One of the many challenges we face is to find a way of smelting the more complex and problematical copper ore of chalcopyrite (copper iron sulphide).

We know that the mines in Wales and elsewhere were producing chalcopyrite from the end of the 3rd millennium BC, but there is very little archaeological evidence to show us how they smelted it.

Simple furnace pits have been found within the Beaker mining camp at Ross Island Mine in Killarney, Eire (O’Brien, 2004), and a reconstruction of one of these was attempted using this for both  roasting and smelting the sulphide ore