Excavations at a Neolithic Causewayed Enclosure, Orsett, Essex, 1975

1978 ◽  
Vol 44 ◽  
pp. 219-308 ◽  
Author(s):  
John Hedges ◽  
David Buckley ◽  
C. Bonsall ◽  
I. A. Kinnes ◽  
J. C. Barrett ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Bronze Age ◽  
Iron Age ◽  
The State ◽  
Early Bronze Age ◽  
Early Iron Age ◽  
Late Neolithic ◽  
Rectangular Enclosure ◽  
Middle Iron Age ◽  
Post Hole ◽  
Hole Structure

SummaryThe Causewayed Enclosure at Orsett, Essex, was trial trenched in 1975 to determine the state of site preservation and confirm its postulated Neolithic date and site sequence. The enclosure consisted of three incomplete circuits of discontinuous ditch with an associated timber palisade slot lying inside and concentric to the middle ditch. Within the interior was an oval post hole structure of a contemporary date. Quantities of Mildenhall style pottery and flint artifacts of the mid third millennium b.c. were recovered from the primary ditch silts and other features. A small quantity of Late Neolithic/Early Bronze Age wares came from the secondary ditch silts and the interior.Later phases on the site were represented by unenclosed Early Iron Age occupation, a Middle Iron Age sub-rectangular enclosure and Saxon ring-ditch burials.

Hot Stone Technology at Bucklers Park, Crowthorne, Berkshire: The Use and Re-use of a Persistent Place During the Bronze and Iron Ages

2021 ◽  
pp. 1-30
Author(s):  
Helen Chittock ◽  
Robert Masefield ◽  
Enid Allison ◽  
Anne Crone ◽  
Derek Hamilton ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Bronze Age ◽  
Iron Age ◽  
Organic Material ◽  
Remote Area ◽  
Early Bronze Age ◽  
Early Iron Age ◽  
Middle Bronze Age ◽  
Middle Iron Age

Archaeological investigations at Bucklers Park in Crowthorne have revealed a window onto a significant later prehistoric place, which was used and revisited over 1700 years between the Early Bronze Age and later Iron Age (c. 1800–100 bc). Activity on site was based around the heating of water using fire-heated flint, producing three mounds of fire-cracked flint and burnt organic material. These ‘burnt mounds’ are known across later prehistoric Britain and Ireland, but the ways they may have been formed are uncertain, and they are arguably under-discussed in southern Britain. Whilst water was initially drawn from a stream, a series of wells were established at the site between the Middle Bronze Age and Early Iron Age, one of which contained a well-preserved log ladder. These wells were revisited and recut over long periods of time and during the Middle Iron Age the site’s function shifted dramatically when a roundhouse was constructed. The long-term use of the site, its excellent organic preservation, dating, and its location in a remote area on the Bagshot Heath, make it significant. This paper summarises the findings from the excavations, discussing the formation of the site in the context of wider research on later prehistoric burnt mounds.

Two North-West Suffolk Floors

1915 ◽  
Vol 2 (1) ◽  
pp. 39-41
Author(s):  
W. G. Clarke
Keyword(s):  
Bronze Age ◽  
Iron Age ◽  
Land Surface ◽  
Early Bronze Age ◽  
Early Iron Age ◽  
Late Neolithic ◽  
North West ◽  
Neolithic Age ◽  
Dry Valley ◽  
Rectangular Notch

In July last I discovered two “floors” or occupation-levels in North-West Suffolk, one of Neolithic age on Foxhole Heath, Eriswell, and the other of Early Iron age on Barnham Common, Thetford. The former was on the N.W. slope of a dry valley, about a mile in length, connected with a tongue of the fenland, and just below the 50 ft. contour. The thin layer of black earth which marked the land surface on which the Neolithic people lived and made their implements was covered by two or three feet of sand, almost stoneless and apparently wind-drifted. Some of this had been washed away, leaving a dark surface on which were potboilers, pottery, numerous cores, flakes and chips, and about thirty flint implements. The potsherds were kindly examined by Mr. A. G. Wright, who reported that it was difficult to date them, as that kind of ware lasted from Bronze Age to late Roman times. A small piece of red ware, with square or rectangular notch ornament, was evidently part of a beaker of Late Neolithic or Early Bronze Age. Beakers are usually found with inhumation burials, and are the earliest of the sepulchral types in this country.

The bronze headbands of Prehistoric Lofkënd and their Aegean and Balkan connections

2010 ◽  
Vol 3 ◽  
pp. 33-54 ◽  
Author(s):  
John K. Papadopoulos
Keyword(s):  
Bronze Age ◽  
Iron Age ◽  
Early Period ◽  
Early Bronze Age ◽  
Early Iron Age ◽  
Southeast Europe ◽  
Young Females ◽  
The Many ◽  
Votive Offerings

This paper begins with an overview of the bronze headbands from the prehistoric (Late Bronze to Early Iron Age) burial tumulus of Lofkënd in Albania, which were found among the richest tombs of the cemetery, all of them of young females or children. It is argued that these individuals represent a class of the special dead, those who have not attained a critical rite de passage: marriage. In their funerary attire these individuals go to the grave as brides, married to death. The significance of the Lofkënd headbands is reviewed, as is their shape and decoration, but it is their context that contributes to a better understanding of Aegean examples, including the many bronze, gold, and silver headbands found in tombs from the Early Bronze Age through the Early Iron Age, as well as those dedicated as votive offerings in sanctuaries. In addition to discussing the evidence for headbands in the Aegean and much of southeast Europe, this paper also attempts to uncover the word used in this early period in Greece for these distinctive items of personal ornament. In memory of Berit Wells.

Excavations at Stackpole Warren, Dyfed

1990 ◽  
Vol 56 ◽  
pp. 179-245 ◽  
Author(s):  
D. G. Benson ◽  
J. G. Evans ◽  
G. H. Williams ◽  
T. Darvill ◽  
A. David ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Bronze Age ◽  
Iron Age ◽  
Soil Formation ◽  
Environmental Data ◽  
Early Bronze Age ◽  
Age Group ◽  
Late Neolithic ◽  
Field System ◽  
Cereal Grain ◽  
Ceramic Assemblages

Excavations of sites spanning the Beaker to early Roman periods at Stackpole Warren, Dyfed, are described. The sites are in an area of blown sand which enhanced their preservation and led to the separation of several horizons. The earliest is a buried soil beneath the blown sand which contained Mesolithic to Bronze Age artefacts. At site A, there was a roundhouse associated with Early Bronze Age pottery and dated to 1620±70 and 1400±70 BC uncal., and two other roundhouses, one possibly of Beaker age. After a period of soil formation, a ritual complex of Later Bronze Age date was established, this contemporary with the earliest besanding of the area; it included a stone setting of more than 2000 small stones, an alignment of small water-worn stones and a standing stone. A cremation gave a latest date of 940±70 BC uncal. Other Later Bronze Age activity is recorded at site G/J in the form of a rectangular enclosure, possibly unfinished.Late Iron Age to early Romano-British settlement was present at sites A and B, consisting of scatters of occupation debris, burnt mounds, cooking pits, hearths and houses, some of stone, some of timber, all taking place in an area being intermittently besanded.Peripheral to the religious and domestic sites, a field system was excavated. The earliest phase was a linear earthwork from which a C14 date of 400±70 BC uncal. was obtained from charcoal in the ditch. After the decay of this, rectangular fields with stone walls were laid out, one along the line of the erstwhile earthwork, this taking place around the end of the Iron Age as dated by C14 of charcoal directly beneath a wall to 90±70 BC uncal. Some of the fields had been cultivated by a succession of cross- and one-way-ploughing, others used for cattle.An assemblage of 763 flints included a few Mesolithic artefacts but was mostly of Late Neolithic and Bronze Age date. A succession of ceramic assemblages included a small Middle Neolithic group (4 vessels), two distinct Beaker groups, one early (Lanting and van der Waals steps 1–3 (8 vessels), one late (steps 3–6) (45 vessels), an Early Bronze Age group of collared urns (43 vessels) and a Later Bronze Age group (26 vessels).Environmental data was not prolific but there was a small quantity of animal bone, mostly cattle and sheep, and cereal grain, mostly barley with some wheat. Marine molluscs were present but sparsely utilized and there was no other indication of the exploitation of the coastal resources such as seals, birds, fish andiseaweed. Land Mollusca indicated open country from the Iron Age onwards when the record begins.The importance of the site is in the ritual complex from site A, the succession of Iron Age/Romano-British occupation horizons, the succession of ceramic assemblages, the field system and the fact that blown sand horizons have allowed the preservation and separation of the sequence much of which would have been at best conflated in to a single horizon or at worst destroyed. Otherwise, there is no evidence that the site was in any way special with regard to the relationship of human activity and sand deposition until the Middle Ages when the area was used as a rabbit warren. Nor was the coastal location important, at least as could be determined by the results. This was a representative of a succession of later prehistoric farming communities and their various domestic, ritual and sepulchral activities in lowland Dyfed.

scholarly journals Fossilized fashion and social sparkle. Dutch Bronze Age bracelets in context

2021 ◽  
pp. 43-110
Author(s):  
S. Arnoldussen ◽  
H. Steegstra
Keyword(s):  
The Netherlands ◽  
Bronze Age ◽  
Iron Age ◽  
Late Neolithic ◽  
Contact Networks ◽  
Middle Iron Age

This contribution deals with the bronze bracelets found in the Netherlands that are datable between the Late Neolithic and the Middle Iron Age (n=176). We study their context (hoards, funerary contexts, settlements and stray finds), and we relate the specifics of their form and decoration to regional and supraregional traditions. First, we study their role as social signifiers (in reconstructions) of prehistoric identities across those scales, discussing how particular Bronze Age ‘costumes’ or ‘ornament sets’ may have been kept from graves and deposited in alternate ways. Then, we study later prehistoric arm-rings for their potential to indicate the scale, orientation and longevity of supraregional contact networks into which the later prehistoric communities of the Netherlands were integrated.

Курган ямной культуры на южном берегу р. Егорлык

2020 ◽  
pp. 10-31
Author(s):  
Erdni A. Kekeev ◽  
◽  
Maria A. Ochir-Goryaeva ◽  
Evgeny G. Burataev ◽  
◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Bronze Age ◽  
Iron Age ◽  
Transition Period ◽  
Early Bronze Age ◽  
Early Iron Age ◽  
Eastern Slope ◽  
The North ◽  
North Eastern ◽  
Excavation Work ◽  
The Bronze Age

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.

The Collfryn Hillslope Enclosure, Llansantffraid Deuddwr, Powys: Excavations 1980–1982

1989 ◽  
Vol 55 (1) ◽  
pp. 89-134 ◽  
Author(s):  
William Britnell ◽  
Jenny Britnell ◽  
Timothy C. Darvill ◽  
Stephen Greep ◽  
Elizabeth Healey ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Bronze Age ◽  
Iron Age ◽  
Large Scale ◽  
Extended Family ◽  
Early Bronze Age ◽  
Small Scale ◽  
Drainage Ditches ◽  
Late Neolithic ◽  
15Th Century ◽  
High Social Status

The report on partial rescue excavations of the Collfryn enclosure between 1980–82 presents a summary of the first large-scale investigation of one of the numerous semi-defensive cropmark and earthwork enclosure sites in the upper Severn valley in mid-Wales. Earlier prehistoric activity of an ephemeral nature is represented by a scattering of Mesolithic and Late Neolithic or early Bronze Age flintwork, and by a pit containing sherds of several different Beaker vessels. The first enclosed settlement, constructed in about the 3rd century bc probably consisted of three widely-spaced concentric ditches, associated with banks of simple dump construction, having a single gated entranceway on the downhill side. It covered an area of about 2.5 ha and appears to have been of a relatively high social status, and appropriate in size for a single extended-family group. This was subsequently reduced in about the 1st century bc to a double-ditched enclosure, by the recutting of the original inner ditch and the cutting of a new ditch immediately outside it. The habitation area between the 3rd and 1st centuries bc probably focused on timber buildings in the central enclosure of about 0.4 ha, whose gradually evolving pattern appears to have comprised between 3–4 roundhouses and 4–5 four-posters at any one time. Little excavation was undertaken between the outer ditches of the first phase settlement, but these are assumed to have been used as stock enclosures. A mixed farming economy is suggested by cattle, sheep/goat and pig remains, and remains of glume wheats, barley and oats. Industries included small-scale iron and bronze-working. The Iron Age settlement was essentially aceramic, although there are significant quantities of a coarse, oxidized ceramic probably representing salt traded from production centres in the Cheshire Plain. The entranceway was remodelled in about the late 1st or early 2nd, century AD by means of a timber-lined passage linked to a new gate on the line of the inner bank. There is equivocal evidence of continued occupation within the inner enclosure continuing until at least the mid-4th century AD, possibly at a comparatively low social level, associated with domestic structures of uncertain form sited on earlier roundhouse platforms, and including some four-posters and possible six-posters. Drainage ditches were dug across parts of the site during the Medieval and post-Medieval periods, which were associated with various structures, including a corn-drying kiln inserted into the inner enclosure bank in the 15th century.

The Iron Age Enclosures and Prehistoric Landscape of Sutton Common, South Yorkshire

1997 ◽  
Vol 63 ◽  
pp. 221-259 ◽  
Author(s):  
M. Parker Pearson ◽  
R.E. Sydes ◽  
S. Boardman ◽  
B. Brayshay ◽  
P.C. Buckland ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Bronze Age ◽  
Iron Age ◽  
Small Scale ◽  
Early Iron Age ◽  
Late Neolithic ◽  
Archaeological Data ◽  
Plant Remains ◽  
Archaeological Materials ◽  
Middle Bronze Age

The Early Iron Age enclosures and associated sites on Sutton Common on the western edge of the Humberhead Levels contain an exceptional variety of archaeological data of importance not only to the region but for the study of later prehistory in the British Isles. Few other later prehistoric British sites outside the East Anglian fens and the Somerset Levels have thus far produced the quantity and quality of organically preserved archaeological materials that have been found, despite the small scale of the investigations to date. The excavations have provided an opportunity to integrate a variety of environmental analyses, of wood, pollen, beetles, waterlogged and carbonised plant remains, and of soil micromorphology, to address archaeological questions about the character, use, and environment of this Early Iron Age marsh fort. The site is comprised of a timber palisaded enclosure and a succeeding multivallate enclosure linked to a smaller enclosure by a timber alignment across a palaeochannel, with associated finds ranging in date from the Middle Bronze Age to the Roman and medieval periods. Among the four adjacent archaeological sites is an Early Mesolithic occupation site, also with organic preservation, and there is a Late Neolithic site beneath the large enclosure. Desiccation throughout the common is leading to the damage and loss of wooden and organic remains. It is hoped that the publication of these results, of investigations between 1987 and 1993, will lead to a fuller investigation taking place.

Cairnpapple Revisited: 1948–1998

1999 ◽  
Vol 65 ◽  
pp. 17-46 ◽  
Author(s):  
Gordon J. Barclay
Keyword(s):  
Bronze Age ◽  
Iron Age ◽  
Phase 1 ◽  
Early Iron Age ◽  
Late Bronze Age ◽  
Phase 2 ◽  
Late Neolithic ◽  
Phase 3 ◽  
Early Christian ◽  
Middle Bronze Age

It is 50 years since Stuart Piggott excavated the prehistoric complex at Cairnpapple. At that time there were few excavated parallels in Scotland, and interpretation inevitably relied heavily on sites excavated in southern Britain. Much more locally relevant data are now available and the sequence at Cairnpapple can now be reassessed its regional context.Piggott identified five Periods, commencing with a stone setting, ‘cove’ and cremation cemetery of ‘Late Neolithic date’ around ‘c. 2500 B.C.’. Period II was a henge monument, consisting of a ‘circle’ of standing stones with ceremonial burials in association, and an encircling ditch with external bank – ‘Of Beaker date, probably c. 1700 B.C.’ Period III comprised the primary cairn, containing two cist-burials ‘Of Middle Bronze Age date, probably c. 1500 B.C.’ Period IV involved the doubling of the size of the cairn, with two cremated burials in inverted cinerary urns. ‘Of final Middle Bronze Age or native Late Bronze Age date, probably c. 1000 B.C.’ Period V comprised four graves ‘possibly Early Iron Age within the first couple of centuries A.D.’The present paper, using comparable material from elsewhere in Scotland, argues for a revised phasing: Phase 1, comprises the deposition of earlier Neolithic plain bowl sherds and axehead fragments with a series of hearths. This is comparable to ‘structured deposition’ noted on other sites of this period. Phase 2 involved the construction of the henge – a setting of 24 uprights – probably of timber rather than stone, probably followed by the encircling henge ditch and bank. The ‘cove’ is discussed in the context of comparable features in Scotland. Phase 3 saw the construction of a series of graves, including the monumental ‘North Grave’, which was probably encased in a cairn. Piggott's ‘Period III’ cairn was then built, followed by the ‘Period IV’ cairn. The urn burials seem likely to have been inserted into the surface of this mound, which may have covered a burial (since disturbed) on the top of the Period III mound, or may have been a deliberate monumentalising of it. The four graves identified as Iron Age by Piggott seem more likely to be from the early Christian period.The reassessment of Piggott's report emphasises the value of the writing of a clear, and sufficiently detailed account. While no report can be wholly objective it can be seen that Piggott's striving for objectivity led him to write a paper that is of lasting value.

scholarly journals Obred spaljivanja pokojnika u prapovijesti sjeverne Dalmacije

2009 ◽  
Vol 3 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Sineva Kukoč
Keyword(s):  
Bronze Age ◽  
Iron Age ◽  
Early Bronze Age ◽  
Early Iron Age ◽  
Burial Mound ◽  
New Information ◽  
Cultural Systems ◽  
Ceramic Vessels ◽  
Middle Bronze Age ◽  
Detailed Interpretation

In the northern Dalmatia region where there were only two cultural systems throughout the Bronze and Iron Ages, four moments are crucial in the use of cremation ritual during the 2nd/1st centuries BC: in the Early Bronze Age (Cetina culture: Ervenik, Podvršje − Matakov brig, Nadin, Krneza − Duševića glavica), in the Early Iron Age (Nadin, mound 13, Krneza − Jokina glavica), in Hellenism (Dragišić, gr. 4 A-C), and finally, for the first time very intensively during the Romanization of Liburnians. Newly discovered cremations in ceramic urns (gr. 3, 13) in burial mound 13 (9th – 6th cent. BC) from Nadin near Benkovac are the first example (after Dragišić) of Liburnian cremation; more precisely, burial mound 13 with 19 graves represents a form of biritualism in the Liburnians. It is also an example of the greatest number of Liburnian burials under a mound, with crouched, extended and cremated skeletons and many ritual remains (traces of fire on the ground and on animal bones: funerary feast?; numerous remains of ceramic vessels (libation?). Although typical Liburnian burial "inherits" many formal and symbolic elements (stone cist, enclosing wall, libation, etc.) from the (Early) Bronze Age (and probably Eneolithic as well), cremation in the Liburnian burial mound 13 from Nadin cannot be explained in terms of continuity from the Early Bronze Age; links are missing, particularly those from the Middle Bronze Age in the study of the cultural dynamics of the 2nd millennium BC in the northern Dalmatia region. Squat form of the Nadin urns with a distinct neck has analogies in the Liburnian (Nin) and Daunian funerary pots for burying newborns (ad encytrismos), and also in the typology of pottery (undecorated or decorated) in a wider region (Ruše, V.Gorica, Dalj/Vukovar, Terni II, Este, Bologna I-II, Roma II, Cumae I, Pontecagnano IA, Histrians, etc.), i.e. in the forms widespread from the Danubian region, Alps, and Balkans to the Apennine Peninsula between the Late Bronze and Early Iron Ages (10th/9th – 8th cent. BC). Although appearance of cremation in the Picenian culture has not been completely clear (Fermo necropolis, burials from Ancona, Numana, Novilara: graves Servici, 29, 39 from Piceno II-III, from the 8th/7th.cent. BC), Liburnian culture is most similar to the Picenian culture in the Adriatic world by the intensity and period of cremation, and form of urns. Specifically, decorated urn in a male grave 52 from Numana from the 9th century BC is analogous to the Nadin urns. This grave from Numana is usually mentioned as an example of trans-Adriatic, Picenian-Liburnian (Balkanic) i.e. Picenian-Histrian relations. Liburnian urns are similar to the urn from the grave in Numana, 495, Davanzali, from the late 9th century by their profilation. "Genesis" of both Liburnian and Picenian cremation is unknown. They are two convergent phenomena, reflecting the "unity" of the late Urnenfelder world of the 10th/9th centuries BC and resulting from cultural-ethnical contacts in a "closed circle" from the Danubian region – southeastern Alpine region – Apennine Peninsula, supported by smaller migrations in the first centuries of the Iron Age, from the trans-Adriatic direction in Picenum (with definite Villanova influence), and in Liburnia probably from the hinterland. In this Adriatic circle in the first centuries of the Iron Age multiple cultural contacts between Liburnians, Histrians and Picenians are for now a good (initial) context for a more detailed interpretation of Liburnian cremation. Despite the aforementioned, it is not necessary to relate directly the structure (ritual, goods) of gr. 52, Numana – Qualiotti to Histrian patterns nor the grave 495, Numana-Davanzali to the Iapodian ones. Cremated Liburnian burial from the Early Iron Age represents a certain continuity and a "reflection" of the late Urnenfelder circle, which was manifested in different ways in the beginnings of the Liburnian, Picenian, and Histrian cultures and elsewhere. The latest excavations on a planned Liburnian-Roman necropolis in Nadin (Nedinum) provided us with new information about the spatial, chronological and symbolical relation (religious, social) between the autochtonous Liburnian and Roman component in the period of Romanization of northern Dalmatia.

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