The territory of ritual: cross-ridge boundaries and the prehistoric landscape of the Cleveland Hills, northeast England

Antiquity ◽  
1994 ◽  
Vol 68 (258) ◽  
pp. 27-38 ◽  
Author(s):  
B. E. Vyner

On the North Yorkshire Moors, in northeast England, is a series of linear boundaries which are characteristically placed across upland spurs and promontories. Survey and excavation suggest that these boundaries operated in conjunction with natural features to define areas of the prehistoric landscape which may have been concerned with ritual during the final Neolithic and Early Bronze Age.

Author(s):  
Erika Weiberg

The point of departure for this paper is the publication of two Early Helladic sealing fragments from the coastal settlement of Asine on the north-east Peloponnese in Greece. After an initial description and discussion they are set in the context of sealing custom established on the Greek mainland around 2500 BCE. In the first part of the paper focus is on the apparent qualitative differences between the available seals and the contemporary seal impressions, as well as between different sealing assemblages on northeastern Peloponnese. This geographical emphasis is carried into the second part of the paper which is a review and contextualisation of the representational art of the Aegean Early Bronze Age in general, and northeastern Peloponnese in particular. Seal motifs and figurines are the main media for Early Helladic representational art preserved until today, yet in many ways very dissimilar. These opposites are explored in order to begin to build a better understanding of Peloponnesian representational art, the choices of motifs, and their roles in the lives of the Early Helladic people.


2021 ◽  
Vol 17 (1) ◽  
pp. 89-114
Author(s):  
Arsen L. Budaychiev

The main purpose of this article is a typological and chronological study of the handles of ceramic vessels originating from fairly well-studied sites of the Early Bronze Age of the Primorsky Lowland of Dagestan, including both settlements (Velikent II, Gemetyube I, II, Kabaz-Kutan I, II, Torpakh-kala), and and burial grounds (Velikent I (catacomb No. 8), II (catacomb No. 1), III (catacomb No. 1), Karabudakhkent II, Kayakent VI). The first handles in the North-Eastern Caucasus appeared on ceramic ware back in the Eneolithic era. During the early Bronze Age, handles became a characteristic part of ceramic dishes (bowls, containers, cups, vases) on the considered sites of Primorsky Dagestan. Functionally, they have a utilitarian, decorative, artistic and religious purpose. The handles are of four types, which are characteristic of certain forms of dishes: type 1 - horizontal tubular, type 2 - ribbon, type 3 - pseudo-handles, type 4 - hemispherical. The article provides a description of each type of pens, provides analogues on the sites of the Early Bronze Age both in the Northeast Caucasus and the adjacent regions of the Caucasus, including the territories of modern Iran, Turkey and Palestine and Israel, which were part of the distribution area of ​​the Kuro-Arak cultural and historical community ( including Khirbet-Kerak culture). The work identifies the most common and early, dating back to the Chalcolithic period, types of pens, discusses the issue of their chronology. This article is the first special work devoted to a typological and chronological analysis of ceramic vessel handles.


Author(s):  
Piotr Włodarczak

The borderland of the Vistula Plain and the Proszowice Plateau is part of the loess zone extending mainly to the north of the Vistula River, known for numerous discoveries of archaeological sites from the Eneolithic period and the early Bronze Age. The state of reconnaissance of settlement is far from satisfactory here. From the final Eneolithic period primarily cemeteries of the Corded Ware culture (around 2800–2300 BC) are known. Falling within this age range is probably the only burial mound in the area, in Igołomia, which yielded a niche grave of the Corded Ware culture within the eastern part of its cover. Another cemetery was investigated in Rudno Górne, where niche graves of the culture in question were found dug into the embankments of Funnel Beaker culture megalithic graves from the middle Eneolithic period. From the early Bronze Age, the richest and most cognitively significant sites of the Mierzanowice culture (around 2200–1600 BC) are concentrated on loess hills rising above the valleys of Ropotek and Rudnik. They are both cemeteries and large settlements. Particularly valuable results were obtained during research on the cemetery in Szarbia, where as many as 44 graves were found. These findings enable the reconstruction of funeral rite rules from the early Bronze Age.


Radiocarbon ◽  
2009 ◽  
Vol 51 (3) ◽  
pp. 905-913 ◽  
Author(s):  
Stephen Bourke ◽  
Ugo Zoppi ◽  
John Meadows ◽  
Quan Hua ◽  
Samantha Gibbins

This article reports on 10 new accelerator mass spectrometry (AMS) radiocarbon dates from early phases of the Early Bronze Age at the long-lived settlement of Pella (modern Tabaqat Fahl) in the north Jordan Valley. The new AMS dates fall between 3400 and 2800 cal BC, and support a recent suggestion that all Chalcolithic period occupation had ceased by 3800/3700 cal BC at the latest (Bourke et al. 2004b). Other recently published Early Bronze Age14C data strongly supports this revisionist scenario, suggesting that the earliest phase of the Early Bronze Age (EBA I) occupied much of the 4th millennium cal BC (3800/3700 to 3100/3000 cal BC). As this EB I period in the Jordan Valley is generally viewed as the key precursor phase in the development of urbanism (Joffe 1993), this revisionist chronology has potentially radical significance for understanding both the nature and speed of the move from village settlement towards a complex urban lifeway.


2006 ◽  
Vol 72 ◽  
pp. 267-287 ◽  
Author(s):  
Robert Van de Noort

This paper aims to offer a new analysis of the social dimensions of seafaring in the 2nd millennium BC and a consideration of the role of seafaring in (re)creating the social order at the time through its economic, sociopolitical and ritual significance. It revisits the sewn-plank boats from Ferriby, Kilnsea, Dover, Calidcot, Testwood Lakes, Goldcliff and Brigg, and aspects of the way in which seafarers signified themselves and their world through their imagined relationship with the environment are illuminated. The study argues that in the Early Bronze Age, sewn-plank boats were used for directional, long-distance journeys, aimed at the ‘cosmological acquisition’ of exotic goods, and the contexts of these boats link the overseas journeys to the ancestors. In the Middle and Late Bronze Age, sewn-plank boats were used for down-the-line exchange, and fragments of sewn-plank boats were included in structured deposits, within or near river crossings, reflecting the idioms of transformation and regeneration which are well established for this period. Through the reconstruction of the boats' crews, it is suggested that the development of a retinue was a prerequisite for the successful completion of the long-distance journeys, and the social identities that were cultivated during these voyages are recognised as a potentially important element in the rise of elite groups in the Early Bronze Age.


2011 ◽  
Vol 17 (1) ◽  
pp. 135-156 ◽  
Author(s):  
Vakhtang Licheli

Abstract The settlement and necropolis of Grakliani Hill are located in Central Transcaucasia, Georgia. Excavations of the settlement on the eastern slope and the necropolis on the south-western part of the hill demonstrated that the site had been occupied between the Chalcolithic and the Late Hellenistic periods. The most interesting remains of buildings belong to 2nd and 1st millennium BC. Several sanctuaries of this period were excavated. A monumental altar was discovered in the eastern part of the settlement. The altar was located in the north-western corner of a building. On its eastern side there was an ash pit with a platform along the northern wall. The platform was used for placing offerings, including a South Mesopotamian seal. An architectural complex of the following period (450-350 B.C) was discovered in the western part of the lower terrace. It consisted of three main rooms and three store-rooms. Burials of various periods were discovered in the western part of the hill’s southern slope. The earliest one is a pit-burial dating to the Early Bronze Age, the latest one belongs to the 2nd century BC. After analyses of the finds several directions of cultural and commercial links were identified: Colchis, Persia, Phoenicia, Mesopotamia, Egypt, Asia Minor.


1941 ◽  
Vol 7 ◽  
pp. 73-113 ◽  
Author(s):  
L. V. Grinsell

The area covered by this survey, which epitomizes the writer's work on Wessex barrows since 1929, is limited on the west by a line drawn from Weston-super-Mare to Bridport, on the east by a line drawn from Dorking to Arundel, on the north roughly by the northern limit of the chalk downs south of the Thames, and on the south by the sea. It encloses the great majority of bell, disc, and saucer barrows, all of which appear to be expressions of Piggott's Wessex Bronze Age culture. It should be noted however that elements of this culture are found outside the area dealt with, notably at various places to the north-east. Nearly all of these are so close to the Icknield Way as to make it certain that this was the means of communication linking the one with the other. Another, though less important, extension of the Wessex Bronze Age culture is represented by a few sites, some of them doubtful, within a short distance of the course of the Upper Thames, and it is probable that the river was the means of communication used.Here it is well to point out the respects in which the boundaries of Bronze Age Wessex, as determined by my own distribution-maps of barrows, differ from those adopted in the O.S. Map of Neolithic Wessex, and by Mr Stuart Piggott in his recent paper, ‘The Early Bronze Age in Wessex.’


1997 ◽  
Vol 92 ◽  
pp. 73-107
Author(s):  
Kyriacos Lambrianides ◽  
Nigel Spencer

This paper presents previously unpublished material from the archives of the DAI and BSA, assessing its contribution to a better understanding of the settlement pattern on the north-east Aegean island of Lesbos in the Early Bronze Age, a period known only in terms of the single excavated sites of Thermi on its east coast. Using this new material evidence, the study places Thermi in its wider context within EBA Lesbos, demonstrating that several other EBA sites co-existed with Thermi, not only on the coast but also inland. It then places EBA settlements on the island in their west Anatolian context through an examination of ceramic parallels and affinities with mainland sites. It is argued: (1) that in view of the extensive distribution of EBA sites on Lesbos, colonization of the island must have begun long before the emergence of Thermi; (2) that several sources and mechanisms of colonization were involved in the process of settlement, which may be reflected in the fact that at least two distinct groups of sites can be identified on the island; and (3) that some of these sites appear to have relied upon agriculture rather than marine resources. Such inland agricultural sites may represent the first generation of purely endogenous communities which emerged on the island after its colonization.


1957 ◽  
Vol 52 ◽  
pp. 195-196 ◽  
Author(s):  
A. J. B. Wace

Stamatakes's excavations in the Grave Circle area revealed, although it was not recognized until much later, that Mycenae had been inhabited in the Early Bronze Age, the Early Helladic Period. This was confirmed by subsequent researches which produced Early Helladic material from the foot of the Ramp, outside the Grave Circle, beneath the South House and below the Palace. Now the recent work of Dr. Papademetriou and ourselves has yielded fresh evidence. He has found more E.H. material in Schliemann's Grave Circle and some possible Neolithic sherds as well. In the area of the Prehistoric Cemetery outside the Cyclopean walls to the north-west of the Lion Gate we have found in a mixed unstratified layer at the eastern foot of the mound or tumulus which covered the dome of the ‘Tomb of Aegisthus’ many fragments of E.H. pottery, both decorated and plain. Since the plain E.H. ware found is of a simple, thickish fabric hand-polished and usually of a dull red or of a mud colour, we had at times wondered whether some of these fragments might not almost be classed as Neolithic. This was especially so in the case of some of the fragments from the lowest strata at the foot of the Ramp. Unfortunately these fragments were lost during the war in the Nauplia Museum and cannot now be checked.The discovery of Neolithic B pottery at the Argive Heraeum, and still more recently Dr. Caskey's most successful excavations at Lerna, encouraged us in the idea that a site like Mycenae was probably inhabited in Neolithic times also. Since the Early Helladic material is not stratified, except in areas like the foot of the Ramp or below the South House, it was hardly to be expected that Neolithic remains, if found, would be stratified. It is always possible, however, that some part of the site, not yet explored, may have escaped later disturbance or overbuilding. We have therefore now paid particular attention to the unstratified debris found above the Prehistoric Cemetery at the eastern foot of the Aegisthus mound. Among this we have found two sherds which are in our opinion almost certainly Neolithic.


Author(s):  
Erdni A. Kekeev ◽  
◽  
Maria A. Ochir-Goryaeva ◽  
Evgeny G. Burataev ◽  
◽  
...  

The article presents materials from the excavation work of the mound 1 from the Egorlyk group. The mound was formed over two burials of the Yamnaya culture of the early Bronze Age era. The only inlet burial was placed in the center of the mound during the transition period from the late Bronze Age to the early Iron Age. The discovery of this monument is significant because it is the first monument of the Bronze Age explored on the north-eastern slope of the Stavropol height, in-between the rivers Egorlyk and Kalaus and bounded from the east by the lake Manych.


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