The Nordic razor and the Mycenaean lifestyle

Antiquity ◽  
2013 ◽  
Vol 87 (336) ◽  
pp. 461-472 ◽  
Author(s):  
Flemming Kaul
Keyword(s):  
Fifteenth Century ◽  
Bronze Age ◽  
International Communication ◽  
The North ◽  
Warrior Class ◽  
The Bronze Age

The bronze razor with the horse-head handle appeared in Scandinavia in the fifteenth century BC. Where did it come from and what did it mean? The author shows that the razor had some antecedents in the Aegean, although none of these objects were imported to the north. He argues that the Scandinavian warrior class consciously adopted elements of the Mycenaean warrior package, including a clean-shaven face. This vividly exposes new aspects of the busy and subtle nature of international communication in the Bronze Age.

A gold diadem from Aegina

1987 ◽  
Vol 107 ◽  
pp. 182-182
Author(s):  
Reynold Higgins
Keyword(s):  
Bronze Age ◽  
British Museum ◽  
The South ◽  
North West ◽  
The North ◽  
The Dead ◽  
Middle Helladic ◽  
Dead Man ◽  
The Bronze Age ◽  
Grave Goods

A recent discovery on the island of Aegina by Professor H. Walter (University of Salzburg) throws a new light on the origins of the so-called Aegina Treasure in the British Museum.In 1982 the Austrians were excavating the Bronze Age settlement on Cape Kolonna, to the north-west of Aegina town. Immediately to the east of the ruined Temple of Apollo, and close to the South Gate of the prehistoric Lower Town, they found an unrobbed shaft grave containing the burial of a warrior. The gravegoods (now exhibited in the splendid new Museum on the Kolonna site) included a bronze sword with a gold and ivory hilt, three bronze daggers, one with gold fittings, a bronze spear-head, arrowheads of obsidian, boar's tusks from a helmet, and fragments of a gold diadem (plate Va). The grave also contained Middle Minoan, Middle Cycladic, and Middle Helladic (Mattpainted) pottery. The pottery and the location of the grave in association with the ‘Ninth City’ combine to give a date for the burial of about 1700 BC; and the richness of the grave-goods would suggest that the dead man was a king.

scholarly journals Before the Celts: Cosmology, Landscape and Folklore in Neolithic Northwest Iberia

2018 ◽  
Vol 22 (1) ◽  
pp. 29-45
Author(s):  
Fabio Silva
Keyword(s):  
Iberian Peninsula ◽  
Bronze Age ◽  
Mountain Range ◽  
The West ◽  
North West ◽  
The North ◽  
Celtic Studies ◽  
The Bronze Age ◽  
Northwest Iberia

This paper applies a combined landscape and skyscape archaeology methodology to the study of megalithic passage graves in the North-west of the Iberian Peninsula, in an attempt to glimpse the cosmology of these Neolithic Iberians. The reconstructed narrative is found to be supported also by a toponym for a local mountain range and associated folklore, providing an interesting methodology that might be applied in future Celtic studies. The paper uses this data to comment on the ‘Celticization from the West’ hypothesis that posits Celticism originated in the European Atlantic façade during the Bronze Age. If this is the case, then the Megalithic phenomenon that was widespread along the Atlantic façade would have immediately preceded the first Celts.

/ Schyłek epoki kamienia i początki epoki brązu w okolicach Igołomi i Wawrzeńczyc The end of the Stone Age and the beginning of the Bronze Age in the vicinity of Igołomia and Wawrzeńczyce

2020 ◽  
pp. 93-114
Author(s):  
Piotr Włodarczak
Keyword(s):  
Bronze Age ◽  
Early Bronze Age ◽  
Burial Mound ◽  
Funeral Rite ◽  
Loess Hills ◽  
Vistula River ◽  
The North ◽  
Funnel Beaker Culture ◽  
Age Range ◽  
The Bronze Age

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.

scholarly journals Radiocarbon dating of the bronze age bone pins from Eurasian steppe

2011 ◽  
Vol 38 (2) ◽  
pp. 107-115 ◽  
Author(s):  
Natalia Shishlina ◽  
Johan Plicht ◽  
Elya Zazovskaya
Keyword(s):  
Bronze Age ◽  
Radiocarbon Dating ◽  
North Caucasus ◽  
14C Dating ◽  
The Caucasus ◽  
The North ◽  
Eurasian Steppe ◽  
Culture Formation ◽  
First Time ◽  
The Bronze Age

AbstractBone catapult and hammer-headed pins played one of very specific roles in funerary offerings in the Bronze Age graves uncovered in the Eurasian Steppes and the North Caucasus. Scholars used different types of pins as key grave offerings for numerous chronological models. For the first time eight pins have been radiocarbon dated. 14C dating of bone pins identified the catapult type pin as the earliest one. They marked the period of the Yamnaya culture formation. Then Yamnaya population produced hammer-headed pins which became very popular in other cultural environments and spread very quickly across the Steppe and the Caucasus during 2900–2650 cal BC. But according to radiocarbon dating bone pins almost disappeared after 2600 cal BC.

Excavations at Mad Mans Window, Glenarm, Co. Antrim: Problems of Flint Exploitation in East Antrim

1992 ◽  
Vol 58 (1) ◽  
pp. 77-106 ◽  
Author(s):  
P. C. Woodman
Keyword(s):  
Bronze Age ◽  
Narrow Strip ◽  
North East ◽  
The North ◽  
Flat Side ◽  
Neolithic Age ◽  
North Eastern ◽  
Basalt Plateau ◽  
The Bronze Age

This study examines the archaeological significance of the material from a group of Neolithic chipping floors rescued during the rebuilding of the Antrim coast road, at Mad Mans Window, south of Glenarm, Co. Antrim. It shows that the lithic production strategies vary significantly between assemblages although it is presumed that they are all Neolithic in date and come from the same area of coast. It is apparent that flint axe production was of limited importance on these sites and that in spite of the abundance of flint available along the Antrim coast, relatively few polished flint axes were manufactured. Instead the numerous flint caches found in adjacent parts of the north-east of Ireland tend to produce scrapers and blades. Hoards containing arrowheads may be confined to the Bronze Age.Around 300 polished flint axes and roughouts are known from Ireland. These are frequently small and only partially polished. A limited number of highly polished axes with ground flat side facets have been designated sub-type A. The tendency to use porcellanite rather than flint for axe manufacture may be due to its ability to withstand robust shock.During the last 100 years, the role of flint as a key resource in the stone age of north-eastern Ireland has always been recognized but this has usually led to an uncritical assumption as to the paramount importance of flint. Work in recent years has shown that its significance in attracting and retaining Mesolithic settlement may have been over-emphasized.The role of the flint industries in the Irish Neolithic in this region has never been properly assessed, either in relation to older Mesolithic manufacturing traditions or in the broader context of supply to the Neolithic communities of this part of Ireland.In particular, good or even reasonable quality flint is usually only exposed in Cretaceous outcrops along a narrow strip on the edge of the basalt plateau and, therefore, has a very limited availability in parts of Co. Antrim as well as parts of Counties Down and Deny. As a contrast, erratic and beach flint is available in some quantity down the east coast of Ireland from Co. Down to Wexford. A second potential constraining factor is that unlike Britain, where flint was exploited for axe manufacture in the east and other rocks in the west, flint sources and porcellanite for axe manufacturing are both found adjacent to each other in the same corner of Co. Antrim. In particular, a number of more substantial chipping floors of Neolithic age are known, e.g. the opencast quarry sites at Ballygalley Head. The purpose of this study is to assess the role of flint production on the Antrim coast with particular reference to its significance in the Neolithic. This topic will be developed in the context of an analysis of the material found at Mad Mans Window near Glenarm.

The Bronze Age Round Barrows of Wessex

1941 ◽  
Vol 7 ◽  
pp. 73-113 ◽  
Author(s):  
L. V. Grinsell
Keyword(s):  
Bronze Age ◽  
Great Majority ◽  
Early Bronze Age ◽  
Northern Limit ◽  
Distribution Maps ◽  
North East ◽  
The North ◽  
Important Extension ◽  
The One ◽  
The Bronze Age

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.’

scholarly journals The Anthropocene and anthropology

2016 ◽  
Vol 20 (1) ◽  
pp. 183-196
Author(s):  
Chris Hann
Keyword(s):  
Bronze Age ◽  
North Atlantic ◽  
Recent Literature ◽  
Ethnographic Methods ◽  
Half Century ◽  
The North ◽  
The Social ◽  
The North Atlantic ◽  
The Bronze Age

Noting a lack of consensus in the recent literature on the Anthropocene, this article considers how social anthropologists might contribute to its theorizing and dating. Empirically it draws on the author’s long-term fieldwork in Hungary. It is argued that ethnographic methods are essential for grasping subjectivities, including temporal orientations and perceptions of epochal transformation. When it comes to historical periodization, however, ethnography is obviously insufficient and proposals privileging the last half-century, or just the last quarter of a century, seem inadequate. Influential theories, which define ‘modernity’ in terms of developments emanating from the countries of the North Atlantic in the sixteenth to the nineteenth centuries (Gellner, Polanyi, Wolf), remain partial and Eurocentric. To comprehend the social preconditions of the Anthropocene in a holistic fashion (the crucial contribution of comparative anthropology), it is necessary to follow Jack Goody and trace how the urban revolutions of the Bronze Age united Eurasia through the diffusion of new forms of economy, polity and cosmology.

Irish Bronze Age Horns and their relations with Northern Europe

1963 ◽  
Vol 29 ◽  
pp. 326-356 ◽  
Author(s):  
John M. Coles
Keyword(s):  
Bronze Age ◽  
The Other ◽  
Northern Europe ◽  
Wind Instruments ◽  
Late Bronze Age ◽  
The North ◽  
Actual Production ◽  
First Time ◽  
The Bronze Age

One of the features of the Irish Late Bronze Age is the appearance of wind instruments, commonly called ‘Trumpets’, often found in groups and only rarely in association with other material. Being conical and curved, these are therefore members of the horn family, to which the other large musical group of the Bronze Age, the north Europeanlurer, also belong.The Irish horns have attracted the attention of antiquarians for over 100 years, with the principal collection and listing of these beginning in 1860. Evans devoted a section of his 1881 book to the ‘trumpets’, and was followed by Day, Allen and Coffey. The latest treatment, which brought together most of the previous lists of horns, was by MacWhite in 1945. All of these later works were primarily concerned with the typology of the horns, and attention was paid neither to their actual production nor to their music. In the present study, all previously published horns have been examined where possible, as well as a number of unpublished finds, and an attempt will be made not only (i) to describe the typological variations and dating of the horns, but also (ii) to discuss their production as objects from Late Bronze Age workshops and (iii) to consider for the first time their musical potential.

Water management in the Bronze Age: Greece and Anatolia

2007 ◽  
Vol 7 (1) ◽  
pp. 77-84 ◽  
Author(s):  
T. Showleh
Keyword(s):  
Water Management ◽  
Water Supply ◽  
Bronze Age ◽  
Underground Water ◽  
Supply System ◽  
Management Systems ◽  
13Th Century ◽  
The North ◽  
High Degree ◽  
The Bronze Age

While the water management systems of Minoan Crete are legendary, water management on the Greek mainland in the Mycenaean period also shows a high degree of technological sophistication. Projects considered in this paper include the draining of the Kopais Lake, generally agreed to be one of the greatest engineering achievements of early antiquity; the cistern at Mycenae with its corbelled access tunnel cut deep into the bedrock of the citadel; the twin springs at Tiryns, with their underground passageways approached through the massive ‘cyclopean’ walls; and the North Fountain on the Mycenaean Acropolis of Athens. These Mycenaean systems are compared with the remarkable underground water supply system at Troy uncovered by the recent excavations led by Manfred Korfmann, a structure which may date to the beginning of the 3rd millennium and which appears to be invoked among the deities of Wilusa (Troy) in the early-13th century treaty between Muwattalli II of Hatti and Alaksandu of Wilusa (and which may be a precursor of the famous Persian qanats).

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