Settlement, space organization and land-use of a small Middle Bronze Age community of central Italy. The case study of Gorgo del Ciliegio (Arezzo-Tuscany)

2020 ◽  
Vol 539 ◽  
pp. 122-137 ◽  
Author(s):  
Adriana Moroni ◽  
Vincenzo Spagnolo ◽  
Jacopo Crezzini ◽  
Francesco Boschin ◽  
Marco Benvenuti ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Land Use ◽  
Bronze Age ◽  
Central Italy ◽  
Space Organization ◽  
Middle Bronze Age

scholarly journals How Rocks Die: Changing Patterns of Discard and Re-Use of Ground Stone Tools in Middle Bronze Age Cyprus

2020 ◽  
Vol 12 (21) ◽  
pp. 8869
Author(s):  
Andrew McCarthy
Keyword(s):  
Bronze Age ◽  
Political Change ◽  
Stone Tools ◽  
Cultural Objects ◽  
The Past ◽  
Ground Stone ◽  
Changing Patterns ◽  
Middle Bronze Age

Cultural objects are thought to have a lifespan. From selection, through construction, use, destruction, and discard, materials do not normally last forever, transforming through stages of life, eventually leading to their death. The materiality of stone objects, however, can defy the inevitable demise of an object, especially durable ground stone tools that can outlive generations of human lifespans. How groups of people deal with the relative permanence of stone tools depends on their own relationship with the past, and whether they venerate it or reject its influence on the present. A case study from the long-lived site of Prasteio-Mesorotsos in Cyprus demonstrates a shifting attitude toward ground stone objects, from the socially conservative habit of ritually killing of objects and burying them, to one of more casual re-use and reinterpretation of ground stone. This shift in attitude coincides with a socio-political change that eventually led to the ultimate rejection of the past: complete abandonment of the settlement.

The first religious buildings: ‘sacred huts’

2015 ◽  
Author(s):  
Charlotte R. Potts
Keyword(s):  
Bronze Age ◽  
Iron Age ◽  
Hot Springs ◽  
Central Italy ◽  
Fourth Century ◽  
Religious Activity ◽  
Neolithic Period ◽  
Religious Buildings ◽  
Middle Bronze Age ◽  
The Bronze Age

The votive assemblages that form the primary archaeological evidence for non-funerary cult in the Neolithic, Bronze, and early Iron Ages in central Italy indicate that there is a long tradition of religious activity in Latium and Etruria in which buildings played no discernible role. Data on votive deposits in western central Italy is admittedly uneven: although many early votive assemblages from Latium have been widely studied and published, there are few Etruscan comparanda; of the more than two hundred Etruscan votive assemblages currently known from all periods, relatively few date prior to the fourth century BC, while those in museum collections are often no longer entire and suffer from a lack of detailed provenance as well as an absence of excavations in the vicinity of the original find. Nevertheless, it is possible to recognize broad patterns in the form and location of cult sites prior to the Iron Age, and thus to sketch the broader context of prehistoric rituals that pre-dated the construction of the first religious buildings. In the Neolithic period (c.6000–3500 BC), funerary and non-funerary rituals appear to have been observed in underground spaces such as caves, crevices, and rock shelters, and there are also signs that cults developed around ‘abnormal water’ like stalagmites, stalactites, hot springs, and pools of still water. These characteristics remain visible in the evidence from the middle Bronze Age (c.1700–1300 BC). Finds from this period at the Sventatoio cave in Latium include vases containing traces of wheat, barley seed cakes, and parts of young animals including pigs, sheep, and oxen, as well as burned remains of at least three children. The openair veneration of underground phenomena is also implied by the discovery of ceramic fragments from all phases of the Bronze Age around a sulphurous spring near the Colonelle Lake at Tivoli. Other evidence of cult activities at prominent points in the landscape, such as mountain tops and rivers, suggests that rituals began to lose an underground orientation during the middle Bronze Age. By the late Bronze Age (c.1300–900 BC) natural caves no longer seem to have served ritual or funerary functions.

scholarly journals Middle Bronze Age land use practices in the north-western Alpine foreland – A multi-proxy study of colluvial deposits, archaeological features and peat bogs

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sascha Scherer ◽  
Benjamin Höpfer ◽  
Katleen Deckers ◽  
Elske Fischer ◽  
Markus Fuchs ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Land Use ◽  
Bronze Age ◽  
Microbial Biomass Carbon ◽  
Peat Bogs ◽  
The North ◽  
Settlement Site ◽  
Middle Bronze Age ◽  
Alpine Foreland ◽  
North Western ◽  
Land Use Practices

Abstract. This paper aims to reconstruct Middle Bronze Age (MBA) land use practices in the north-western Alpine foreland (SW Germany, Hegau). We used a multi-proxy approach including the biogeochemical proxies from colluvial deposits in the surrounding of the well-documented settlement site of Anselfingen and offsite pollen data from two peat bogs. This approach allowed in-depth insights into the MBA subsistence economy and shows that the MBA in the north-western Alpine foreland was a period of establishing settlements with sophisticated land management and land use practices. The reconstruction of phases of colluvial deposition was based on ages from optically luminescence (OSL) and radiocarbon (AMS 14C) dating from multi-layered colluvial deposits and supports the local archaeological record with the first phase of major colluvial deposition occurring during the MBA followed by phases of colluvial deposition during the Iron Age, the Medieval period, and modern times. The onsite deposition of charred archaeobotanical remains and animal bones from archaeological features, as well as polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs), charcoal spectra, phytoliths, soil microstructure, urease enzymatic activity, microbial biomass carbon (Cmic) and heavy metal contents, were used as proxies for onsite and near-site land use practices. The charcoal spectra indicate MBA forest management which favoured the dominance of Quercus in the woodland vegetation in the surrounding area north of the settlement site. Increased levels of 5ß stanols (up to 40 %) and the occurrence of pig bones (up to 14 %) support the presence of a forest pasture mainly used for pig farming. In the surrounding area south of the settlement, an arable field with a buried MBA plough horizon (2Apb) could be verified by soil micromorphological investigations and high concentrations of grass phytoliths from leaves and stems. Agricultural practices (e.g. ploughing) focussed on five stable cereal crops (Hordeum distichon/vulgare, Triticum dicoccum, Triticum monococcum, Triticum spelta, Triticum aestivum/turgidum), while the presence of stilted pantries as storage facilities and of heat stones indicate post-harvest processing of cereal crops and other agrarian products within the settlement. In the area surrounding the settlement, increased levels of urease activity, compared to microbial biomass carbon (up to 2.1 µg N µg Cmic−1), and input of herbivorous and omnivorous animal faeces indicate livestock husbandry on fallow land. The PAH suites and their spatial distribution support the use of fire for various purposes, e.g. for opening and maintaining the landscape, for domestic burning and for technical applications. The offsite palynological data support the observed change in onsite and near-site vegetation as well as the occurrence of related land use practices. During the Early and Middle Bronze Age fire played a major role in shaping the landscape (peak of micro-charcoal during the MBA) and anthropogenic activities promoted oak dominated forest ecosystems at the expense of natural beech forests. This indicates a broader regional human influence in the north-western Alpine foreland at low and mid altitude inland sites during the Middle Bronze Age.

Palynology as a tool for the knowledge on the millennial human impact and land management in the central Mediterranean

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Anna Maria Mercuri ◽  
Assunta Florenzano
Keyword(s):  
Land Use ◽  
Bronze Age ◽  
Land Management ◽  
Management Strategies ◽  
Central Italy ◽  
Land Development ◽  
Archaeological Sites ◽  
Central Mediterranean ◽  
South Italy ◽  
Physical Environments

<p>Ancient land management is inherited and at the base of the current landscapes and must be known to facilitate a sustainable land development for the future. Understanding past land-use systems is helpful for evaluating the current and future state of both biological and physical environments, and for disentangling the role of people in shaping current landscapes. Many different perspectives are involved in reconstructing the cultural impact on the environment. Palynology has great potentiality for environmental and palaeoethnobotanical purposes, with the study of high-resolution sequences formed under natural and anthropic (cultural) forces. Pollen data are fruitfully used to reconstruct land transformations in a diachronic palaeoecological perspective. For example, palynological records from central Mediterranean archaeological sites showed evidence of land uses and evolution of agrarian systems from Neolithic to Bronze Age, allowing a comparative view of the long-term changes in the land footprint of ancient Mediterranean societies. In this study we report on the level of detail on land management provided by palynological research from archaeological sites of Greek Basilicata (south Italy) and Roman Tuscany (central Italy). The local land use types and different management strategies inferred from palynology provide an important contribution to the knowledge of land development and implications for a sustainable soil management in these regions.</p><p> </p>

scholarly journals The Role of Sun Symbols in the Burial Rite of the Middle Bronze Age Vatya Culture

2020 ◽  
pp. 111-128
Author(s):  
Emília Pásztor
Keyword(s):  
Comparative Analysis ◽  
Bronze Age ◽  
Significant Role ◽  
Belief System ◽  
Concise Review ◽  
Burial Customs ◽  
Middle Bronze Age ◽  
Burial Rite

The case study investigates the burial customs of the Middle Bronze Age Vatya culture in the Carpathian Basin. It aims to deliver a comparative analysis of the archaeological finds and characteristics of several cemeteries where communities cremated and buried their dead in urns. It also examines the ways grave artefacts are placed, and the shape and ornamentation of ceramics. It also gives a concise review on beliefs related to cremation. The case study aims at presenting just how much information the seemingly monotone burial customs of the Vatya culture can offer on their belief system by analysing the shapes, arrangements and ornamentations of buried artefacts.The decoration of grave ceramics often includes solar – light symbols, therefore, the author argues that the regular use of light symbols has a significant role in their belief system, especially in the deceased’s journey to the Otherworld.

scholarly journals Isotopic evidence for population dynamics in the Central Italian Copper Age and Bronze Age.

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Marco Romboni ◽  
Ilenia Arienzo ◽  
Mauro Antonio Di Vito ◽  
Carmine Lubritto ◽  
Monica Piochi ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Material Culture ◽  
Bronze Age ◽  
Central Italy ◽  
Copper Age ◽  
Mobility Patterns ◽  
The North ◽  
Regional Dynamics ◽  
Isotopic Analyses ◽  
Middle Bronze Age ◽  
C And N

The mobility patterns in the Italian peninsula during prehistory are still relatively unknown. The excavation of the Copper Age and Bronze Age deposits in La Sassa cave (Sonnino, Italy) allowed to broaden the knowledge about some local and regional dynamics. We employed a multi-disciplinary approach, including stable (carbon and nitrogen, C and N, respectively) and radiogenic (strontium, Sr) isotopes analyses and the identification of the cultural traits in the material culture to identify mobility patterns that took place in the region. The Sr isotopic analyses on the human bones show that in the Copper Age and at the beginning of the Bronze Age, the cave was used as a burial place by different villages, perhaps spread in a radius of no more than 5 km. Stable isotopes analyses suggest the introduction of C4 plants in the diet of the Middle Bronze Age (MBA) communities in the area. Remarkably, in the same period, the material culture shows increasing influxes coming from the North. This evidence is consistent with the recent genomic findings tracing the arrival of people carrying a Steppe-related ancestry in Central Italy in MBA.

scholarly journals Bioarchaeological remains as indicators of costly signalling: two case studies from the Middle Bronze Age of Central Italy

2017 ◽  
Vol 49 (4) ◽  
pp. 491-505 ◽  
Author(s):  
L. Silvestri ◽  
K. F. Achino ◽  
M. Gatta ◽  
M. F. Rolfo
Keyword(s):  
Bronze Age ◽  
Case Studies ◽  
Central Italy ◽  
Middle Bronze Age

The concentration and centralization of late prehistoric settlement in central Italy: the evidence from the Nepi Survey

2013 ◽  
Vol 81 ◽  
pp. 1-38 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ulla Rajala
Keyword(s):  
Bronze Age ◽  
Iron Age ◽  
Central Italy ◽  
Population Pressure ◽  
Early Iron Age ◽  
Late Prehistoric ◽  
Gis Modelling ◽  
Middle Bronze Age ◽  
New Evidence ◽  
The Bronze Age

This article discusses the evidence for the concentration and centralization of late prehistoric settlement in central Italy, using the territory of Nepi as an example of settlement aggregation in southern Etruria. This example helps to explain the regional developments leading to urbanization and state formation in Etruria from the Bronze Age to the Iron Age. The article also publishes new sites with late prehistoric ceramic material from the Neolithic or Epineolithic to the Iron Age in the territory of Nepi found during the Nepi Survey Project. This new evidence is discussed together with previously published material, and presented as further evidence that the developments leading to the occupation of naturally defended sites in the Final Bronze Age had their origins in the Middle Bronze Age. Similarly, the analysis, aided by agricultural and GIS modelling, suggests that the hiatus in the settlement and its dislocation after an apparent break between the Final Bronze Age and the Early Iron Age may have been caused by population pressure. After the settlement aggregated in one centre at Nepi, there are signs of further expansion in the Iron Age.

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