The Early Bronze Age stone figurines from Akrotiri on Thera and their significance for the Early Cycladic settlement

1998 ◽  
Vol 93 ◽  
pp. 107-165
Author(s):  
Panayiota Sotirakopoulou
Keyword(s):  
Bronze Age ◽  
Early Bronze Age ◽  
The Third ◽  
Wide Range ◽  
Third Millennium ◽  
Third Millennium Bc

The recent excavations at Akrotiri on Thera have brought to light 21 new EC figurines which, taken together with those already known or completely unknown, raise the number of EC figurines from the site of 37. The Akrotiri figurines comprise a wide range of types, both schematic and naturalistic, covering almost the whole of the known EC sculptural repertoire and also introduce types which are entirely new. Thus they constitute a significant body of evidence, for the following reasons: first, because they show unmistakably the importance of the settlement at Akrotiri already in the third millennium BC; second, because, by contrast with most EC figurines, they come from a systematic excavation; and third, because, including types and showing features up until now rarely seen or even completely unknown in the Cyclades and the Aegean, they enrich our knowledge of EC figurative sculpture and offer us the possibility of drawing a number of inferences.

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.

Excess in precipitation as a cause for settlement decline along the Israeli coastal plain during the third millennium BC

2007 ◽  
Vol 68 (1) ◽  
pp. 37-44 ◽  
Author(s):  
Avraham Faust ◽  
Yosef Ashkenazy
Keyword(s):  
Environmental Change ◽  
Bronze Age ◽  
Coastal Plain ◽  
Arable Land ◽  
Early Bronze Age ◽  
Human Settlement ◽  
The Third ◽  
Arid Conditions ◽  
Third Millennium ◽  
Third Millennium Bc

AbstractAlthough the relations between climate and settlement are not straightforward, there is a general agreement that arid conditions are less favorable for human settlement in the semiarid Near East than humid conditions. Here we show that humid conditions resulted in the abandonment of settlements along the Israeli coastal plain. We first present archaeological evidence for a drastic decline in settlement along the Israeli coast during most of the third millennium BC (Early Bronze Age II–III). Then, based on archaeological and climatic evidence, we link this decline to an environmental change occurring at that time. We propose that increased precipitation intensified the already existing drainage problems and resulted in flooding, which led to the transformation of arable land into marshes and to the spread of diseases, gradually causing settlement decline and abandonment.

ВОПРОСЫ АБСОЛЮТНОЙ ХРОНОЛОГИИ ЭПОХИ РАННЕЙ БРОНЗЫ СЕВЕРНОГО КАВКАЗА

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
A. Rezepkin ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Bronze Age ◽  
Early Bronze Age ◽  
North Caucasus ◽  
The Third ◽  
The North ◽  
Third Millennium ◽  
Third Millennium Bc ◽  
Points Of View ◽  
Archaeological Analysis ◽  
Two Peaks

There are two points of view on the absolute chronology of the Early Bronze Age of the North Caucasus: this era occupies the entire of the fourth millennium and the beginning of the third millennium BC, or only the second half of the fourth millennium and the beginning of the third millennium BC. Collected 102 dates and statistically processed. We managed to identify two peaks (concentrations) of dates. In the future, these peaks will be subjected to their own archaeological analysis.

Restoring the balance: an Early Bronze Age scale beam from Tell Fadous-Kfarabida, Lebanon

Antiquity ◽  
2011 ◽  
Vol 85 (329) ◽  
pp. 839-850 ◽  
Author(s):  
Hermann Genz
Keyword(s):  
Bronze Age ◽  
Early Bronze Age ◽  
Faunal Assemblages ◽  
Economic Complexity ◽  
The People ◽  
Third Millennium ◽  
Third Millennium Bc ◽  
Small Bone

The author reports an object of modest appearance but great significance — a small bone beam for weighing precious commodities. Weighing indicates the regulation of quantities for exchange or manufacture and is thus a key agent of social and economic complexity. Well-stratified and dated to the early third millennium BC, this find puts the people of the Levant among the earliest to quantify mass. We are rightly urged to inspect faunal assemblages for similarly subtle modifications of bones.

The Early Bronze Age in Southeastern Anatolia

2012 ◽  
Author(s):  
A. Tuba Ökse
Keyword(s):  
Bronze Age ◽  
Early Bronze Age ◽  
The Third ◽  
Third Millennium ◽  
Third Millennium Bce

This article presents data on the Early Bronze Age (EBA) of southeastern Anatolia. The EBA chronology of southeastern Anatolia is parallel to northern Syrian chronologies. The traditional EBA I-III chronology of Anatolia is based on the Tarsus sequence and the EBA I-IV chronology of northwestern Syria on the Amuq and Tell Mardikh sequences. The distribution of ceramic groups and special vessel types reflects geographical and chronological differences throughout the third millennium BCE. The relative chronologies of geographical zones and individual periods are based mainly on ceramic distributions; absolute dates obtained from radiocarbon analyses are rare.

The seasonal cycle of grassland use in the Caspian Sea steppe during the Bronze Age: A new approach to an old problem

2001 ◽  
Vol 4 (3) ◽  
pp. 346-366 ◽  
Author(s):  
Natalia I. Shishlina
Keyword(s):  
Bronze Age ◽  
The Caspian Sea ◽  
The Third ◽  
Eurasian Steppe ◽  
Local Environments ◽  
Third Millennium ◽  
Third Millennium Bc ◽  
Definition Of ◽  
The Bronze Age ◽  
Seasonal Data

This article is devoted to the understanding of the importance of seasonal use of grasslands in the occupation of the Eurasian steppe during the Bronze Age. The pilot section of the research is Kalmykia – a steppe situated between the lower Volga and the Don rivers. We have to look at specific strategies of using local environments, river valleys, upland plateaux, and open steppe lands. During the third millennium BC, pastoralists of the Yamnaya and Catacomb cultures began to exploit the Eurasian steppe grasslands and they had to take advantage of the seasonal variation in steppe vegetation to create a sustainable economy. Seasonal use of grasslands became the main feature of the definition of pastoralism. This is the first time that early steppe materials have been analysed for seasonal data. On the basis of a combination of the seasonal data, settlement data and recent chronological information, a preliminary reconstruction is presented of two contrasting periods of land use for the third millennium BC.

Early iron metallurgy in Anatolia

1999 ◽  
Vol 49 ◽  
pp. 177-187 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ünsal Yalçın
Keyword(s):  
Bronze Age ◽  
Iron Age ◽  
Pure Iron ◽  
Near East ◽  
The Third ◽  
Third Millennium ◽  
Third Millennium Bc

The beginning of the Iron Age is generally dated to the last quarter of the second millennium BC in Anatolia and the Near East. The development of iron metallurgy allowed many tools and weapons to be produced in this period. The earliest iron finds, which are not more than a dozen, occur in the third millennium BC in Anatolia (Waldbaum 1980 discusses these early finds). Considering that pure iron occurs rarely in nature, the most important question is: what were these objects made of? Preliminary analyses of a few Bronze Age finds show that some of them contain nickel. Because of this it is generally accepted and frequently cited that these finds were made of meteoric iron.

The Hafit/Umm an-Nar Transition of the Third Millennium BC

2019 ◽  
pp. 76-107
Author(s):  
Kimberly D. Williams ◽  
Lesley A. Gregoricka
Keyword(s):  
Temporal Variation ◽  
Bronze Age ◽  
Recent Survey ◽  
Archaeological Record ◽  
Sultanate Of Oman ◽  
The Third ◽  
Third Millennium ◽  
Third Millennium Bc ◽  
Nomadic Communities ◽  
Oman Peninsula

The shift between Hafit (ca. 3100–2700 BC) and Umm an-Nar (ca. 2700–2000 BC) mortuary traditions on the Oman Peninsula is poorly understood, primarily because the semi-nomadic communities of this liminal period left little to the archaeological record, with the exception of monumental tombs. Because of the ambiguity surrounding this transition, tombs from this time are typically classified as either ‘Hafit’ or ‘Umm an-Nar’ without regard for the considerable geographic and temporal variation in tomb structure and membership throughout southeastern Arabia. Recent survey and excavation of a Bronze Age necropolis at Al Khubayb in the Sultanate of Oman have revealed Transitional tombs that—far from exhibiting a simplified dichotomy—represent a blurring of the traditionally discrete boundaries dividing the Hafit and Umm an-Nar periods. Bioarchaeological analyses of tombs at Al Khubayb further enable researchers to make a distinction between tomb types and elucidate the process by which mortuary treatments changed. Over the late fourth and into the early third millennium BC, these entombment practices changed from (a) relatively small, roughly-hewn limestone tombs known as Hafit-type cairns to (b) Transitional tombs displaying features intermediary to both Hafit and Umm an-Nar period mortuary structures to (c) large, expertly-constructed Umm an-Nar communal tombs.

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