Draft:Zofia Anna Stos-Gale



Dr. Zofia Anna Stos-Gale is a female scientist specialising in the method of elemental and lead isotope analysis, a scientific method applied for linking archaeological objects to their geo-resources. She thus contributes to the understanding of ancient economic and trade networks. Stos-Gale holds a M.Sc. degree in applied Nuclear Physics from the University of Science and Technology (AGH) in Krakow and a D.Phil. in Science Applied to Archaeology from the University of Oxford (Christ Church college).

Academic graduate and post-graduate studies
Stos-Gale first studied Applied Nuclear Physics. In the last years of the MSc course she attended also courses of the History of Art at the Jagiellonian University in Krakow and developed an interest in application of science to studies of ancient artefacts. Her MSc dissertation, supervised by Professor Tadeusz Florkowski, was based on non-destructive ED XRF analyses of the early Medieval Polish silver coins. In collaboration with Polish scholars she also published research into the composition of Arabic dirhems, painted pottery from Bilcze Zlote and pigments in incunabula from the collection of the Carmelitan Monastery in Krakow. In 1974 and 1975 she attended the Archaeometry Symposia in Oxford and Edinburgh where she presented her research. She obtained her D.Phil. (downloadable here) in Science Applied to Archaeology at the University of Oxford under the supervision of Professor K.W. Allan and was examined by Professors C. Renfrew and M.S. Tite.

Contribution to lead isotope and chemical analysis application in archaeometry
In 1977 she obtained a personal grant from the British Council to get further expertise in this field in the Research Laboratory for Archaeology and History of Art at the University of Oxford. There she met Noel Gale who was pioneering the application of lead isotope analysis in archaeometallurgy. From 1977-2002, together with Noel Gale, they carried out research projects at the University of Oxford to develop the use of lead isotope and chemical analysis into an important systematic method for identifying the sources of Bronze Age metals, making vital contributions to the understanding of the Bronze Age metal trade in Europe.

With Noel Gale they established in Oxford the first mass spectrometry research laboratory devoted to lead isotope provenance of archaeological and historical materials: Oxford Isotrace Laboratory. The lead isotope methodology of identification of sources of metals used for ancient artefacts requires comparisons between the compositions of metals and ores, so this research also involved extensive surveys of copper, lead and silver mineralisations in Greece, Cyprus, Sardinia  , Bulgaria  and southeast Spain. Currently, she also collaborates with archaeologists from Cambridge (UK), Poland, Germany, Greece and other countries. In 2009 Zofia set up an open access lead isotope and compositional database of all data obtained in the Isotrace Laboratory, the OXALID database. This was the first widely available digital database of the European ores and Bronze Age metal artefacts encompassing several thousand sets of data and is widely used by researchers in the field. She also taught courses in Archaeological Science at the University of Oxford. At that time archaeologists at the University of Oxford were united under the umbrella of the Committee for Archaeology, of which she held the post of Secretary between 1993 and 1995 and encouraged by the Chairman of this Committee, Professor Barry Cunliffe, she initiated and maintained the information booklet ‘Who is who in Archaeology at Oxford’.

Research collaboration in Gothenburg
Since 2012 she has been collaborating with Professor Johan Ling of the Historical Studies Department at the University of Gothenburg on research projects unravelling the trade and supply of metals in Bronze Age Scandinavia and the role of Scandinavian warrior-traders in the copper networks of Europe in the 2nd Millennium BC. She is contributing in this research her expertise in the interpretation of lead isotope and chemical analyses of metals, as well as the practical experience of the ancient mining and metal smelting sites in Europe. Currently she also collaborates with archaeologists from Cambridge (UK), Poland, Germany, Greece and several other countries providing expertise in the interpretation of the analytical data of ancient metals.

From 2021 she has also joined the team from the University of Gothenburg led by Johan Ling and Serena Sabatini, to investigate the role of the Iberian Peninsula and Sardinia in the Bronze Age metal trade. Projects’ titles are: ''‘[https://www.gu.se/en/research/the-missing-link-sardinia-and-the-bronze-age-metal-trade-between-scandinavia The missing link? Sardinia and the Bronze Age metal trade between Scandinavia, Atlantic Europe and the Mediterranean']  and ‘Maritime encounters: a counterpoint to the dominant terrestrial narrative of European prehistory.’''.

EU research funding consultancy and grants
In the years 2002-2012 she was employed at the University of Surrey (UK) as the Expert Advisor of the EU research funding (Frameworks 6 and 7) and is still contracted periodically by the European Commission as an Expert Evaluator and a Vice Chair for Marie Curie and Horizon Programme grant applications (listed here). In 2004-2006 she was leading an EU funded Regional Development project ‘Bridging business and science’ aiming at bringing together the novel business ideas of the academics to the industry. This project was run in collaboration with the knowledge transfer experts from the universities in Eindhoven, Bologna, Cordoba and UJ in Krakow.

Certificates
In 1998 Stos-Gale obtained a certificate in Management at the Oxford Brookes.

Selection of invited lectures
As a specialist in her field, Stos-Gale has given papers at numerous conferences, Symposia, invited lectures (e.g. ), etc. Many of these are published in proceedings volumes. Most recent occasions: In July 2023, she was invited to give a lecture at a EU funded Symposium on Early Metallurgy on the Island of Sifnos, in February 2023 at a workshop by Deutsches Bergbau-Museum Bochum to GlobaLID, a modernised FAIR lead isotope database and GlobaLID web application, in 2022 at a conference in Sardinia (virtually), in 2019 in Athens at a conference organised by the Demokritos Institute, in 2018 for an invited lecture in Olsztyn Museum in Poland.

Publications
Her publication output includes over 150 papers and chapters in books.

Selected recent publications
Gale, N.H. and Stos-Gale, Z.A. (1982), "Bronze Age Copper Sources in the Mediterranean: A new approach",  Science, vol. 216, pp. 11-19.

Gale, N.H. and Stos-Gale, Z.A. (2005), "Zur Herkunft der Kupferbarren aus dem Schiffswrack von Uluburun und der spätbronzezeitliche Metallhandel im Mittelmeerraum" In: U. Yalcin, C. Pulak and R. Slota (eds.) Das Schiff von Uluburun – Welthandel vor 3000 Jahren, pp. 117-132. Bochum: Bergbau Museum.

Stos-Gale, Z.A. and  Gale, N.H. (2009), "Metal provenancing using isotopes and the Oxford archaeological lead isotope database (OXALID)" Archaeological and Anthropological Sciences, vol. 1, no. 3, pp. 195-213.

Stos-Gale, Z.A. (2014), "Silver vessels in the Mycenaean Shaft Graves and their origin in the context of the metal supply in the Bronze Age Aegean" In: H. Meller, R. Risch and E. Pernicka (eds.) Metalle der Macht. Tagungen des Landesmuseums für Vorgeschichte, Halle vol. 11, no. I, pp. 183-208

Ling, J. Stos-Gale, Z., Grandin, L., Billström, K., Hjärthner-Holdar, E., Persson, P.-O. (2014) "Moving metals II: provenancing Scandinavian Bronze Age artefacts by lead isotope and elemental analyses" Journal of Archaeological Science, vol. 41, pp. 106-132.

Ling, J. and Stos-Gale, Z.A. (2015), "Representations of oxhide ingots in Scandinavian rock art: the sketchbook of a bronze age traveller?" Antiquity, vol. 89/343, pp. 191-209.

Stos-Gale, Z.A. (2016), "Bronze Age Metal Sources and the Movement of Metals between the Aegean and Anatolia" In: M. Bartelheim, B. Horejs, R. Krauß (eds.). Von Baden bis Troja, Resourcennutzung, Metallurgie und Wissenstransfer. Oriental and European Archaeology, vol. 3, pp. 375-398.

Stos-Gale, Z.A. (2019), "Lead isotopes and the origin of bronze artefacts. In: J. Sobieraj ed. The origins of the Bronze Age in Warmia and Masuria revealed by scientific analyses" Muzeum Warmii i Mazur, Olsztyn, pp. 83-118.

Kowalski, Ł., Adamczak, K., Garbacz-Klempka, A., Degryse, P., Stos-Gale, Z., Kozicka, M, Chudziak, W., Krzyszowski, A., Jedynak, A. (2019), "Back to the Eneolithic: Exploring the Rudki-type ornaments from Poland" ''Archaeol. Anthropol. Sci., vol.'' 11, no. 8, pp. 4355-4377. https://doi.org/10.1007/s12520-019-00825-4

Nowak, K., Tarbay, J.G., Stos-Gale, Z.A., Derkowski, P., Sielicka, K. (2023), "A complex case of trade in metals: The origin of copper used for artefacts found in one hoard from a Late Bronze Age Lusatian Urnfield Culture in Poland" Journal of Archaeological Science Reports, vol. 49, 21 p. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jasrep.2023.103970

Brozio, J.P., Stos-Gale, Z. A., Müller, J., Müller Scheeßel, N., Schultrich, S., Fritsch, B., et al. (2023), "The origin of Neolithic copper on the central Northern European plain and in Southern Scandinavia: Connectivities on a European scale" PLoS ONE, vol. 18, no. 5. e0283007. https://doi.org/ 10.1371/journal.pone.0283007