Revisiting ‘Settlement’: A case study of terminology and Early Bronze Age southeast Arabia

2022 ◽  
Vol 65 ◽  
pp. 101382
Author(s):  
Jennifer Swerida
Keyword(s):  
Bronze Age ◽  
Early Bronze Age

Making Memories, Making Monuments: Changing Understandings of Henges in Prehistory and the Present

2016 ◽  
Author(s):  
Rebecca K. Younger
Keyword(s):  
Bronze Age ◽  
Critical Analysis ◽  
Social Memory ◽  
Early Bronze Age ◽  
Late Neolithic ◽  
Study Sites ◽  
Fresh Insight ◽  
Insight Into

This paper offers a fresh insight into three of Scotland’s most complex henge monuments, based on a critical analysis of the term henge. The late Neolithic circular earthwork enclosures have undergone re-evaluation in Scotland as Early Bronze Age dates for some sites have emerged since the 1990s, and the author draws on the long-term nature of these monuments to explore what came before the earthworks. Case-study sites are Cairnpapple Hill, North Mains and Forteviot henge 1. Each is explored in terms of the centuries of re-use of the space for activities such as ceremony, deposition, fire-setting and monument construction, and viewed through a framework of social memory and commemoration,

scholarly journals “Shaping” and “Painting” during the Early Bronze Age: the Case-study of Pottery of Colle della Croce (Scicli, Ragusa)

2015 ◽  
Vol 1 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Carlo Veca
Keyword(s):  
Bronze Age ◽  
Early Bronze Age ◽  
Pottery Technology ◽  
Cultural Districts ◽  
Manufacturing Techniques ◽  
Definition Of ◽  
Technical Features ◽  
Local Traditions ◽  
Technical Solutions

AbstractPottery technology, although largely neglected in studies of the Sicilian Early Bronze Age (Castelluccio culture, 2200-1450 BC), represents a strategic field of research for focusing on main steps of manufacturing of Castelluccian vessels. In this perspective, the evidence from the archaeological deposit of Colle della Croce (Scicli, Ragusa) has allowed us to emphasise some new technical features that can be observed in the production within other cultural districts. The most significant phase of the study was the autoptic examination of materials and surfaces that led to the definition of this production as medium and coarse ware, with the use of different kinds of technical solutions in relation to different uses and functions. The manufacturing techniques, especially when surface treatment is clearly recognizable on fragmentary specimens, can be conditioned by several factors, such as the shape type and the function of the vessel. Features such as working plans and supporting systems were observed quite frequently, as well as polishing techniques and joints slots for the handles that could be interpreted as ‘workshop standards’ rather than simply local traditions.

scholarly journals Smelting, smelted and smelling sulphur: resource landscapes, identities and social relations in Early Bronze Age Sicily (ca. 2300-1500 BC)

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Matteo Cantisani
Keyword(s):  
Bronze Age ◽  
Social Relations ◽  
Local Community ◽  
Smelting Process ◽  
Early Bronze Age ◽  
Cultural Resource ◽  
Archaeological Evidence ◽  
Study Region ◽  
Theoretical Approaches

<p>In the prehistoric Mediterranean, it seems plausible that sulphur was incorporated into society not only for economic reasons but also as a cultural resource that transformed and was transformed by local ways of living and identities. Processual theoretical approaches have highlighted how human collectives economically benefit from resources, however, recent anthropological research has illuminated how the threads of human cultures, identities, perceptions, experiences and the landscape become interwoven. Drawing upon the latter, contemporary archaeological theory is becoming increasingly concerned with understanding how to incorporate natural resources in this entanglement of cultural, sensorial and natural dimensions as an active force.</p> <p>Within this framework, this paper tackles the appropriation of sulphur in Early Bronze Age Sicily (EBA, ca. 2300-1500 BC), ultimately focusing on identities that might have emerged through engaging with this mineral within a natural and built landscape for cooperative/competitive relations. Therefore, it addresses life worlds in resource landscapes by drawing upon the archaeological evidence of sulphur extraction in the case-study region of Palma di Montechiaro, in Agrigento, Sicily. It suggests that the transformation of sulphur into a cultural resource was related to the identities of dwellers, miners and non-kin that emerged as a result of shared experiences within wider social arenas of interaction. It will propose that the sensory experience of the smell of sulphur played a role in this process by combining a phenomenological approach to raw materials with ethnographic and archaeometric evidence of sulphur’s extraction process. To discuss this, I will review data regarding traditional technologies of extraction in the case study area, complemented by a re-assessment of the social and cultural practices in the excavated EBA settlement of Monte Grande, which comprises a thick description of the archaeological evidence for the smelting and extraction of sulphur. Finally, I propose an interpretation of how the relations that bound the local community together emerged from these interwoven engagements with, and responses to, the smells of the smelting process. In contrast to current interpretations, such an approach demonstrates how sulphur was more than just a commodity to exchange.</p>

scholarly journals CORONA Satellite Photography and Ancient Road Networks: A Northern Mesopotamian Case Study

Antiquity ◽  
2003 ◽  
Vol 77 (295) ◽  
pp. 102-115 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jason Ur
Keyword(s):  
Bronze Age ◽  
Middle Eastern ◽  
Road Networks ◽  
Early Bronze Age ◽  
Agricultural Systems ◽  
New Information ◽  
North Eastern

Middle-eastern archaeologists are winning new information from declassified military photographs taken 25 years ago. This study shows how pictures of north-eastern Syria are revealing the routeways, and by inference the agricultural systems of Mesopotamia in the early Bronze Age.

Reconstructing prehistoric metallurgical knowledge: the northern Italian Copper and Bronze Ages

1998 ◽  
Vol 1 (1) ◽  
pp. 51-70 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mark Pearce
Keyword(s):  
Bronze Age ◽  
Case Studies ◽  
Northern Italy ◽  
Early Bronze Age ◽  
Copper Age ◽  
Chemical Analyses ◽  
Metal Working ◽  
The Third ◽  
Arsenical Copper

The paper attempts to integrate the results of chemical analyses, which are seriously underused in archaeological discourse, with other classes of information in order to try to interpret ancient metal working behaviour and knowledge within a semiotic framework, adopting the modernist premise that ancient metalworking was both rational and deliberate. A number of case studies from northern Italy is discussed. In the first it is noted that in the Copper Age Remedello culture arsenical copper was used for halberds and daggers while purer copper was used for flat axes; it is suggested that this distinction reflects deliberate choice and explanations are offered for it. The second case study regards the interpretation of the Pieve Albignola early Bronze Age axe hoard; evidence for the workshop practices of ancient bronzesmiths and for the use of axe preforms as ingots is discussed. The third case study concerns the swords and daggers of the middle and recent Bronze Age; finds context (tombs and wetlands) are discussed and it is suggested that metal analyses may indicate that sometimes these artefacts are not primarily functional.

scholarly journals Dating Archaeological Cultures by Their Moats? A Case Study from the Early Bronze Age Settlement Fidvár near Vráble, SW Slovakia

Radiocarbon ◽  
2016 ◽  
Vol 58 (2) ◽  
pp. 331-343
Author(s):  
Frank Schlütz ◽  
Felix Bittmann
Keyword(s):  
Mass Spectrometry ◽  
Bronze Age ◽  
Central Europe ◽  
Early Bronze Age ◽  
Plant Macroremains ◽  
Archaeological Cultures ◽  
First Time ◽  
Archaeological Chronologies ◽  
Ams Dates

AbstractThis article uses age-depth models based on 29 accelerator mass spectrometry (AMS) dates from charred plant macroremains (seeds, chaff), wood charcoal, and snail shells found in two moats from the settlement Fidvár near Vráble (SW Slovakia) to improve the absolute chronology of the Early Bronze Age in central Europe. The charred macroremains were taxonomically identified to species or genus level and the lifespan of the objects and the archaeological context were considered carefully. The selected snail shells were identified to provide reliable age information. This study demonstrates that under certain conditions, ditch archives can be well suited to contribute to archaeological chronologies. For the first time, the transition from the Hatvan to the Únětice period is dated absolutely.

Mortuary Preferences: A Wari Culture Case Study from Middle Horizon Peru

2004 ◽  
Vol 15 (1) ◽  
pp. 3-32 ◽  
Author(s):  
William H. Isbell
Keyword(s):  
Bronze Age ◽  
Political Organization ◽  
Early Bronze Age ◽  
Middle Horizon ◽  
Ancestor Worship ◽  
Burial Practices ◽  
The Social ◽  
Important People ◽  
Initial Description

AbstractMortuary practices reveal a great deal about the social organization of prehistoric cultures and their landscape of places. However, tombs are favored targets for looters, making it difficult to determine original burial practices. Very little was known about Wari burial during the Middle Horizon (A.D. 500–1000), even though Wari was an imperial, early Bronze Age culture with a spectacular urban capital in highland Peru. Excavations at the secondary Wari city of Conchopata produced remains of more than 200 individuals, from disturbed and undisturbed contexts. These burials as well as information from other sites permit an initial description of ideal patterns of Wari mortuary behavior. The forms abstracted reveal graves ranging from poor and ordinary citizens to royal potentates, supporting inferences of hierarchical political organization. It is also clear that the living accessed graves of important people frequently, implying some form of ancestor worship. However, unlike the later Inkas, Wari ancestors were venerated in their tombs, located deep within residential compounds and palaces.

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