Investigating jet and jet-like artefacts from prehistoric Scotland: the National Museums of Scotland project

Antiquity ◽  
2002 ◽  
Vol 76 (293) ◽  
pp. 812-825 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alison Sheridan ◽  
Mary Davis ◽  
Iain Clark ◽  
Hal Redvers-Jones
Keyword(s):  
Bronze Age ◽  
Raw Material ◽  
Significant Source ◽  
Early Bronze Age ◽  
Correct Identification ◽  
National Museums

IntroductionThe black spacer plate necklaces and bracelets of the Early Bronze Age (Figure 1) are among the most technically accomplished prestige items of this period in Britain and Ireland. There has been much debate over the years as to whether these artefacts and other prehistoric black jewellery and dress accessories are the product of specialist jetworkers based around Whitby in North Yorkshire — Britain’s only significant source of jet. As early as 1916, for example, Callander was arguing that the Scottish finds had been made using locally available materials — cannel coal, shale and lignite — rather than Whitby jet. There has also been much confusion over the identification of these various materials. Flirthermore, the conservation of newly discovered jet and jet-like artefacts can be problematical, and the correct identification of raw material is important in determining the best method of treatment.

From tools to production: recent research on textile economies in Greece

2021 ◽  
Vol 67 ◽  
pp. 109-128
Author(s):  
Bela Dimova ◽  
Margarita Gleba
Keyword(s):  
Bronze Age ◽  
Roman Period ◽  
Raw Material ◽  
Wool Fibre ◽  
Early Bronze Age ◽  
Textile Production ◽  
Spindle Whorls ◽  
Middle Bronze Age ◽  
Of Greece

The aim of this report is to provide a summary of the latest developments in the textile archaeology of Greece and the broader Aegean from the Neolithic through to the Roman period, focusing in particular on recent research on textile tools. Spindle-whorls and loomweights appeared in the Aegean during the Neolithic and by the Early Bronze Age weaving on the warp-weighted loom was well established across the region. Recent methodological advances allow the use of the physical characteristics of tools to estimate the quality of the yarns and textiles produced, even in the absence of extant fabrics. The shapes of spindle-whorls evolved with the introduction of wool fibre, which by the Middle Bronze Age had become the dominant textile raw material in the region. The spread of discoid loomweights from Crete to the wider Aegean has been linked to the wider Minoanization of the area during the Middle Bronze Age, as well as the mobility of weavers. Broader issues discussed in connection with textile production include urbanization, the spread of different textile cultures and the identification of specific practices (sealing) and previously unrecognized technologies (splicing), as well as the value of textiles enhanced by a variety of decorative techniques and purple dyeing.

scholarly journals Woodland Management Practices in Bronze Age, Bruszczewo, Poland

Forests ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 12 (10) ◽  
pp. 1327
Author(s):  
Marzena Kłusek ◽  
Jutta Kneisel
Keyword(s):  
Forest Management ◽  
Bronze Age ◽  
Management Practices ◽  
Ring Width ◽  
Raw Material ◽  
Early Bronze Age ◽  
Silvicultural Practices ◽  
Growth Ring Width ◽  
Management Techniques ◽  
Earlywood Vessels

The article presents a study of wood excavated from archaeological site in Poland (2100–1650 BC). The large amount of collected samples created a unique opportunity for research because the subfossil wood was in very good preservation state. This made it possible to carry out dendrotypological analysis. This is the first such study conducted for Early Bronze Age timber originating from Poland. The main goal of the study was to determine whether the presence of strong and abrupt reductions and releases of growth, observed within tree-ring sequences, is due to natural stand dynamics, results from the influence of extreme environmental factors or whether they should be linked to specific silvicultural practices already known in ancient times. Another purpose of the study was to determine the type of forest management techniques applied to the trees growing in Bruszczewo site. The research was conducted using the dendrochronological method. In addition to the measurements of growth-ring width, the development of earlywood and latewood zones, the proportion of sapwood and the presence of specific features of tree trunks were analysed. A detailed study allowed identifying the samples originating from coppiced and shredded trees. A characteristic feature of the trees subjected to these silvicultural practices is the presence of strong and abrupt reductions and releases of growth. Moreover, coppiced trees were specified by the large proportion of sapwood in the cross-section of the stem, reduced number of sapwood rings, small and numerous earlywood vessels, diminished earlywood vessels area. In turn, shredded trees distinguished themselves by a strong reduction in the earlywood width in the years following the shredding event. The research of archaeological wood from the ancient settlement proves that during the Early Bronze Age various forest management techniques were used in this site. These treatments were aimed at improving the quality and quantity of the raw material harvested from forest areas.

scholarly journals Manufacture, use and management of macro-lithic resources in the Bronze Age settlement of Bruszczewo (Poland)

2020 ◽  
Vol 7 (3) ◽  
pp. 1-26
Author(s):  
Selina Delgado-Raack ◽  
Jutta Kneisel ◽  
Janusz Czebreszuk ◽  
Johannes Müller
Keyword(s):  
Bronze Age ◽  
Middle Ages ◽  
Central Europe ◽  
Iron Age ◽  
Raw Material ◽  
Early Bronze Age ◽  
Fully Integrated ◽  
Metal Artefacts ◽  
Use Wear ◽  
Archaeological Materials

Contrary to pottery or metal artefacts, macro-lithic tools are still not fully integrated into the archaeological research programs concerning the Early Bronze Age of Central Europe. While such kind of archaeological materials usually do not easily allow typological approaches, their constant participation in several productive spheres makes them a crucial element for understanding the economic processes and the organisation of past societies. This paper presents the general results of the investigation carried out on an assemblage of 1073 macro-lithic items recovered in the wet soil area of the site of Bruszczewo (municipality of Śmigiel, Poland). This fortified settlement was inhabited during the Early Bronze Age (2100-1650 BCE) and later on in the Late Bronze Age and Early Iron Age (1100-800 BCE), with minor archaeological evidences from Middle Ages. The methodology applied in this assessment is a holistic one, which combines manufacturing (petrography and morphometry), functional (use-wear and residues) and spatial analyses. This approach has allowed recording a mainly local raw material supplying system, based on the gathering of pebbles in the vicinity of the site and a minimal transformation of raw pieces previous to use. Moreover, Bruszczewo comes out to be a central settlement managing and controlling exogenous ores, such as copper and gold, as shown by residues found on some macro-lithic forging anvils. All in all, the recognition in the macro-lithic tool assemblage of different tasks related to subsistence (food preparation) as well as to manufacture (metallurgy, probably bone working) processes contributes to (a) defining the settlement's organisation and the management of resources in the site and (b) improving our understanding of the role played by central settlements in the socio-economic networks, at a time when the first class societies emerged in Central Europe.

scholarly journals New Perspectives on the Problems of the Exploitation Area and the Prehistoric Use of the Buda Hornstone in Hungary

2018 ◽  
Vol 56 ◽  
pp. 167-189
Author(s):  
Norbert Faragó ◽  
Réka Katalin Péter ◽  
Ferenc Cserpák ◽  
Dávid Kraus ◽  
Zsolt Mester
Keyword(s):  
Bronze Age ◽  
Raw Materials ◽  
Wide Spectrum ◽  
Geophysical Methods ◽  
Raw Material ◽  
Early Bronze Age ◽  
Copper Age ◽  
Lithic Assemblages ◽  
Siliceous Rocks ◽  
Middle Bronze Age

The mountainous areas of the Carpathian basin have provided a wide spectrum of siliceous rocks for prehistoric people. Although the presence of outcrops of a kind of chert, named Buda hornstone was already known by geological and petrographic investigations, the developing Hungarian petroarchaeological research did not pay much attention to this raw material. Its archaeological perspectives have been opened by a discovery made at the Denevér street in western part of Budapest in the 1980s. During the excavations of the flint mine, not much was known about the distribution of this raw material in the archaeological record. Since then the growing amount of archaeological evidences showed that its first significant occurrence in assemblages can be dated to the Late Copper Age Baden culture, and it became more abundant through the Early Bronze age Bell-Beaker culture until the Middle Bronze Age tell cultures. Until now, 15 outcrops of the Buda hornstone have been localised on the surface. Based on thin section examinations taken from two different outcrops, we have made a clear distinction between three variants. In the last few years, archaeological supervision has been conducted during house constructions, suggesting the Buda hornstone occurrence takes the form of a secondary autochthonous type of source. In the framework of our research program, a systematic check of the raw materials is planned in the lithic assemblages of the nearby prehistoric sites, as well as to look for extraction pits or other mining features with the application of geophysical methods and a thorough analysis of the surface morphology

scholarly journals Mineralogical Characterization of Early Bronze Age Pottery from the Svilengrad-Brantiite Site, Southeastern Bulgaria

Minerals ◽  
2022 ◽  
Vol 12 (1) ◽  
pp. 79
Author(s):  
Masanori Kurosawa ◽  
Masao Semmoto ◽  
Toru Shibata
Keyword(s):  
Bronze Age ◽  
Raw Material ◽  
Granitic Rocks ◽  
Early Bronze Age ◽  
Chemical Compositions ◽  
X Ray Diffraction ◽  
Material Source ◽  
Mineralogical Characterization ◽  
X Ray ◽  
Fine Clay

Several pottery sherds from the Svilengrad-Brantiite site, Bulgaria, were mineralogically and petrographically analyzed. The aim was to add information to the very scarce material data available for Early Bronze Age pottery in the southeastern Thrace plain, Bulgaria, in order to examine a possible raw-material source of the pottery. The characterization techniques applied were optical microscopy (OM), petrographic microscopy (PM), scanning electron microscopy coupled with energy dispersive X-ray spectroscopy (SEM-EDS), X-ray fluorescence (XRF) spectroscopy, and X-ray diffraction (XRD). The pottery samples consisted of two typological groups: a local-made type and a cord-impressed decoration type influenced by foreign cultures. All of the samples were produced from fine clay pastes that had a quite similar composition, with abundant mineral grains of similar mineral composition and fragments of metamorphic and granitic rocks. The chemical compositions of each mineral in the grains and fragments were almost identical, and consistent with those from metamorphic and granitic rocks from the Sakar-Strandja Mountains near the study site. The clay paste compositions corresponded to those of illite/smectite mixed-layer clay minerals or mixtures of illite and smectite, and the clay-mineral species were consistent with those in Miocene–Pleistocene or Holocene sediments surrounding the site.

scholarly journals Examining Raw Material of Stone Tools. Siliceous Marl from the Eastern Part of the Polish Carpathians Re-interpreted

2018 ◽  
Vol 56 ◽  
pp. 191-201
Author(s):  
Andrzej Pelisiak
Keyword(s):  
Bronze Age ◽  
Raw Materials ◽  
Raw Material ◽  
Early Bronze Age ◽  
Archaeological Material ◽  
Eastern Carpathians ◽  
Polish Carpathians ◽  
Non Local ◽  
Different Sources

Neolithic and Early Bronze Age communities which settled the eastern Carpathians Forelands and Carpathian Foothills used a variety of local and non-local siliceous raw materials. Silicites identified in archaeological material differ in quality and usefulness for making tools. Obsidian, Jurassic flint from the Cracow-Częstochowa Uplands, ‘chocolate’ flint, and Świeciechów (grey white-spotted) and Volhynian flints are the best quality. They were commonly used from the Early Neolithic onwards. On the other hand, some local raw materials were also in used. Among them the so-called Dynów marl or siliceous marls were suggested as the most popular. To correct the classification of raw material of these artefacts HCl (Hydrochloric acid) was used for testing both raw material samples and the artefacts of the so-called Dynów or siliceous marls. The results of the analysis shows that so-called Dynów or siliceous marl consists of several different raw material varieties. More than 50% of the analysed tools were of yellowish or grey-yellowish hornstones (cherts). Both siliceous marls and the chert came probably from different sources and each one has a different chemical composition and physical properties

scholarly journals Microwear analysis of small recycled flakes and recycling products from the Ein-Zippori site, Lower Galilee, Israel

2018 ◽  
Vol 5 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Richard W. Yerkes ◽  
Yoni Parush ◽  
Avi Gopher ◽  
Ran Barkai
Keyword(s):  
Bronze Age ◽  
Ad Hoc ◽  
Raw Material ◽  
Early Bronze Age ◽  
Lower Paleolithic ◽  
Microwear Analysis ◽  
Use Wear ◽  
Lithic Raw Material

A microwear analysis of recycled lithic artefacts from late Pottery Neolithic Wadi Rabah and Early Bronze Age layers at Ein-Zippori, Israel included cores-on-flakes (COFs) which are discarded blanks made into cores, and the flakes detached from them. COFs may have microwear traces that formed before they were recycled. The focus here is on how blanks removed from recycled COFs were used. Discarded flakes were not used as cores to produce small blanks at Ein-Zippori because lithic raw material was scarce, but were COFs recycled so that small tools could be produced for specific tasks? Visible wear traces were present on 19 of 44 blanks produced from COFs. Microwear traces were similar to use wear Lemorini et al. (2015) observed on much older Lower Paleolithic recycled flakes from Qesem Cave, Israel. Most flakes struck from COFs had been used to cut and scrape meat and fresh hide (42%, n=8), but four were used to work wood (21%) and four others were used to cut, scrape, or whittle bone and wood (21%), and two were used for butchering and wood working (11%). One flake only had generic weak microwear traces (5%). These were expedient flake tools, made and used in an ad hoc fashion. Specific blanks do not seem to have been used for distinct tasks.

scholarly journals Raw material sources of knapped stone tools from the excavation of the Early Bronze Age site at Toumba Thessaloniki, Greece

2016 ◽  
Vol 3 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Stamatia Karageorgiou ◽  
Aikaterini Kostaki ◽  
Michail Vavelidis ◽  
Stelios Andreou
Keyword(s):  
Bronze Age ◽  
Raw Materials ◽  
Raw Material ◽  
Early Bronze Age ◽  
Material Sources ◽  
Socioeconomic System ◽  
Geochemical Study ◽  
Icp Ms ◽  
Petrographic Examination ◽  
Geological Formations

This study investigates the origin of the lithic findings from the prehistoric site at Toumba, Thessaloniki in Greece, during the Early Bronze Age (EBA). The artefacts from the excavation were studied in order to compare the raw materials utilized for the manufacture of these tools with the geological occurrences of the corresponding materials in the broader region. This research provides evidence for the provenance of these materials and consequently some insight into the socioeconomic system of the settlement. For this reason, samples of siliceous sediments were chosen from regions with similar geological formations, such as Vasilika and Galatista. Apart from macroscopic examination, both archaeological and petrographic, microscopic examination was also applied in order to identify the microstructure and the mineralogical context, and finally geochemical study by ICP-MS analysis and XRF spectrometry for determining the major, trace and rare earth element concentrations. The comparison of these features with the archaeological features reveals that during the Early Bronze Age there was possibly a relation between Toumba inhabitants and the regions of Vasilika and Galatista for the procurement of chert. The petrographic examination of the lithic findings shows whether the tools are manufactured in the settlement or if there is an import of tools from other sites.

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