scholarly journals ‘Gifts for the gods’: lake-dwellers' macabre remedies against floods in the Central European Bronze Age

Antiquity ◽  
2014 ◽  
Vol 88 (340) ◽  
pp. 456-469 ◽  
Author(s):  
Francesco Menotti ◽  
Benjamin Jennings ◽  
Hartmut Gollnisch-Moos
Keyword(s):  
Environmental Change ◽  
Bronze Age ◽  
Lake Level ◽  
Daily Life ◽  
Alpine Region ◽  
Rich Source ◽  
Late Bronze Age ◽  
Central European

The lake-dwellings of the Circum-Alpine region have long been a rich source of detailed information about daily life in Bronze Age Europe, but their location made them vulnerable to changes in climate and lake level. At several Late Bronze Age examples, skulls of children were found at the edge of the lake settlement, close to the encircling palisade. Several of the children had suffered violent deaths, through blows to the head from axes or blunt instruments. They do not appear to have been human sacrifices, but the skulls may nonetheless have been offerings to the gods by communities faced with the threat of environmental change.

Prehistoric Settlement at Virje–Volarski Breg/Sušine

2021 ◽  
pp. 122-145
Author(s):  
Marko Dizdar ◽  
Daria Ložnjak Dizdar
Keyword(s):  
Bronze Age ◽  
Alpine Region ◽  
Late Bronze Age ◽  
Agricultural Communities ◽  
North Eastern ◽  
La Tène ◽  
Danube Region ◽  
La Tene ◽  
Rural Character ◽  
The One

Several years of excavations at the site of Virje–Volarski Breg/Sušine uncovered the remains of a settlement from the Late Bronze and Late Iron Ages. The finds of a bronze pin and potsherds from the Late Bronze Age enabled the dating of the settlement to the early and late phases of the Urnfield culture, with the settlement at Volarski Breg being older than the one at Sušine. The excavations revealed parts of La Tène settlement infrastructure, which indicated that it was a prominent lowland settlement from the Middle and Late La Tène. They included the exceptional discovery of a pit with the remains of a loom. Both for the organization of the La Tène culture settlement and for its pottery finds, there are parallels in the known settlements from the middle Drava valley and the neighbouring areas of north-eastern Slovenia and south-western Hungary. These settlements are considered to have a rural character and to be the result of the life needs of small agricultural communities integrated in the landscape. The explored parts of the infrastructure of these settlements show that they were organized around single households. The intensive habitation of the middle Drava valley in the Late Bronze and Late Iron Ages is not at all surprising, since the area was crossed by an important communication route between the south-eastern Alpine region and the Danube region.

scholarly journals Reflection of actions: The Late Bronze Age hoard from Moravička Sela, north-western Croatia

2020 ◽  
Vol 72 (3) ◽  
pp. 410-426
Author(s):  
Martina Blečić Kavur ◽  
Boris Kavur ◽  
Ranko Starac
Keyword(s):  
Bronze Age ◽  
Cultural Knowledge ◽  
Alpine Region ◽  
Late Bronze Age ◽  
The South ◽  
Mixed Composition ◽  
South Eastern ◽  
12Th Century ◽  
Cultural Connections ◽  
North Western

The hoard from Moravička Sela in Gorski Kotar (Croatia), discovered thirty years ago, is a medium-sized hoard with a mixed composition, containing typologically different and differently preserved objects. With its defined, most likely reduced inventory, we have acquired a smaller number of tools and weapons, half products and items of symbolic importance. Its place of discovery could be included in the distribution of the hoards of the II Late Bronze Age horizon on the broader territory of Caput Adriae and its hinterland in the 13th and early 12th century BC. Its composition reflects, in particular, the cultural connections ranging from the south-eastern Alpine region to the wider Pannonian and Carpathian area. Therefore, the hoard from Moravička Sela can be interpreted as a materialized act of precisely determined cultural knowledge from a broader but contemporary cultural network of meaning.

Enslaved People in an Ancient Syrian City

2018 ◽  
Vol 3 (1-2) ◽  
pp. 68-91
Author(s):  
Luigi Turri
Keyword(s):  
Social Structure ◽  
Bronze Age ◽  
Daily Life ◽  
Late Bronze Age ◽  
Public And Private ◽  
Modern City ◽  
The Public ◽  
Amount Of Information ◽  
A Site

Abstract The cuneiform documents found at Tell Atchana, a site on the River Orontes not far from modern city of Antakya, are of pivotal importance for our knowledge of western Syrian society during the Middle and Late Bronze Age. These tablets from ancient Alalakh provide data relating to the city’s daily life and its social structure and administration. Compared to the large amount of information regarding free citizens, the material concerning slave laborers and menial workers—which is the topic of this article—is scanty and not always easy to interpret, for both the public and private sectors.

scholarly journals Zurich-Alpenquai: a multidisciplinary approach to the chronological development of a Late Bronze Age lakeside settlement in the northern Circum-Alpine Region

2012 ◽  
Vol 12 (1) ◽  
pp. 58-85 ◽  
Author(s):  
Philipp Wiemann ◽  
Marlu Kühn ◽  
Annekäthi Heitz-Weniger ◽  
Barbara Stopp ◽  
Benjamin Jennings ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Bronze Age ◽  
Multidisciplinary Approach ◽  
Alpine Region ◽  
Late Bronze Age

scholarly journals Ceramics as indicators of Late Bronze Age environments at Zürich-Alpenquai (Switzerland)

2015 ◽  
Vol 1 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Benjamin R Jennings
Keyword(s):  
Spatial Distribution ◽  
Bronze Age ◽  
Environmental Conditions ◽  
Environmental Studies ◽  
Alpine Region ◽  
Late Bronze Age ◽  
Settlement Abandonment ◽  
Post Deposition ◽  
Organic Remains

AbstractLake-dwellings in the northern Alpine region are renowned for their extraordinary organic preservation. In addition to organic remains, thousands of ceramic sherds are also recovered. This paper addresses ceramic sherds from the Late Bronze Age site Zürich-Alpenquai, and assesses over 2000 sherds for indications of erosion and abrasion in addition to quantifying sherd size and plotting the spatial distribution of these factors. Recording such wear patterns can provide indications of deposition practices in addition to environmental conditions pre- and post-deposition. In this manner the study of ceramic remains from wetland sites for abrasion can complement environmental studies addressing conditions at the time of artefact deposition, and contribute to discussions of influences for lake-settlement abandonment.

scholarly journals Diet, Cooking and Cosmology - Interpreting the Evidence from Bronze Age Plant Macro fossils

2021 ◽  
Vol 7 (1) ◽  
pp. 149-160
Author(s):  
Peter Skoglund
Keyword(s):  
Bronze Age ◽  
Daily Life ◽  
Late Bronze Age ◽  
Domestic Sphere ◽  
Naked Barley ◽  
Cooking Process ◽  
Hulled Barley

The aim of the article is to discuss how the composition of Bronze Age macrofossil samples reflects different aspects of daily life like diet and cooking. The article argues that the increasing weed content in the Late Bronze Age macrofossil samples should partly be regarded as a new resource that was used in the cooking process. The contemporaneous increase in hulled barley at the expense of naked barley and wheat, might reflect a diminished interest in baking leavened bread and a stronger preference for cooked cereal-based dishes. These changes in the domestic sphere should be regarded as intimately connected with changes in the Late Bronze Age cosmology, in particular with the development of the Urnfield culture.

The Concept of Palestine: The Conception Of Palestine from the Late Bronze Age to the Modern Period

2016 ◽  
Vol 15 (2) ◽  
pp. 143-202 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nur Masalha
Keyword(s):  
Bronze Age ◽  
Old Testament ◽  
Political Geography ◽  
Classical Antiquity ◽  
Late Bronze Age ◽  
Collective Consciousness ◽  
Ancient History ◽  
Master Narratives ◽  
The Bible ◽  
School History

The Concept of Palestine is deeply rooted in the collective consciousness of the indigenous people of Palestine and the multicultural ancient past. The name Palestine is the most commonly used from the Late Bronze Age (from 1300 BCE) onwards. The name Palestine is evident in countless histories, inscriptions, maps and coins from antiquity, medieval and modern Palestine. From the Late Bronze Age onwards the names used for the region, such as Djahi, Retenu and Cana'an, all gave way to the name Palestine. Throughout Classical Antiquity the name Palestine remained the most common and during the Roman, Byzantine and Islamic periods the concept and political geography of Palestine acquired official administrative status. This article sets out to explain the historical origins of the concept of Palestine and the evolving political geography of the country. It will seek to demonstrate how the name ‘Palestine’ (rather than the term ‘Cana'an’) was most commonly and formally used in ancient history. It argues that the legend of the ‘Israelites’ conquest of Cana'an’ and other master narratives of the Bible evolved across many centuries; they are myth-narratives, not evidence-based accurate history. It further argues that academic and school history curricula should be based on historical facts/empirical evidence/archaeological discoveries – not on master narratives or Old Testament sacred-history and religio-ideological constructs.

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