Food, Technology and Culture in the Late Bronze Age of Southern Britain: Perforated Clay Plates of the Lower Thames Valley

Perforated plates of fired clay have long been recognised as a component of Late Bronze Age material culture in south-eastern England, but recent developer-funded excavations have produced a wealth of new evidence. These artefacts, showing a considerable degree of standardisation, are now known from more than 70 sites, which show a markedly riverine and estuarine distribution along the lower Thames. Their function is still uncertain, but it is suggested that they were parts of ovens for baking bread, a new technology for food preparation in the later Bronze Age. Some of the largest assemblages of such plates are found at strongly defended sites, and it is further suggested that the baking and consumption of bread was particularly associated with such sites of social authority. The estuarine distribution is discussed in this paper, and it presents further evidence for the regionally distinctive nature of food consumption in later prehistory.

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New evidence for prehistoric copper metallurgy in the vicinity of Bor

Starinar ◽

10.2298/sta1666173k ◽

2016 ◽

pp. 173-191

Author(s):

Aleksandar Kapuran ◽

Dragana Zivkovic ◽

Nada Strbac

Keyword(s):

Material Culture ◽

Bronze Age ◽

Iron Age ◽

Copper Ore ◽

North Eastern ◽

Metallurgical Furnaces ◽

Copper Metallurgy ◽

New Evidence ◽

The Bronze Age

The last three years of archaeological investigations at the site Ru`ana in Banjsko Polje, in the immediate vicinity of Bor, have provided new evidence regarding the role of non-ferrous metallurgy in the economy of the prehistoric communities of north-eastern Serbia. The remains of metallurgical furnaces and a large amount of metallic slags at two neighbouring sites in the mentioned settlement reveal that locations with many installations for the thermal processing of copper ore existed in the Bronze Age. We believe, judging by the finds of material culture, that metallurgical activities in this area also continued into the Iron Age and, possibly, into the 4th century AD.

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Introduction and Background

Technology and Urbanism in Late Bronze Age Egypt ◽

10.1093/oso/9780198803591.003.0009 ◽

2017 ◽

Author(s):

Anna K. Hodgkinson

Keyword(s):

Material Culture ◽

Bronze Age ◽

Raw Materials ◽

High Status ◽

Late Bronze Age ◽

New Kingdom ◽

The Status ◽

Status Goods ◽

Research Questions ◽

And Control

This book aims to establish knowledge of the infrastructure and organization of the excavated cities in Late Bronze Age (LBA), or New Kingdom Egypt (c.1550–1069 BC), and provide an understanding of the accessibility and control of the high-status products and the raw materials and tools used for their manufacture. This is done by analysing the distribution of the artefactual and structural evidence of the manufacture of high-status goods from three sites used as case-studies, namely Amarna, in Middle Egypt, Gurob, in the Faiyum region, and Malqata, in ancient Thebes (Chapters 2–5). It attempts to achieve some knowledge of the control and distribution of the finished goods, highlighting buildings and areas in the settlements that were involved in the production, and others that would be the consumers of high-status goods. By detecting some mutual patterns between the sites analysed, it has been possible to achieve an understanding of urban high-status manufacture throughout the New Kingdom and its influence on the internal organization and status of settlements. Moving inwards, the study then focuses on workshops, their layouts and functionality (Chapters 6 and 7). A number of research questions will be answered, which address the issues of settlement status, craft production and its social context, the character of workshops as well as their influence on LBA settlements. These questions are presented in Sections 1.1–1.6 together with the data and methods used to address them. In the discussion of the status of a larger settlement we have to take into account the work and opinions of previous scholars. Trigger, for instance, differentiates between two approaches to settlement archaeology as a whole: (a) one focusing on the location, size, spacing, material culture, and activities, as opposed to another (b) focusing on the interactions of their environmental, economic, and technological determinants. While much information concerning the first approach existed by this date, he states that at the time of publication (in the early 1970s) there was still a lack of understanding concerning the economic and technological interactions within the settlements.

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Mycenaean civilization

Oxford Research Encyclopedia of Classics ◽

10.1093/acrefore/9780199381135.013.4299 ◽

2015 ◽

Author(s):

Jeremy Rutter

Keyword(s):

Material Culture ◽

Bronze Age ◽

Late Bronze Age ◽

Stages Of Development ◽

Historical Reality ◽

Mediterranean World ◽

The Mediterranean

Mycenaean civilization takes its name from the hilltop citadel of Mycenae in the Argolid, celebrated in Homer’s epics as “rich in gold” and the capital of Agamemnon. In 1876, Heinrich Schliemann, fresh from his excavations at Troy, which in his view had established the historical reality of the Greeks’ legendary siege and sack of that city, unearthed five astonishingly rich tombs at Mycenae and claimed them to contain the burials of Agamemnon and his followers, thus inaugurating the study of Greece’s Late Bronze Age (LBA) past. One and a half centuries of subsequent fieldwork have exposed the remains of hundreds of settlements and thousands of tombs characterized by the distinctive material culture termed Mycenaean that flourished for over six centuries (c. 1700–1050 bce). This lengthy duration of the mainland Greek LBA (better known as the Late Helladic [LH] or Mycenaean era) is conventionally subdivided into three major stages of development: pre-palatial or early Mycenaean (LH I–IIB; c. 1700–1425/1400 bce); palatial (LH IIIA1–LH IIIB2; c. 1425/1400–1200/1190 bce); and post-palatial (LH IIIC; c. 1200/1190–1050 bce). The regions within which Mycenaean material culture was dominant changed significantly as a function of time, as did the culture’s external contacts within the Mediterranean world and continental Europe.

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The antiquity of the Greek epic tradition: some new evidence

Proceedings of the Cambridge Philological Society ◽

10.1017/s0068673500004193 ◽

1980 ◽

Vol 26 ◽

pp. 1-11 ◽

Cited By ~ 2

Author(s):

G.C. Horrocks

Keyword(s):

Bronze Age ◽

Subsequent Development ◽

Late Bronze Age ◽

Poetic Tradition ◽

Epic Tradition ◽

Narrative Poetry ◽

Greek Epic ◽

Careful Handling ◽

New Evidence ◽

The Bronze Age

Since the decipherment of Linear B a number of scholars have argued, on the basis of supposed Mycenaean survivals in the Homeric poems, that the Greek legendary poetic tradition ran continuously from the Bronze Age through the Dark Age down to the singers of the Ionian towns in the ninth and eighth centuries. However, the directness of the connection between the narrative poetry of the Mycenaean Age, if indeed such existed, and the subsequent development of the Epic in Greece has been called into question. Thus Shipp, for example, has argued that most of the items listed by Chadwick in his article Mycenaean elements in the Homeric dialect in fact left their mark for a time at least on forms of Greek other than that of the Epic, and so could well have entered this tradition in post-Mycenaean times and in some other way than through a direct poetical current from the Bronze Age. A similar conclusion has been reached by Kirk, who has expressed his views forcefully in a series of publications. Consider the following:The two objective criteria for dating elements within the Homeric poems, namely archaeology and language, require careful handling and reveal less than is generally claimed for them. They enable certain elements to be recognized as having existed as early as the late Bronze Age, but do not necessarily prove that these all passed into the Ionian Epic tradition by the medium of late Bronze Age poetry.

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Miletos: a note

The Annual of the British School at Athens ◽

10.1017/s006824540001707x ◽

2004 ◽

Vol 99 ◽

pp. 189-200 ◽

Cited By ~ 1

Author(s):

P. A. Mountjoy

Keyword(s):

Bronze Age ◽

Late Bronze Age ◽

New Evidence

The date of the final destruction of Late Bronze Age Miletos is examined in the light of new evidence from Ugarit, which has allowed the date of the destruction at that site to be more accurately assessed. A comparison of the pottery in the destruction layer at Miletos with that in the destruction layer at Ugarit suggests that Miletos might have been destroyed at an earlier date than usually thought.

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Late Bronze Age and Solomonic Defenses at Gezer: New Evidence

Bulletin of the American Schools of Oriental Research ◽

10.2307/1356977 ◽

1986 ◽

Vol 262 ◽

pp. 9-34 ◽

Cited By ~ 2

Author(s):

William G. Dever

Keyword(s):

Bronze Age ◽

Late Bronze Age ◽

New Evidence

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Castro de Nossa Senhora das Necessidades (Sernancelhe): uma primeira análise artefactual

Arqueologia em Portugal 2020 - Estado da Questão - Textos ◽

10.21747/978-989-8970-25-1/arqa81 ◽

2020 ◽

pp. 1127-1139

Author(s):

Telma Susana O. Ribeiro

Keyword(s):

Material Culture ◽

Bronze Age ◽

Archaeological Site ◽

The Other ◽

Late Bronze Age ◽

The Hill ◽

Metallic Artefacts

The Nossa Senhora das Necessidades settlement is to date the only archaeological site in the county of Sernancelhe (Viseu district) to be discussed in the archaeological literature. Referred to as a settlement from the Late Bronze Age, the site has been continually destroyed and has only superficial findings that have never been studied so that we know all of its occupations. This first study, made through ceramic, lithic and metallic artefacts that result from prospections at the hill, aims to reveal the other chronologies of this site, seeking to contribute to the comprehension of the material culture and settlement network of the Beira Alta region in some of its prehistoric and medieval times.

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Testing Late Bronze Age mobility in southern Sweden in the light of a new multi-proxy strontium isotope baseline of Scania

PLoS ONE ◽

10.1371/journal.pone.0250279 ◽

2021 ◽

Vol 16 (4) ◽

pp. e0250279

Author(s):

Pernille Ladegaard-Pedersen ◽

Serena Sabatini ◽

Robert Frei ◽

Kristian Kristiansen ◽

Karin Margarita Frei

Keyword(s):

Surface Water ◽

Material Culture ◽

Bronze Age ◽

Human Mobility ◽

Dynamic Environment ◽

Strontium Isotope ◽

Late Bronze Age ◽

Long Distance ◽

The North

The Bronze Age of Sweden’s southernmost region, Scania, is complex and intriguing. One could say that Scania represented in many ways a gateway for people, ideas and material culture connecting continental Europe with Sweden. Shedding light on the dynamics of human mobility in this region requires an in depth understanding of the local archaeological contexts across time. In this study, we present new archaeological human data from the Late Bronze Age Simris II site, located in an area of Scania showing a dynamic environment throughout the Late Bronze Age, thus likely involving various forms of mobility. Because the characterization of solid strontium isotope baselines is vital for delineating human mobility in prehistory using the strontium isotope methodology, we introduce the first environmentally based multi-proxy (surface water-, plant- and soil leachates) strontium isotope baselines for sub-regions of Scania. Our results show, that the highly complex and spatially scattered lithologies characterising Scania does not allow for a spatially meaningful, geology-based grouping of multi-proxy data that could be beneficial for provenance studies. Instead, we propose sub-regional baselines for areas that don’t necessarily fully correspond and reflect the immediate distribution of bedrock lithologies. Rather than working with a Scania-wide multi-proxy baseline, which we define as 87Sr/86Sr = 0.7133 ± 0.0059 (n = 102, 2σ), we propose sub-regional, multi-proxy baselines as follows: Area 1, farthest to the north, by 87Sr/86Sr = 0.7184 ± 0.0061 (n = 16, 2σ); Area 2, comprising the mid and western part of Scania, with 87Sr/86Sr = 0.7140 ± 0.0043 (n = 48, 2σ); Area 3–4, roughly corresponding to a NW-SE trending zone dominated by horst-graben tectonics across Scania, plus the carbonate dominated south western part of Scania with 87Sr/86Sr = 0.7110 ± 0.0030 (n = 39, 2σ). Our results also reflect that the complexity of the geology of Scania requires systematic, high density, statistically sound sampling of multiple proxies to adequately constrain the baseline ranges, particularly of those areas dominated by Precambrian lithologies. The averaging effect of biosphere Sr in surface water might be beneficial for the characterization of baselines in such terranes. Our sub-regional, area-specific baselines allow for a first comparison of different baseline construction strategies (single-proxy versus multi-proxy; Scania-wide versus sub-regional). From the Late Bronze Age Simris II site, we identified six individuals that could be analysed for Sr isotopes, to allow for an interpretation of their provenance using the newly established, environmental strontium isotope baselines. All but one signature agrees with the local baselines, including the 87Sr/86Sr value we measured for a young individual buried in a house urn, typically interpreted as evidence for long distance contacts. The results are somewhat unexpected and provides new aspects into the complexity of Scandinavian Bronze Age societies.

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Archaeology and Material Culture of Ammon and the Ammonites

Biblical Studies ◽

10.1093/obo/9780195393361-0279 ◽

2020 ◽

Author(s):

Craig W. Tyson

Keyword(s):

International Trade ◽

Material Culture ◽

Bronze Age ◽

Iron Age ◽

Local System ◽

Late Bronze Age ◽

Long Distance ◽

Cultural Traditions ◽

Modern City ◽

Iron Age Ii

The Ammonites (literally, “sons of Ammon”) were a tribal group with a core territory in and around the modern city of Amman, Jordan. This core area could also be referred to as Ammon; the name of the modern city is also derived from this designation. Though they are known best for their role as kin and enemy to Israel in the Bible, archaeological work has revealed much about the indigenous cultural traditions of the region. The earliest possible evidence naming the Ammonites is from the 9th century bce, but there is little doubt that they inhabited the region before that, though how much before that is difficult to say. Regardless of their date of origin, it is helpful to chart their appearance on the stage of history in the Iron Age II by including some chronological depth. Beginning with the Late Bronze Age (c. 1550–1150 bce), the region around Amman was sparsely settled with a few fortified towns and evidence for participation in international trade. New Kingdom Egypt appears to have had at least one garrison on the Plateau, probably to help control trade. The Iron Age I–IIA (c. 1150–850 bce) saw a drop in international trade associated with the disruption of the international order at the end of the Late Bronze Age. At the same time, there was an uptick in the number of sites showing occupation. In addition to bringing the first contemporary textual references to the Ammonites, the Iron Age IIB–IIC (c. 850–500 bce) was an era of increased sociopolitical complexity and economic intensification stimulated by the pressures and opportunities presented by the Neo-Assyrian and Neo-Babylonian empires. These changes are visible in the development of an indigenous tradition of writing, an unparalleled sculptural tradition, an increase in the number and variety of imports, and a significant increase in the number of small agriculturally oriented sites across the landscape. The independent polity of Ammon was turned into a province sometime in the 6th century—probably under Babylonian hegemony. The archaeological remains indicate a continuation of agricultural production and participation in long-distance trade networks, and an eventual replacement of the local system of writing with the Aramaic used by the Persians. Note on transliterations: A variety of systems exist for transliterating ancient and modern place names in Semitic languages. A simplified version of the most common transliterations is used here.

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