thought of as being via a Mediterranean or Atlantic route to the west of Ireland. By the Roman period, smelting was carried on near the mining areas as may be seen from the concentration of plano-convex ingots in North Wales.
