Editing Chalcolithic (section)

===Europe===
{{Main|Chalcolithic Europe|Metallurgy during the Copper Age in Europe}}

A copper axe found at [[Prokuplje]], Serbia contains the oldest securely dated evidence of copper-making, {{circa|5500&nbsp;BC}} (7,500&nbsp;years ago).<ref>{{cite news |title=Ancient axe find suggests Copper Age began earlier than believed |date=9 Oct 2008 |website=Thaindian News |agency=ANI |url=http://www.thaindian.com/newsportal/india-news/ancient-axe-find-suggests-copper-age-began-earlier-than-believed_100105122.html |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20081014045213/http://www.thaindian.com/newsportal/india-news/ancient-axe-find-suggests-copper-age-began-earlier-than-believed_100105122.html |archive-date=14 Oct 2008}}</ref> The find in June&nbsp;2010 extends the known record of copper smelting by about 800 years, and suggests that copper smelting may have been invented in separate parts of Asia and Europe at that time rather than spreading from a single source.<ref name=Radivjć-Rehren-etal-2010/>
[[File:Copper Funnel Beaker Culture.png|thumb|Number of metal artefacts found in northern Germany. After a first peak in the late fourth millennium BC, copper disappeared. It only reappeared 1,000 years later at the beginning of the Bronze Age.]]
In Britain and central and northern Europe a Chalcolithic period has never been defined. However, copper artefacts have been found in archaeological groups.<ref name=":3">{{Cite journal |last1=Brozio |first1=Jan Piet |last2=Stos-Gale |first2=Zofia |last3=Müller |first3=Johannes |last4=Müller-Scheeßel |first4=Nils |last5=Schultrich |first5=Sebastian |last6=Fritsch |first6=Barbara |last7=Jürgens |first7=Fritz |last8=Skorna |first8=Henry |date=2023-05-10 |title=The origin of Neolithic copper on the central Northern European plain and in Southern Scandinavia: Connectivities on a European scale |journal=PLOS ONE |language=en |volume=18 |issue=5 |pages=e0283007 |doi=10.1371/journal.pone.0283007 |issn=1932-6203 |pmc=10171686 |pmid=37163484 |doi-access=free|bibcode=2023PLoSO..1883007B }}</ref> Copper artefacts found in northern Germany and Denmark date from between 4000 and 3300 BC, with most finds dating from 3500 - 3300 BC. They belong to the Funnel Beaker group. The copper was mined in Serbian mines, as researchers from Kiel have recently discovered.<ref name=":3" />

Knowledge of the use of copper was far more widespread than the metal itself. Many European archaeological Cultures used stone axes modeled on copper axes, even with moulding carved in the stone, such as the [[Battle Axe culture]]{{Sfnp|Evans|1897}} or the late Funnel Beaker Culture.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Schultrich |first=Sebastian |url=https://macau.uni-kiel.de/receive/macau_mods_00002793?lang=de |title=Kriegerideal und Netzwerke : Die Doppeläxte West- und Mitteleuropas im Kontext der jung- bis endneolithischen Kulturentwicklung. |publisher=MACAU |year=2022 |location=Kiel |language=German |trans-title=Warrior Images and Networks: The Double Axes of Western and Central Europe in the Context of the Younger to the Final Neolithic Cultural Development.}}</ref> [[Ötzi the Iceman]], who was found in the [[Ötztal Alps]] in 1991 and whose remains have been dated to about 3300&nbsp;BC, was found with a [[Mondsee group|Mondsee copper]] axe.

[[File:Los Millares recreacion cuadro.jpg|thumb|A painting of a Copper Age walled settlement, [[Los Millares]], Spain]]

Examples of Chalcolithic cultures in Europe include [[Vila Nova de São Pedro]] and [[Los Millares]] on the [[Iberian Peninsula]].{{sfnp|Hogan|2007}} Pottery of the [[Beaker people]] has been found at both sites, dating to several centuries after copper-working began there. The Beaker culture appears to have spread copper and bronze technologies in Europe, along with [[Proto-Indo-Europeans|Indo-European]] languages.<ref>{{cite book |first=D.W. |last=Anthony |author-link=David W. Anthony |year=2007 |title-link=The Horse, the Wheel and Language |title=The Horse, the Wheel and Language: How Bronze-Age riders from the Eurasian steppes shaped the modern world |publisher=Princeton University Press |isbn=978-0-691-14818-2}}</ref> In Britain, copper was used between the 25th and {{nobr|22nd centuries BC}}, but some archaeologists do not recognise a British Chalcolithic because production and use was on a small scale.{{sfnp|Miles|2016|pp=363, 423, note&nbsp;15}}