Copper is smelted in the Balkans

At Belovode and Plocnik in Serbia, potters of the Vinca culture were smelting copper from ores such as malachite around 5000 BC, in kilns that had been developed for firing ceramics. This is the oldest securely dated metal smelting in the world, though copper was hammered in the Near East earlier. The first metallurgists gave their name to the Copper Age, and the knowledge travelled across Europe and Asia. Alloying copper with tin to make bronze came about 3300 BC and made tools and weapons much harder.

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