scholarly journals ‘WHERE WATER WELLS UP FROM THE EARTH’: EXCAVATIONS AT THE FINDSPOT OF THE LATE BRONZE AGE HOARD FROM BROADWARD, SHROPSHIRE

2015 ◽  
Vol 95 ◽  
pp. 21-64 ◽  
Author(s):  
Richard Bradley ◽  
Jodie Lewis ◽  
David Mullin ◽  
Nicholas Branch
Keyword(s):  
Bronze Age ◽  
Early Bronze Age ◽  
Small Scale ◽  
Late Bronze Age ◽  
Environmental Sequence ◽  
The Earth ◽  
Water Wells ◽  
Animal Bones ◽  
Limited Scale

The paper begins by considering the importance of springs as a focus for votive deposits in Bronze Age Britain. This is not a new idea, but nowhere has this association been examined through the excavation of one of these features. The point is illustrated by excavation at the findspot of a famous group of Late Bronze Age weapons, the Broadward hoard, discovered in 1867. Little was known about the site, where it was found or the character of the original deposit, but a study of contemporary accounts of the hoard, combined with geophysical and topographical surveys, led to small-scale excavation in 2010, which showed that the deposit had most probably been buried in a pit on the edge of a spring. Other finds associated with the spring included an Early Bronze Age macehead, a Roman pot and various Saxon and medieval animal bones. The latest deposit, with a post-medieval carbon date, included a wooden knife or dagger. An adjacent palaeochannel provided an important environmental sequence for this part of the English–Welsh borderland and suggests that the Late Bronze Age hoard had been deposited not far from a settlement. A nearby earthwork enclosure was associated with a clay weight, which may be of similar date. Despite the limited scale of the fieldwork, it illustrates the potential for treating springs associated with artefact finds on the same terms as other archaeological deposits.

scholarly journals Alalakh: an account of the excavations at Tell Atchana in the Hatay, 1937–1949

2004 ◽  
Author(s):  
Leonard Woolley
Keyword(s):  
Bronze Age ◽  
Large Scale ◽  
River Valley ◽  
Early Bronze Age ◽  
Late Bronze Age ◽  
13Th Century ◽  
Gold Silver

This monograph describes large-scale excavations undertaken by Sir Leonard Woolley from 1937 to 1939, and again from 1946 to 1949, at the site of Alalakh (modern Tell Atchana) – a late Bronze Age city in the Amuq River valley of Turkey's Hatay Province. Described is the evidence of a series of superimposed palaces and temples, town defences, private houses and graves, in 17 archaeological levels reaching from late Early Bronze Age (Level XVII, c. 2200–2000 BC to Late Bronze Age (Level 0, 13th century BC). Supplementary reports describe the architecture and frescoes, sculptures, and portable objects in fired clay, gold, silver, ivory, stone, and glass.

scholarly journals The Social Role of Non-metal ‘Valuables’ in Late Bronze Age Britain

2018 ◽  
Vol 28 (4) ◽  
pp. 665-688 ◽  
Author(s):  
Joanna Brück ◽  
Alex Davies
Keyword(s):  
Bronze Age ◽  
Social Role ◽  
Social Identities ◽  
Early Bronze Age ◽  
Late Bronze Age ◽  
Cultural Meanings ◽  
Social Agents ◽  
Prestige Goods ◽  
The Social

Bronze Age metal objects are widely viewed as markers of wealth and status. Items of other materials, such as jet, amber and glass, tend either to be framed in similar terms as ‘prestige goods’, or to be viewed as decorative trifles of limited research value. In this paper, we argue that such simplistic models dramatically underplay the social role and ‘agentive’ capacities of objects. The occurrence of non-metal ‘valuables’ in British Early Bronze Age graves is well-documented, but their use during the later part of the period remains poorly understood. We will examine the deposition of objects of amber, jet and jet-like materials in Late Bronze Age Britain, addressing in particular their contexts and associations as well as patterns of breakage to consider the cultural meanings and values ascribed to such items and to explore how human and object biographies were intertwined. These materials are rarely found in burials during this period but occur instead on settlements, in hoards and caves. In many cases, these finds appear to have been deliberately deposited in the context of ritual acts relating to rites of passage. In this way, the role of such objects as social agents will be explored, illuminating their changing significance in the creation of social identities and systems of value.

The Pigi Athinas Tumuli Cemetery of Macedonian Olympus

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Paraskevi Tritsaroli
Keyword(s):  
Bronze Age ◽  
Social Rank ◽  
Comparative Case Study ◽  
Small Scale ◽  
Late Bronze Age ◽  
The People ◽  
Gender And Health ◽  
Funerary Treatment ◽  
Over Time

The Middle-Late Bronze Age (1620–1500 B.C.) was a period of emerging and intensifying social complexity involving small-scale settlement hierarchies, but the archaeological understanding of social organization at this time has remained limited. In a comparative case study of funerary treatment and skeletal biology, the authors consider the distribution of multiple skeletal pathological conditions between distinct tumuli-style burials at Pigi Athinas. Though social rank may have started to displace the centrality of kinship, subtle variations in both funerary and bioarchaeological data indicated the most important structuring factors were sex and age distinctions. Over time, the influence of differential diets, divisions of gender, and ritual feasting appear as the people participated in a widespread Mycenaean system that shaped both gender and health in ancient Greece.

scholarly journals Prehistoric copper from the Eastern Alps

2013 ◽  
Vol 1 (1) ◽  
pp. 25 ◽  
Author(s):  
Joachim Lutz ◽  
Ernst Pernicka
Keyword(s):  
Bronze Age ◽  
Iron Age ◽  
Analytical Data ◽  
Eastern Alps ◽  
Ore Deposits ◽  
Copper Production ◽  
Early Bronze Age ◽  
Late Bronze Age ◽  
Metal Artifacts ◽  
Metal Artefacts

The rich copper ore deposits in the Eastern Alps have long been considered as important sources for copper in prehistoric Central Europe. It is, however, not so clear which role each deposit played. To evaluate the amount of prehistoric copper production of the various mining regions it was attempted to link prehistoric metal artefacts with copper ores based on the geochemical characteristics of the ore deposits that have been exploited in ancient times. More than 120 ore samples from the well known mining districts Mitterberg, Viehhofen, Kitzbühel and Schwaz/Brixlegg have been analysed so far (lead isotope ratios, trace elements). Furthermore, about 730 archaeological copper/bronze artifacts were investigated and analysed. These results were combined with analytical data generated by previous archaeometallurgical projects in order to compile a substantial database for comparative studies. In the Early Bronze Age, most metal artifacts were made of copper or bronze with fahlore impurity patterns and most finds from this period match excellently the fahlore deposits in Schwaz and Brixlegg. At the end of the Early Bronze Age, a new variety of copper with lower concentrations of impurities appeared. The impurity patterns of these finds match the ores from the Mitterberg district. In the Middle Bronze Age, this variety of copper Dominated while in the Late Bronze Age fahlores from Schwaz and Brixlegg experienced a comeback. The reason for this may be a decline of the chalcopyrite mines or a rising demand for copper which could not be covered by the chalcopyrite mines alone. The finds of the Early Iron Age are of similar composition and continue the traditions of the Late Bronze Age.

The Development of Embossed Goldwork in Bronze Age Europe

2000 ◽  
Vol 80 (1) ◽  
pp. 27-65 ◽  
Author(s):  
Stuart Needham
Keyword(s):  
Bronze Age ◽  
The Other ◽  
Early Bronze Age ◽  
Small Scale ◽  
Time And Space ◽  
Parallel Development ◽  
The Third ◽  
Third Millennium ◽  
Third Millennium Bc ◽  
Craft Skills

The discovery of a pair of armlets from Lockington and the re-dating of the Mold cape, add substance to a tradition of embossed goldworking in Early Bronze Age Britain. It is seen to be distinct in morphology, distribution and decoration from the other previously defined traditions of goldworking of the Copper and Early Bronze Ages, which are reviewed here. However, a case is made for its emergence from early objects employing ‘reversible relief to execute decoration and others with small-scale corrugated morphology. Emergence in the closing stages of the third millennium BC is related also to a parallel development in the embossing of occasional bronze ornaments. Subsequent developments in embossed goldwork and the spread of the technique to parts of the Continent are summarized. The conclusions address the problem of interpreting continuity of craft skills against a very sparse record of relevant finds through time and space.

Wessex without Mycenae

1968 ◽  
Vol 63 ◽  
pp. 277-285 ◽  
Author(s):  
Colin Renfrew
Keyword(s):  
Bronze Age ◽  
Near East ◽  
Northern Europe ◽  
Early Bronze Age ◽  
Late Bronze Age ◽  
European Development ◽  
The Absolute

The absolute chronology for the Early Bronze Age of Central and Northern Europe, including that for the Wessex culture of southern Britain, is not yet reliably established. This point was emphasized by V. Gordon Childe in his Retrospect, and the following words were indeed the very last which he wrote. Speaking of ‘the urgency of establishing a reliable chronology’, he stated: ‘a great deal of the argument depends on a precise date for the beginning of Unétice, that is at best very slightly the most probable out of perfectly possible guesses ranging over five centuries’.At that time the basis for the absolute chronology of the Early Bronze Age was, as it largely remains today, a framework of synchronous links built up across Europe to the Mycenaean world of the Aegean Late Bronze Age. The assumption was made—and Childe stressed that it was an assumption—that European development and chronology were to be viewed in terms of ‘the irradation of European barbarism by Oriental civilisation’. Possible links for the European Early Bronze Age with Mycenae and indeed the Near East were eagerly sought in an attempt to build up a coherent chronology founded on this assumption.

Neolithic and Shang Periods

1995 ◽  
Vol 54 (1) ◽  
pp. 128-145 ◽  
Author(s):  
David N. Keightley
Keyword(s):  
Bronze Age ◽  
Early Bronze Age ◽  
Chinese Religion ◽  
Major Question ◽  
Ancestor Worship ◽  
The Earth ◽  
Recent Scholarship ◽  
Religious Dimensions ◽  
The Common

The common occurrence of cults of the dead in Neolithic and early Bronze Age societies around the world raises at least one major question about early Chinese religion: what factors account for the elaboration of ancestor worship in China and for the degree to which—compared to its role in other cultures—it endured? The study of Chinese religion in the Neolithic and Shang periods (ca. 4000–1050 B.C.E.) can contribute to our understanding of such matters, but the bulk of recent scholarship is inevitably and properly focused on technical analyses of sites, artifacts, rituals, and spiritual Powers. Many studies address problems of definition, such as the nature of Ti, the high god of the Shang, and his cult (Akatsuka 1977:471–537; Ikeda 1981:25–39; Eno 1990); images of T'ien (Heaven, Sky) (Hayashi 1989a); the nature of the Earth Power and its associated altar of the soil (Tai Chia-hsiang 1986); the role of sun, bird, and other totems in Neolithic and Shang belief (Hu Hou-hsüan 1977; Allan 1981; Tu Chin-p'eng 1992; Wu Hung 1985; Paper 1986; Ch'ien Chihch'iang 1988; Juyü 1991; Wang Chi-huai 1992; Xiong Chuanxin 1992; Chang Teshui 1993; Chang Wen 1994; Wang Lu-ch'ang 1994); methods and objects of sacrifice (Ikeda 1980; Ch'iu Hsi-kuei 1985; Childs-Johnson 1987; Lien Shao-ming 1989; Itō 1990; Hao Pen-hsing 1992); the religious dimensions of illness (Takashima 1980) and of settlement building (Akatsuka 1977:494–99).

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