Metal analyses and the Scottish Early Bronze Age

1970 ◽  
Vol 35 ◽  
pp. 330-344 ◽  
Author(s):  
John M. Coles
Keyword(s):  
Trace Elements ◽  
Bronze Age ◽  
Van Der Waals ◽  
Early Bronze Age ◽  
New Approach ◽  
Major Review ◽  
Archaeological Approach

The analysis of Early Bronze Age metal objects in Europe has been the concern of the Arbeitsgemeinschaft für Metallurgie at Stuttgart for a number of years. In 1960 the first major results of this ambitious programme were presented in a volume generally described as SAM 1, or Studien zu den Anfängen der Metallurgie (Junghans, Sangmeister and Schröder, 1960). Using the trace elements arsenic (As), antimony (Sb), silver (Ag), Nickel (Ni) and Bismuth (Bi), SAM 1 described the content and distribution of 12 European metal groups, each devised on the basis of the varying concentrations of these trace elements in Bronze Age metal. This programme was the first to attempt to examine metallurgy in this way for the whole of Europe. A number of regionally restricted studies had already been carried out before the appearance of SAM 1; the Irish, and some British, material had been previously examined by Coghlan and Case (1957) and by Britton (1961). In 1964 a major review of the Stuttgart production appeared, in which the method of combining the elements into groups was criticized on archaeological grounds (Butler and van der Waals, 1964). Subsequently a new approach was devised by Waterbolk; in this, the Stuttgart method of attempting to find clusters from a gigantic range of analyses, each one treated exactly as another, was abandoned, and replaced by a more archaeological approach in which typology and association were used (Waterbolk and Butler, 1965). The significance of the groups produced by this method are only now being assessed.

scholarly journals Preliminary results of investigations of barrows in the locality of Sarazm-2 in the basin of the Zeravshan River in summer and autumn 2020

2021 ◽  
Vol 32 ◽  
pp. 40-54
Author(s):  
S. Bobomulloev ◽  
◽  
N. Vinogradova ◽  
B. Bobomulloev ◽  
T. Hudzhageldiev ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Material Culture ◽  
Bronze Age ◽  
Early Bronze Age ◽  
New Approach ◽  
Preliminary Results ◽  
Burial Mounds ◽  
First Time ◽  
Close Contacts

The article is based on the materials of excavations of burial mounds in the Sarazm-2 area in the Zeravshan valley. The burial mounds of the Afanasievo culture were discovered here for the first time. In the Late Eneolithic and Early Bronze Age in the Zeravshan valley, close contacts of the local agricultural population with the carriers of the Afanasievo culture can be traced, which is reflected in the material culture of the ancient pastoralists. The Afanasievo materials of Zeravshan open up the possibility of a new approach in the study of the genesis of the Afanasievo culture at the end of the IV millennium BC.

Two Early Helladic II terracotta rollers from Asine and their glyptic context

2018 ◽  
Vol 11 ◽  
pp. 81-96
Author(s):  
Michael Lindblom ◽  
Gullög Nordquist ◽  
Hans Mommsen
Keyword(s):  
Bronze Age ◽  
Chemical Characterization ◽  
Early Bronze Age ◽  
The Third ◽  
Archaeological Perspective

Two Early Helladic II terracotta rollers from the Third Terrace at Asine are presented. The objects, used to impress relief decoration on pithoi and hearths, are unique in that no other examples are known from the Early Bronze Age Aegean. Their origin is discussed based on chemical characterization and their depositional contexts are reviewed from an archaeological perspective. Although there are no known impressions from these rollers on pithoi and hearths at Asine, it is shown that their owners surrounded themselves with different objects featuring similar glyptic impressions. Two such impressions find identical parallels at Tiryns and the combined evidence strongly suggest that Asine was the home for one or several potters who produced Early Helladic impressed hearths and pithoi.

Dairy Queen. Churns and milk products in the Aegean Bronze Age

2014 ◽  
Vol 7 ◽  
pp. 205-222 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sarah P. Morris
Keyword(s):  
Bronze Age ◽  
Dairy Products ◽  
Near East ◽  
Eastern Mediterranean ◽  
Early Bronze Age ◽  
Archaeological Record ◽  
Specific Function ◽  
Milk Products ◽  
The Third ◽  
Household Processing

This article assembles examples of an unusual vessel found in domestic contexts of the Early Bronze Age around the Aegean and in the Eastern Mediterranean. Identified as a “barrel vessel” by the excavators of Troy, Lesbos (Thermi), Lemnos (Poliochni), and various sites in the Chalkidike, the shape finds its best parallels in containers identified as churns in the Chalcolithic Levant, and related vessels from the Eneolithic Balkans. Levantine parallels also exist in miniature form, as in the Aegean at Troy, Thermi, and Poliochni, and appear as part of votive figures in the Near East. My interpretation of their use and development will consider how they compare to similar shapes in the archaeological record, especially in Aegean prehistory, and what possible transregional relationships they may express along with their specific function as household processing vessels for dairy products during the third millennium BC.

Pictures and people. Seals, figurines and Peloponnesian imagery

2010 ◽  
Vol 3 ◽  
pp. 185-218 ◽  
Author(s):  
Erika Weiberg
Keyword(s):  
Bronze Age ◽  
Early Bronze Age ◽  
North East ◽  
The North ◽  
Initial Description ◽  
Seal Impressions ◽  
Point Of Departure ◽  
Coastal Settlement

The point of departure for this paper is the publication of two Early Helladic sealing fragments from the coastal settlement of Asine on the north-east Peloponnese in Greece. After an initial description and discussion they are set in the context of sealing custom established on the Greek mainland around 2500 BCE. In the first part of the paper focus is on the apparent qualitative differences between the available seals and the contemporary seal impressions, as well as between different sealing assemblages on northeastern Peloponnese. This geographical emphasis is carried into the second part of the paper which is a review and contextualisation of the representational art of the Aegean Early Bronze Age in general, and northeastern Peloponnese in particular. Seal motifs and figurines are the main media for Early Helladic representational art preserved until today, yet in many ways very dissimilar. These opposites are explored in order to begin to build a better understanding of Peloponnesian representational art, the choices of motifs, and their roles in the lives of the Early Helladic people.

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.

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