In Europe copper appeared in the middle of the third millennium B.c. in the framework of a developed technology in two marginal regions, in Spain and Portugal and on the shores of the Aegean. From both centers ready-made implements were exported over large areas mostly by sea trade. Somewhat later, copper deposits in many parts of Europe began to be used and imported copper disappeared. During this lengthy process the casting of copper in complex molds had been replaced by casting in open molds and subsequent hammering. Only with the advent of an alloy of high quality, copper and tin-which we commonly call bronze-was there a return to the earlier casting techniques. Scholars in the Soviet Union using spectrographic analyses for metal objects deriving from areas larger than those of Europe, generally aim to determine the metallurgical district in which the ore originated rather than attempt to find the specific deposit from which the ore of a given group of objects could have come. The earliest implements made of copper in the Soviet Union are attested in Turkmenia. In the