Copper

The Chalcolithic covers both the early cold working (hammering) of near-pure copper ores, as exhibited by the likes of the North American Great Lakes Old Copper complex, from around 6,500 BC,[3] through the later copper smelting cultures. The archaeological site of Belovode, on Rudnik mountain in Serbia, has the world's oldest securely dated evidence of copper smelting at high temperature, from c. 5,000 BC.[4] The transition from Copper Age to Bronze Age in Europe occurred between the late 5th and the late 3rd millennium BC. In the Ancient Near East the Copper Age covered about the same period, beginning in the late 5th millennium BC and lasting for about a millennium before it gave rise to the Early Bronze Age.[5]