The Inception of the Iron Age in Temperate Europe

1976 ◽  
Vol 42 ◽  
pp. 1-14 ◽  
Author(s):  
T. G. E. Powell
Keyword(s):  
Iron Age ◽  
Asia Minor ◽  
The Black Sea ◽  
Heavy Duty ◽  
Iron Industry ◽  
Substantial Evidence ◽  
Major Step ◽  
Iron Smelting ◽  
Temperate Europe ◽  
The Alps

The first appearance of iron in Europe north of the Alps involves more than one story, and much, often ambiguous, evidence. It will be necessary to draw on Greece and Italy more than once in due course, but attention in the present state of enquiry should first be given to the region of the lower Danube, and territory stretching south along the Black Sea to the Bosphorus. This is not because of any abstract deductions that Thrace should form a necessary spring-board from Asia Minor into the depths of Europe, but because material is now coming to light that calls for special consideration on its own merits. A major step forward has resulted from excavations at stratified sites in the Dobrogea, in particular at Babadag (Morintz 1964), and at Cernatu (Székely 1966), and from the latter especially there is substantial evidence for iron smelting as well as forged products: iron strips as ready metal, but also shaft-hole and lugged axes, and blades for sickles, and other heavy duty tools. The chronological position of this iron industry remains open to discussion, and is bound up with evaluations of the pottery sequence especially as worked out at Babadag. The iron industry occurred in a level with pottery of the Middle Babadag style at both sites mentioned. Middle Babadag pottery continues shapes and motifs of the Early style, but decoration is executed with twisted and impressed cord, apparently a regional development.

Introduction

2020 ◽  
pp. 1-6
Author(s):  
Duane W. Roller
Keyword(s):  
Black Sea ◽  
Classical Antiquity ◽  
Asia Minor ◽  
The Black Sea ◽  
Alexander The Great ◽  
Greco Roman ◽  
Black Sea Coast ◽  
The Alps ◽  
South Shore ◽  
Sea Coast

In early 63 BC, Mithridates the Great, king of Pontos, who ruled a territory that included most of the Black Sea coast, was in residence at his palace at Pantikapaion, just north of the sea. For thirty years he had been fighting the Romans for dominance in Asia Minor and beyond, and although he had won numerous victories, the overall trajectory was one of steady defeat for the king as Roman power spread to the east. He had been forced to abandon his traditional capital of Sinope, on the south shore of the sea, and retreat to the farthest corner of his kingdom at Pantikapaion, one of the most remote cities of the Greco-Roman world, where winters were unimaginably cold and the barbarian threat was ever present. Many of his allies and much of his family had abandoned him. Although he planned an invasion of Italy by going up the Danube and south through the Alps, imitating his famous predecessor Hannibal, he devoted most of his time to botany and pharmacology, in the long-standing tradition of scholarly royalty. But eventually he realized that he had no other options, and thus asked a bodyguard to kill him. Thus ended the career of one of the most remarkable leaders of classical antiquity, the man whom his younger contemporary Cicero called “the greatest king since Alexander [the Great].”...

From Bronze Age to Iron Age: Middle Europe, Italy, and the North and West

1948 ◽  
Vol 14 ◽  
pp. 196-218 ◽  
Author(s):  
C. F. C. Hawkes
Keyword(s):  
Bronze Age ◽  
Iron Age ◽  
Near East ◽  
Early Iron Age ◽  
The North ◽  
Starting Point ◽  
Middle Europe ◽  
Temperate Europe ◽  
The Alps

This paper is intended as a sequel, reaching into the Early Iron Age, to the preceding one by Professor Childe on ‘The Final Bronze Age in the Near East and in Temperate Europe.’ When he and I were invited to prepare these papers first, as addresses to the Prehistoric Society's Conference in London in April 1948, we purposely agreed to do most of our work on them separately, he approaching the problem of the European Bronze—Iron Age transition from its Bronze Age end, and I from its Iron Age end. But now, through his kindness, I am writing with his paper in its final form before me; and I want therefore to begin by considering what he has written, in order to fit my contribution squarely into his. I shall then turn to Italy, and to its relations with Europe beyond the Alps and with Greece and the Orient, and so approach the Hallstatt question and the Final Bronze Ages of the North and West, upon which the Iron Age, in due time, supervened. I am most grateful to Childe for his approval to this course; and his paper is truly so important, that I cannot but make it the starting-point for mine.

Trapezountian Pontic Greek in Etoloakarnania

2020 ◽  
pp. 1-13
Author(s):  
Spyros Armostis ◽  
Louiza Voniati ◽  
Konstantinos Drosos ◽  
Dionysios Tafiadis
Keyword(s):  
20Th Century ◽  
Black Sea ◽  
Second Generation ◽  
Native Speakers ◽  
Asia Minor ◽  
The Black Sea ◽  
Historical Reconstruction ◽  
Standard Term ◽  
The One

The variety described here is Pontic Greek (ISO 639 name: pnt), and specifically the variety that originates from Trapezounta in Asia Minor (present-day Trabzon in Turkey) as spoken today in Etoloakarnania, Greece by second-generation refugees. The term ‘Pontic Greek’ (in Greek: ) was originally an etic term, while Pontians called their language by other names, mainly [ɾoˈmeika] ‘Romeika’ (Sitaridou 2016) but also [laziˈka] ‘Laz language’ (Drettas 1997: 19, 620), even though Pontians and Laz people do not share the same language, the latter being Caucasian. Nowadays, is the standard term used not only by researchers, but also by native speakers of Pontic Greek born in Greece to refer to their variety (but see Sitaridou 2013 for Romeyka in the Black Sea). Pontic Greek belongs to the Asia Minor Greek group along with other varieties, such as Cappadocian Greek (e.g. Horrocks 2010: 398–404; Sitaridou 2014: 31). According to Sitaridou (2014, 2016), on the basis of historical reconstruction, the Pontic branch of Asia Minor Greek is claimed to have been divided into two major dialectal groups: Pontic Greek as spoken by Christians until the 20th century in Turkey and Romeyka as spoken by Muslims to date in Turkey. Triantafyllidis (1938/1981: 288) divides Pontic varieties, as were spoken in Asia Minor, into three dialectal groups, namely Oinountian, Chaldiot, and Trapezountian, the latter consisting of the varieties that were spoken at Trapezounta, Kerasounta, Rizounta, Sourmena, Ofis, Livera, Tripolis, and Matsouka in Asia Minor (Trabzon, Giresun, Sürmene, Of, Yazlık, Tirebolu, and Maçka respectively in present-day Turkey). However, Triantafyllidis does not explain his criteria for this classification (Chatzissavidis 2012). According to one other classification (Papadopoulos 1955: 17–18; Papadopoulos 1958: $\upzeta$ ), the variety that was used in Trapezounta belongs to the dialectal group in which post-stressed /i/ and /u/ delete along other varieties, such as e.g. the ones that were spoken in Chaldia (present-day Gümüşhane), Sourmena, and Ofis (as opposed to the rest of Pontic varieties, such as the one of Kerasounta, in which those vowels are retained). Trapezountian Pontic Greek can also be classified with the group of varieties that retain word-final /n/, such as the varieties of Kerasounta and Chaldia, as opposed to the varieties that do not retain it, such as the ones of Oinoe (present-day Ünye) and (partially) Ofis (Papadopoulos 1958: θ).

The northern Black Sea and North Caucasus

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Valenina Mordvinceva ◽  
Sabine Reinhold
Keyword(s):  
Black Sea ◽  
Iron Age ◽  
Seventh Century ◽  
The Black Sea ◽  
North Caucasus ◽  
The North ◽  
Long Time ◽  
History Of ◽  
Northern Shore ◽  
Greek Colonization

This chapter surveys the Iron Age in the region extending from the western Black Sea to the North Caucasus. As in many parts of Europe, this was the first period in which written sources named peoples, places, and historical events. The Black Sea saw Greek colonization from the seventh century BC and its northern shore later became the homeland of the important Bosporan kingdom. For a long time, researchers sought to identify tribes named by authors such as Herodotus by archaeological means, but this ethno-deterministic perspective has come under critique. Publication of important new data from across the region now permits us to draw a more coherent picture of successive cultures and of interactions between different parts of this vast area, shedding new light both on local histories and on the role ‘The East’ played in the history of Iron Age Europe.

Edges and interactions beyond Europe

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Peter S. Wells ◽  
Naoise Mac Sweeney
Keyword(s):  
North America ◽  
Iron Age ◽  
North Atlantic ◽  
Cultural Practices ◽  
Raw Materials ◽  
Long Distance ◽  
The North ◽  
First Millennium ◽  
Temperate Europe ◽  
The North Atlantic

Iron Age Europe, once studied as a relatively closed, coherent continent, is being seen increasingly as a dynamic part of the much larger, interconnected world. Interactions, direct and indirect, with communities in Asia, Africa, and, by the end of the first millennium AD, North America, had significant effects on the peoples of Iron Age Europe. In the Near East and Egypt, and much later in the North Atlantic, the interactions can be linked directly to historically documented peoples and their rulers, while in temperate Europe the evidence is exclusively archaeological until the very end of the prehistoric Iron Age. The evidence attests to often long-distance interactions and their effects in regard to the movement of peoples, and the introduction into Europe of raw materials, crafted objects, styles, motifs, and cultural practices, as well as the ideas that accompanied them.

scholarly journals Understanding the Stability of Early Iron Age folks of South India with Special Reference to Krishna-Tungabhadra- Kaveri, Karnataka; Their Past-Present-Future

2014 ◽  
Vol 13 (4) ◽  
pp. 47
Author(s):  
Arjun R
Keyword(s):  
Iron Age ◽  
Large Scale ◽  
South India ◽  
Early Iron Age ◽  
Late Neolithic ◽  
Early Historic Period ◽  
Indigenous Development ◽  
Iron Smelting ◽  
The Stability ◽  
The Hill

There are about 1933 Early Iron Age Megalithic sites spread across South India. The Early Iron Age of South India is implicit either in the form of burial sites, habitation sites, habitation cum burial sites, Iron Age rock art sites, and isolated iron smelting localities near a habitation or burials. This paper is an attempt to take a rough computation of the potentiality of the labour, technology and quantity of artifact output that this cultural phase might have once had, in micro or in macro level. Considering the emergence of technology and its enormous output in Ceramics, Agriculture, Metallurgy and Building up Burials as industries by themselves, that has economic, ethnographic and socio-technique archaeological imprints. This helps in understanding two aspects: one, whether they were nomadic, semi settled or settled at one location; two, the Diffusion versus Indigenous development. A continuity of late Neolithic phase is seen into Early Iron Age and amalgamation of Early Iron Age with the Early Historic Period as evident in the sites like Maski, Brahmagiri, Sanganakallu, Tekkalakota, T-Narasipur. In few cases, Iron Age folks migrated from one location to the other and settled on the river banks in large scale like that in Hallur and Koppa. In rare cases, they preferred to climb up the hill and stay on the rocky flat surface for example Aihole and Hiere Bekal– sites which are located close to or on the banks of the river or its tributaries of Krishna-Tungabhadra- Kaveri.Keywords: Labour, Industry, Production, Megaliths, Nomadic, Semi Settled, Early Iron Age.

scholarly journals Assessment of weed establishment risk in a changing European climate

2012 ◽  
Vol 21 (4) ◽  
pp. 348-360 ◽  
Author(s):  
Terho Hyvönen ◽  
Miska Luoto ◽  
Pertti Uotila
Keyword(s):  
Explanatory Power ◽  
Climate Scenario ◽  
Amaranthus Retroflexus ◽  
Range Size ◽  
Weed Species ◽  
European Climate ◽  
Arable Weed ◽  
Temperate Europe ◽  
The Alps ◽  
Moderate Climate

We aimed at assessing establishment risk for 25 arable weed species in a changing European climate for the period 2051–2080. An increase (0.3–46.7%) in the range size was projected for the 14 species and a decrease (1.2–67.4%) for the 11 species in a future climate. The inclusion of the land use data increased the explanatory power of the models. The greatest increases in range sizes were projected for Amaranthus retroflexus, Papaver hybridum and Fumaria parviflora, and declines for Sinapis arvensis, Cerastium semidecandrum and Chenopodium rubrum. Application of a more severe climate scenario (HadCM3A2) affected decline (0.5–18.5%) for 12 species and increase (2.2–31.5%) for 13 species in the range size projections compared with the less severe (HadCM3B2) scenario. Both model scenarios projected high percentage species loss in Mediterranean and temperate Europe, but high species gain in the Alps, Carpathians and in boreal Europe. The results suggest that even under moderate climate scenarios drastic changes in the weed establishment risk can be expected to take place in Europe in the future.  

Iron in Anatolia and the Nature of the Hittite Iron Industry

1985 ◽  
Vol 35 ◽  
pp. 67-84 ◽  
Author(s):  
J. D. Muhly ◽  
R. Maddin ◽  
T. Stech ◽  
E. Özgen
Keyword(s):  
Bronze Age ◽  
Iron Age ◽  
Iron Ore ◽  
Late Bronze Age ◽  
Iron Industry ◽  
Human Race ◽  
Major Break ◽  
The Military ◽  
The Bronze Age ◽  
Great Invention

The development of the skills necessary for working in iron, making possible the transition from the Bronze Age to the Iron Age, has long been regarded as one of the major break-throughs in man's technological history. For Lewis Henry Morgan, writing in 1877, the smelting of iron ore was a development on a par with the domestication of animals (Morgan 1877:39):“The most advanced portion of the human race were halted, so to express it, at certain stages of progress, until some great invention or discovery, such as the domestication of animals or the smelting of iron ore, gave a new and powerful impulse forward.”The importance of the appearance of iron as a practical, utilitarian metal has usually been seen in terms of a military context. With iron it was possible to produce weapons not only superior to those of bronze but also much cheaper. These improvements made it possible to arm a large peasant infantry in order to challenge the military superiority of the chariot forces of the Late Bronze Age aristocracy, armed with bronze weapons.

New Media in the Late Iron Age

2012 ◽  
Author(s):  
Peter S. Wells
Keyword(s):  
New Media ◽  
Iron Age ◽  
Developmental Trajectory ◽  
Third Century ◽  
Late Prehistoric ◽  
Late Iron Age ◽  
Mediterranean World ◽  
Temperate Europe ◽  
The Mediterranean ◽  
Middle Iron Age

This chapter analyzes coins and writing in late prehistoric Europe. The development of coinage in temperate Europe and the first regular signs of writing are innovations that share some important features. Both were introduced from outside the region, specifically from the Mediterranean world, toward the end of the Middle Iron Age. Although both had existed in the Mediterranean world for centuries before their introduction and adoption in temperate Europe, both appear in temperate Europe at about the same time, during the third century BC and more abundantly during the second and first centuries. They were both adopted at a particular time in Europe's developmental trajectory, and under specific economic and political circumstances.

The Founder

2020 ◽  
pp. 25-39
Author(s):  
Duane W. Roller
Keyword(s):  
Black Sea ◽  
Third Century ◽  
Asia Minor ◽  
The Black Sea ◽  
Alexander The Great ◽  
Northern Asia ◽  
Black Sea Coast ◽  
New States ◽  
Hellenistic World ◽  
Sea Coast

The Pontic state began with the ambitions of Mithridates I, known as “the Founder,” a refugee from the unforgiving politics of the generation after Alexander the Great. He sought refuge in the rugged country of northern Asia Minor and declared himself king in the early third century BC, establishing what came to be called the kingdom of Pontos, creating its first capital, the fortress city of Amaseia on the Iris River. He also established a foothold on the Black Sea coast at Amastris. By the time of his death in 266 BC, Pontos had begun to emerge as one of the new states of the Hellenistic world.

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