Bronze Age Europe (Archaeology) Research Papers (original) (raw)

Publikace byla vydána v Praze roku 2006 / The publication was published in Prague in 2006.

Begleitveröffentlichung zu einer im Jahre 1983 stattgefundenen Sonderausstellung im Museum für Urgeschichte in Asparn an der Zaya.

Gaṇeśa is 1. Marut, kharva, 'dwarf', dancer, kavi, Brahmaṇaspati, Br̥haspati, 2. त्रिधातु, 'aggregate of 3 minerals', 3. R̥bhu founder of yajña, artist, rayi, 'wealth'. Gaṇeśa is a कवि kavi, m. a singer , bard , poet (but in this sense... more

- by Srinivasan Kalyanaraman
- •
- History, Cultural History, Economic History, Philosophy

This article explores how the practice of including rock art in burials from the Bronze Age in Scandinavia was influenced by and incorporated into the new ideas and practices brought about by the introduction of cremation. Three portable stones with rock art found on the exterior of a cairn at the Late Bronze Age site of Sandbrauta in Central Norway are the point of departure for the discussion. Clay from a Late Bronze Age landslide that occurred soon after the ritual activity had sealed off the site, thus revealing the stones with the petroglyphs to be part of the ritual context. It is argued that the stones with rock art displaying different stages of decoration reflect stages in the stones` biography as well as stages in the process of bodily transformation, thus rendering the cairn to be a place for integrated rites involving both the transformation of bodies and rock art.

When JRB Stewart and his team excavated at the Early Cypriot necropolis at Bellapais-Vounous they uncovered a wealth of material which shaped our understanding of this formative stage of the island’s Bronze Age. Amongst this material was a curious collection of figurative objects, including elaborate vessels decorated with animal and object protomes and life-size clay models of inanimate objects. These generally well-preserved and visually attractive objects have since become emblematic of Early Cypriot art and religion and, since many forms are still known exclusively from this influential context, of the site of Vounous itself. This paper draws on a comprehensive programme of iconographical and contextual analyses to offer a new interpretation of this fascinating yet enigmatic corpus. Calling on a diverse range of evidence, including spatial analysis within the cemetery, contemporary faunal data and analysis of Early Cypriot figurative material from elsewhere on the island, this paper will present a re-evaluation of the function and significance of Vounous’ figurative material. The paper will conclude by presenting the implications of these new interpretations for our understanding of the changing nature of burial ritual at Vounous and the manifestation of individual and group identities within the cemetery.

This chapter presents the important but not very well known
archival material relating to James Stewart’s
Vounous excavations kept in the archive of the
Medelhavsmuseet, Stockholm. The Medelhavsmuseet
was founded in 1954 as a direct result of the Swedish
Cyprus Expedition in order to store the Swedish share
of the finds from the excavations. The archival material
from the Swedish Cyprus Expedition, including field
diaries, drawings, photographs, manuscripts and
correspondence, is kept in the archive of the museum.
Stewart’s excavations at Vounous were published by the
Swedish Institute in Rome in 1950 and Einar Gjerstad
invited Stewart to write about the Early Bronze Age in
Cyprus for Swedish Cyprus Expedition Volume IV, Part
1A (Stewart 1962). The good collaboration between
Stewart and Gjerstad prompted Stewart to donate
his field records to the Swedish Cyprus Expedition,
which thus duly came to the museum.

This monograph posits the presence of Meluhha artisans and seafaring merchants in Dilmun and failaka. This presence explains the decipherment of Dilmun seals, Barbar temple bronze bull's head and Failaka seals as Indus Script inscriptions constituting wealth-accounting ledgers, metalwork catalogues. Dilmun and Failaka seals are archives recording trade transactions with Meluhha (Sarasvati Civilization). Dilmun finds mention in cuneiform texts as a trade partner and as a trading post of the Mesopotamia and the Indus Valley Civilization trade route. The bronze bull's head found in Barbar Temple of Bahrein is paralleled by the artifacts of Early Dynastic Sumer as posited by Elisabeth CL During Caspers and also by the Indus Script rebus representation of ḍhangra 'bull' Rebus: ṭhakkura m. ʻ idol, deity (Pkt.); Mth. ṭhākur ʻ blacksmith.ʼ Thus, the deity venerated as the bull's head is a veneration of the ancestor blacksmith who has attained divinity; hence, ṭhakkura m. ʻ idol, deity in Meluhha (Indian sprachbund, 'speech union'). Three temples were discovered in Barbar village, Bahrein, and the oldest is dated to 3000 BCE. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barbar_Temple

- by Srinivasan Kalyanaraman
- •
- History, Economic History, Philosophy, Art History

Continuation of the Atlantic Theory of Homer's Ilias and Odyssey (part 1: Atlantic Troy; part 2: Atlantic Ismaros-Kikones). Odysseus' wanderings after his departure from Troy: Route Brittany-Senegal. Study of Atlantic authors De Grave, Cailleux, Gideon, Wilkens, Vinci. Identification of his first stop as North of Spain (Ulla, A Coruña), Kuthera as El Araich (Maroc) and Lotophagia as Senegambia.

- by Gerard Janssen
- •
- Homer, Celtic Studies, Bronze Age Europe (Archaeology), Celtic Archaeology

Continuation of the Atlantic Theory of Homer's Ilias and Odyssey (part 1: Atlantic Troy). Odysseus' wanderings after his departure from Troy. Study of Atlantic authors De Grave, Cailleux, Gideon, Wilkens, Vinci. Identification of Ismaros... more

- by Aleksandar Kapuran
- •
- Bronze Age Europe (Archaeology)

Clothes are not only made to protect against the cold, sun, or rain, but also to have an impact on the wearer, provide information and create moods. They are experienced both sensually by the person wearing them
and visually by the audience and since clothing can also be used to alter body shapes, it becomes an object of art.
When worn on the human body, clothing serves as a medium of non-verbal communication and as such can be used to demonstrate cultural, social and individual identities. Strategies for communication via dress exist in all parts of the world, and these systems vary not only geographically but also through time. The task of tailoring as a profession is to create garments which cover both these personal and social demands. This paper is based on observations and considerations that were made during the reconstruction of Bronze Age garments by using experimental archaeology methods.

A history of research of the Bronze Age Tell Settlement at Pecica 'Santul Mare'

- by Ana Deac (Ignat) and +1
- •
- Prehistoric Archaeology, Bronze Age Europe (Archaeology), Prehistoric Settlement, Balkan prehistory

Analysing textiles from Hallstatt in Austria always involves studying the whole chaîne opératoire. Due to their excellent preservation in the salt mine it is worth considering how the items were produced as well as the end point of the chaîne opératoire, the use, recycling and discarding. Additionally, the fi ndspot, Hallstatt, off ers insights into an interesting period for the development of textile crafts in prehistoric Europe: in the second and fi rst millennium BC many inventions and innovations fl ourished across Europe and transformed the textile world.

- by Karina Grömer and +1
- •
- Textiles, Material Culture Studies, History of Textiles, Textile Archaeology

Continuation of the Atlantic Theory of Homer's Ilias and Odyssey (part 1: Atlantic Troy; part 2: Atlantic Ismaros-Kikones; part 3: Atlantic Kuthera-Lotophages; part 4: Atlantic Land of the Cyclopes; part 5: Atlantic Aiolia). Odysseus' wanderings after his departure from Troy: Route: from Corvo, Azores, to La Havana, Cuba. Study of Atlantic authors De Grave, Cailleux, Gideon, Wilkens, Vinci.

- by Gerard Janssen
- •
- Homer, Portuguese History, Phoenicians, Central America and Mexico

As a cultural construction, the result of the interaction between human beings and nature, the study of the landscape must be considered within a dimension
Historical and archaeological. This is basically articulated at two scales, the spatial and the temporal, which delimit the rhythmicity of the process and its typology.
From a historical perspective, this type of dimensional approach requires that the human-medium relationship be framed within research
With a marked multidisciplinary nature, where the disciplines involved share different opinion spaces for hypothesis.
and common problems.
Historical ecology centers its dialectic on the interrelation between human beings and nature, manifested through the ‘landscape’, whose conceptualization
It is never easy, 1 since this term has been used in many fields of science and the arts under very different prisms.
In any case, the landscape, identical in its background, is different in the way it is interpreted. To put it another way, the landscape is not an entity
physical in itself, but the way in which each person perceives the biotic and abiotic environment that surrounds it, and, therefore, each of them would be able to
interpret, signify or define the landscape in a different way, even in several ways before different emotional or sensitive states. It is therefore about
a term with numerous interpretations and meanings, a difficult and polysemic concept

- by Dionisio Urbina Martinez and +1
- •
- Landscape Ecology, Landscape Archaeology, Cultural Landscapes, Bronze Age Europe (Archaeology)

GeoarchaeologIcal perspective to the reconstruction of coastal landscapes and settlement strategies of the Bronze Age Salento - Investigations of coastal landscape archaeology conducted over the last 10 years on the Adriatic and Ionian coastlines of the Salento allowed us to map many geoarchaeological markers of relative sea level changes; these data can give us accurate information on late Holocene phenomena of marine transgression offering a good opportunity to submit some fresh proposals of paleogeographic reconstructions of these territories. A particular attention was paid to the analysis of spatial, chronological and functional data of a group of archaeological markers (sunken and not) connected with forti ed and open settlements dated to the rst half of the II millennium BC. Torre Santa Sabina, Torre Guaceto-Scogli di Apani and Scalo di Furno-Porto Cesareo stand out among long-lived settlements for the relevance of the research outcomes. Many archaeological evidences (forti cation walls, moats, pavements, occupation layers, dwelling structures, etc.) mark the ancient position and height of the relative sea level, but postholes have a leading role. The mapping and recording of these structural elements allow us to reconstruct the real extension of Bronze Age inhabited areas.

- by Teodoro Scarano
- •
- Archaeology, Prehistoric Archaeology, Geoarchaeology, GeoArcheology
- by Eric H Cline
- •
- Bronze Age Europe (Archaeology), Sea Peoples, Bronze Age Collapse

In molti contesti preistorici e protostorici italiani sono largamente rinvenuti resti strutturali in terra e conglomerati architettonici combusti o parzialmente cementati. La loro caratterizzazione tecnologica è un passo importante per ottenere dati rigurdanti la paleoeconomia, lo sfruttamento delle risorse e l’esistenza di tradizioni costruttive su scala locale o regionale. L’integrazione al protocollo di analisi tecnologica di osservazioni effettuate ad occhio nudo o con microscopio ottico su sezioni levigate può aiutare ad una migliore comprensione dei resti in una fase intermedia dello studio, successiva alla loro caratterizzazione morfologica ed al riconoscimento di classi di impasto, ma preliminare all’approfondimento dello studio per mezzo di analisi specialistiche. La realizzazione su alcuni campioni di una sezione rettificata e polita (sezione levigata) permette infatti di descrivere con maggiore completezza l’organizzazione e la natura dei componenti, nonché le alterazioni subite dal materiale, ad esempio in caso di esposizione al calore. Si tratta dunque di associare le caratteristiche osservate ai meccanismi di deformazione della materia e a gesti specifici, che una volta messi in sequenza potranno permettere di ricostruire materie prime utilizzate, tecniche e catene operative. Qualche osservazione rilevante può riguardare anche le dinamiche di funzionamento delle strutture o il loro ingresso nel record archeologico. Sono qua presentati alcuni casi studio e chiavi di lettura preliminari, da completare ed affinare con l’avanzamento delle ricerche. Le prime applicazioni di tale tecnica hanno fornito risultati incoraggianti, soprattutto per il rapporto positivo tra massa di dati prodotta e costo finanziario ridotto.

- by Svend Hansen
- •
- Religion, Prehistoric Archaeology, Music, Literature

This document presents the collated results of a three-year programme of excavation and post-excavation assessment at Ham Hill, Stoke-sub-Hamdon, Somerset by the Cambridge Archaeological Unit of the University of Cambridge and the Department of Archaeology at Cardiff University. An Update Project Design (UPD), issued in conjunction with this Post Excavation Assessment (PXA), provides an in-depth statement of potential and research programme.

Second report on excavations at Britain's largest hillfort. Excavations revealed a complex sequence of Iron Age rampart construction overlying features dated to the Neolithic, along with the interior and entrance to a large rectangular... more

SUMMARY: Chapter 5, in Renfrew & Bahn's textbook (Archaeology: Theories, Methods, and Practice), covers past social organizations, including hunter-gatherer groups (bands), segmentary societies (tribal societies), chiefdoms, and early state complex societies, with approaches to assessing settlement patterns, interpreting pertinent historical data, ethnoarchaeology, various ways to examine the various types of past social organizations and their variants, and looking at individuals, identity and society, gender and childhood, and other aspects. Two additional case studies highlighting social organization in Ancient Egypt and Ancient Rome. In my view, this is one of the best college textbooks available, and is invaluable for students, archaeologists, and the public in general, to obtain a top notch overview of approaching and interpreting the archaeological record. REVISED: Feb. 2023.

- by Gregory Mumford
- •
- Ancient History, Archaeology, Experimental Archaeology, Anthropology

Die Wirtschaft der antiken Welt steht zunehmend im Mittelpunkt des Interesses der althistorischen Forschung. Obwohl seit Jahrzehnten vor allem um die quantitative wie qualitative Beurteilung des Handels in der Antike erbittert gerungen wird, wird in der Forschungsliteratur häufig nicht scharf zwischen Handel und Distribution differenziert. Um die Auswertung des antiken Quellenmaterials aus dem Mittelmeerraum mit dem aus dem Vorderen Orient zu verbinden, fand im April 2013 in Marburg eine interdisziplinäre Tagung statt, die sich der Thematik am Beispiel des Handels und der Distribution von Textilien vom 2. Jahrtausend v.Chr. bis ins frühe 2. Jahrtausend n.Chr. widmete.
Textilien eignen sich in besonderer Weise dazu, Einblicke in die Funktionsweise des antiken Warenaustauschs zu erhalten. Zwar gibt es bereits in vielen Disziplinen Forschungen zu Handel und Distribution von Textilien, aber diese werden häufig über die jeweiligen Fächergrenzen hinaus nicht wahrgenommen. Der zur Tagung gehörige Sammelband vereint daher Analysen internationaler Expertinnen und Experten aus unterschiedlichen Fachdisziplinen: Alte Geschichte, Altorientalistik, Archäologie, Textilforschung und Naturwissenschaften bilden den analytisch-methodischen Rahmen. Gerade der neuere Ansatz, dokumentarische Quellen mit archäologischen Funden und naturwissenschaftlichen Analysemethoden zu verknüpfen, erlaubt einen tief greifenden Einblick in die Funktionsweise antiker Warendistribution, der Auskunft über das „Wer?“, das „Wie?“ und das „Warum?“ gleichermaßen gibt. Überlegungen zu Absatz- und Beschaffungsmärkten, Warenpreisen und involvierten Akteuren (Institutionen) geben zudem entscheidende Informationen über den Warenaustausch im engeren Sinne hinaus.

- by Kerstin Droß-Krüpe
- •
- Economic History, Roman History, Papyrology, History of Textiles

This paper focus on the significance that weapons assume in various moments of pre- and protohistory and their comunication skills. To briefly investigate the problem, we analyse, as a common thread, the stele and the statues that represent the induvidual with different typologies of weapons, from Chalcolithic to late protohistory, and their association with the representation of the identification elements, such as ideological and religious symbols, the rich garments, the ornaments and the symbols of wealth: hunted and bred animals. Thereby, we try to
include the weapons in pre- and protohistory’s cultural world and the values that characterized said world.

- by Nuccia Negroni Catacchio
- •
- Bronze Age Europe (Archaeology), Bronze Age, Copper age

Alleged "Aegean migrations" have long been seen as underlying major transformations in lifeways and identity in the Balkans in the 12 th-11 th centuries BC. Revisiting the material culture and settlement changes in the north-south "routeway" of the Velika Morava-Južna Morava-Vardar/Axios river valleys, this paper evaluates developments within local communities. It is argued that mobility played an important role in social change, including an element of inward migration from the north. We argue that rather than an Aegean end point, these river valleys themselves were the destination of migrants. The prosperity this stimulated within those communities led to increased networks of personal mobility that incorporated elements from communities from the wider Carpathians and the north of Greece over the course of two centuries.

- by Barry Molloy and +2
- •
- Archaeology, Prehistoric Archaeology, Bronze Age Europe (Archaeology), Bronze Age Archaeology

The aim of this study is to collect evidence for textile recycling from a prehistoric and historic perspective. The basis are original textile finds and not, as might be expected, written or pictorial sources. The material presented here focuses on archaeological finds, especially on prehistoric to early medieval evidence from Central Europe, also mentioning some interesting examples from medieval and Early Modern times.
This is not a comprehensive study of all possible secondary uses of textiles, but it shall demonstrate different interesting case studies such as re-use and recycling of garments with examples from Bronze Age till early modern period. We also learn from Early Medieval evidence that textile rags have been employed for production processes e.g. of ceramic vessels, clay figurines or for thin bronze objects. In the salt-mines Hallstatt and Dürrnberg in Austria, hundreds of textile scraps have been found, left back in the mines after secondary use as make-shift binding material or sanitary items.
Worn-out textiles were used for caulking wooden ships, as sealing for water-management in prehistoric copper mines and as insulation material for medieval castles. At least, textile scraps also ended in medieval and early modern latrinae – after they have been used as “toilet-paper”. The evidence collected demonstrates a careful resource-management.

- by Karina Grömer
- •
- Medieval History, Early Modern History, Natural Resources, Textiles

The article’s aim is to foster an interdisciplinary debate regarding the direction that archaeometallurgical studies in the central Mediterranean region, from the late Neolithic to the Early Bronze Age (c4500-1650 BC), ought to take in the next decade. It is argued that early metallurgical studies in the area have followed an idiosyncratic course due to the sway held on the discipline by Idealism, an influential philosophical movement that greatly hindered the development of science-based archaeology until the late 20th century. The last fifteen years, however, have witnessed an unprecedented if rather tumultuous expansion of metallurgical research, and important advances have been made in the chronology and chaîne opératoire of early metal technology and artefacts. Yet it is the author’s contention that, in order to reap full benefits from the recent disciplinary growth, an explicit research agenda must be set. Above all, it is argued that the new agenda must be grounded in the cross-disciplinary examination of the materiality of metalwork, hitherto poorly explored in this region.

- by Simon Jusseret
- •
- Archaeology, Prehistoric Archaeology, Earth Sciences, Earthquake Engineering

China's historiographical traditions tell of the successful control of a Great Flood leading to the establishment of the Xia dynasty and the beginning of civilization. However, the historicity of the flood and Xia remain controversial. Here, we reconstruct an earthquake-induced landslide dam outburst flood on the Yellow River about 1920 BCE that ranks as one of the largest freshwater floods of the Holocene and could account for the Great Flood. This would place the beginning of Xia at ~1900 BCE, several centuries later than traditionally thought. This date coincides with the major transition from the Neolithic to Bronze Age in the Yellow River valley and supports hypotheses that the primary state-level society of the Erlitou culture is an archaeological manifestation of the Xia dynasty.

- by David J Cohen
- •
- History, Science, China, Bronze Age Europe (Archaeology)
- by Sigrid Strohschneider-Laue
- •
- Bronze Age Europe (Archaeology), Hoard finds

Die Entdeckung einer fast lebensgrossen Bronzehand und eines Dolches im Oktober 2017 bei Prêles (Plateau de Diesse) im Berner Jura überraschte die Fachwelt und löste ein grosses Medienecho aus. Die Nachgrabung vor Ort und die Untersuchungen an der Bronzehand durch den Archäologischen Dienst des Kantons Bern führten zu weiteren Erkenntnissen. Die Publikation versammelt die Beiträge des Kolloquiums vom 30. Oktober 2019 und ergänzt sie mit weiteren Texten zum Kontext dieses bedeutenden Fundes.

- by Andrea Schaer
- •
- Art, Bronze Age Europe (Archaeology), Archaeometallurgy, Bronze Age

En este artículo, el lector encontrará una síntesis del conjunto de investigaciones que han aplicado la experimentación para el estudio de las técnicas prehistóricas de transformación de minerales de cobre. Se trata de un corpus experimental de trabajos clasificados según la cronología y el ámbito geográfico que ofrece una visión de conjunto de esta cuestión, y además puede ser utilizado para consultas específicas. Tras valorar los procedimientos y los resultados de cada aportación según el criterio de rigor de la teoría de la experimentación en arqueología, he podido constatar la escasez de proyectos a largo plazo así como de experimentaciones abordadas de manera realista.