scholarly journals What Makes a Mound? Earth-Sourced Materials in Late Iron Age Burial Mounds

2021 ◽  
pp. 1-17
Author(s):  
Rebecca J.S. Cannell
Keyword(s):  
Iron Age ◽  
Viking Age ◽  
Archaeological Interpretation ◽  
Late Iron Age ◽  
Political Implications ◽  
The Social ◽  
Burial Mounds ◽  
Materials Used ◽  
Southern Norway

The interpretation of Late Iron Age burial mounds often focuses exclusively on the discovered contents, the social identity or role of the interred and the economic and political implications that can be extracted. This article considers the mound itself as a basis for archaeological interpretation, and attempts to place substantial late Iron Age burial mounds within the landscape they are made of. Within these burial mounds internal references to time, place and the transformations and imbued associations within the earth-sourced materials are purposeful and significant. This is illustrated via comparable examples from southern Norway, and to add contrast, cases from the Viking Age Isle of Man will be explored. This article will outline why the selected mounds should be seen as closely related to each other in the references they contain, and how the materials used can be seen as a purposeful link to the land itself.

scholarly journals Necropoli o santuari?

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lorenzo Crescioli
Keyword(s):  
Iron Age ◽  
Rock Art ◽  
Religious Community ◽  
Religious Practices ◽  
Interesting Phenomenon ◽  
The Social ◽  
Burial Mounds ◽  
Scythian Period

Beliefs and religious practices of the steppes people between the Bronze and the Iron Age represent one of the most interesting aspects of these cultures, which spread over a huge and highly varied territory. They are characterised by a series of local expressions, in which Iranian and Zoroastrian influences do not affect the originality of the sanctuaries and of the relevant religious practices. These are sometimes difficult to interpret, as for example the Kirighsuur and Deer Stones contexts, or rock art sites: these introduce very complex and highly debated issues, which are difficult to be fully understood, as for instance the question of shamanism. The most interesting phenomenon of the Iron Age (Scythian period) consists of massive burial mounds, that seem to acquire the role of real sanctuaries, which are strongly related to the landscape and to the natural elements, thus becoming the focus for the social and religious community. This hypothesis is proposed by some scholars, who argue that it may be supported by Herodotus’ description of the sanctuary of Ares.

Commemorating Dwelling: The Death and Burial of Houses in Iron and Viking Age Scandinavia

2016 ◽  
Vol 19 (3) ◽  
pp. 477-496 ◽  
Author(s):  
Marianne Hem Eriksen
Keyword(s):  
Iron Age ◽  
Critical Discussion ◽  
Viking Age ◽  
The Past ◽  
Late Iron Age ◽  
Material Turn ◽  
Burial Mounds ◽  
The Dead ◽  
Social Markers ◽  
Deceased Individual

Current debates on the ontology of objects and matter have reinvigorated archaeological theoretical discourse and opened a multitude of perspectives on understanding the past, perspectives which have only just begun to be explored in scholarship on Late Iron Age Scandinavia. This article is a critical discussion of the sporadic tradition of covering longhouses and halls with burial mounds in the Iron and Viking ages. After having stood as social markers in the landscape for decades or even centuries, some dwellings were transformed into mortuary monuments — material and mnemonic spaces of the dead. Yet, was it the house or a deceased individual that was being interred and memorialized? Through an exploration of buildings that have been overlain by burial mounds, and by drawing on theoretical debates about social biographies and the material turn, this article illuminates mortuary citations between houses and bodies in Late Iron Age Scandinavia. Ultimately, I question the assumed anthropocentricity of the practice of burying houses. Rather, I suggest that the house was interwoven with the essence of the household and that the transformation of the building was a mortuary citation not necessarily of an individual, but of the entire, entangled social meshwork of the house.

scholarly journals Not just a belt: Astragal belts as part of late iron age female costume in the south-eastern Carpathian basin

Starinar ◽  
2018 ◽  
pp. 47-63
Author(s):  
Marko Dizdar ◽  
Asja Tonc
Keyword(s):  
Iron Age ◽  
Carpathian Basin ◽  
Early Iron Age ◽  
The South ◽  
South Eastern ◽  
Late Iron Age ◽  
The Social ◽  
Production Areas ◽  
Two Peaks

The focus of the paper is on bronze astragal belts in the south-eastern part of the Carpathian Basin, interpreted as part of the female costume. In particular, their production seems to have two peaks, one at the end of the Early Iron Age (6th-4th cent. BC) and another during the Late La T?ne period. However, there is a continuity of the form throughout the Late Iron Age. Requiring a significant amount of material and craftsmanship, these belts imply the presence of skilled artisans, as well as a supply network that enabled the production. A new typological and chronological assessment of the known examples allows not only a better understanding of the possible production areas of astragal belts, but also the social implications behind the organisation of production, offering also the possibility to better evaluate the role of this particular item as a part of the autochthonous female costume and identity.

scholarly journals Dealing with the Outside

2021 ◽  
Vol 48 ◽  
pp. 376-393
Author(s):  
Leticia López-Mondéjar
Keyword(s):  
Social Control ◽  
Iron Age ◽  
Archaeological Record ◽  
The South ◽  
Late Iron Age

The aim of this paper is to analyse some strategies of power, social control and legitimation during the Iberian Late Iron Age (6th–1st centuries BC). It addresses how the Iberian elites exploited the domain of the ‘outside’ to legitimise and to retain their status. A diachronic approach is presented seeking to analyse the role of the outside realm throughout all the examined period and the variety of its expressions within the Iberian societies. In particular, the paper focuses on the south-east of Spain, an area with a rich archaeological record which, however, have never been approached from this view.

scholarly journals Burial Mounds, Ard Marks, and Memory: A Case Study from the Early Iron Age at Bamble, Telemark, Norway

2020 ◽  
Vol 23 (2) ◽  
pp. 207-226
Author(s):  
Christian Løchsen Rødsrud
Keyword(s):  
Social Norms ◽  
Iron Age ◽  
System Analysis ◽  
Early Iron Age ◽  
Viking Age ◽  
Old Field ◽  
Field System ◽  
Burial Mounds ◽  
Point Of Departure

The point of departure for this article is the excavation of two burial mounds and a trackway system in Bamble, Telemark, Norway. One of the mounds overlay ard marks, which led to speculation as to whether the site was ritually ploughed or whether it contained the remains of an old field system. Analysis of the archaeometric data indicated that the first mound was related to a field system, while the second was constructed 500–600 years later. The first mound was probably built to demonstrate the presence of a kin and its social norms, while these norms were renegotiated when the second mound was raised in the Viking Age. This article emphasizes that the ritual and profane aspects were closely related: mound building can be a ritualized practice intended to legitimize ownership and status by the reuse of domestic sites in the landscape. Further examples from Scandinavia indicate that this is a common, but somewhat overlooked, practice.

Landscape, Ecology and Mentalités: a Long-term Perspective on Developments in the Meuse-Demer-Scheldt Region

2002 ◽  
Vol 68 ◽  
pp. 257-287 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nico Roymans ◽  
Fokke Gerritsen
Keyword(s):  
Landscape Ecology ◽  
Iron Age ◽  
Study Region ◽  
Late Iron Age ◽  
The Social ◽  
Demographic Fluctuations ◽  
Annales School ◽  
Radical Transformation

This study presents a survey of the long-term dynamics with regard to settlement and landscape in the Meuse-Demer-Scheldt region (south Netherlands/north Belgium), thereby using the results of several decades of intensive archaeological fieldwork. In a theoretical sense, this study is inspired by the work of historians from the French Annales school. We use a model of long-term agricultural cycles, set against demographic fluctuations, in an attempt to understand developments within the study region. At the same time, however, we aim to incorporate the social and ideational dimensions of these changes, which are linked to a specific ordering and arrangement of the landscape. Our particular focus is the radical transformation that occurred around the Middle and Late Iron Age, as this had a major impact on the ordering and arrangement of the landscape in later periods.

MYTHS, GENDER, BIRDS, BEADS: A READING OF IRON AGE HILL SITES IN INTERIOR SOUTHERN AFRICA

Africa ◽  
2014 ◽  
Vol 84 (3) ◽  
pp. 398-423 ◽  
Author(s):  
Edwin N. Wilmsen
Keyword(s):  
Iron Age ◽  
Southern Africa ◽  
Lake Tanganyika ◽  
Glass Beads ◽  
Social Legitimacy ◽  
Archaeological Interpretation ◽  
Great Zimbabwe ◽  
Origin Myths ◽  
North Western

ABSTRACTHomologous origin myths concerning the Tsodilo Hills in north-western Botswana, Polombwe hill at the southern tip of Lake Tanganyika in Zambia and Kaphiri-Ntiwa hill in northern Malawi are examined. Parallels are drawn between the myths, where, in the process of creation, a primal pair in undifferentiated space and time passes through a series of liminal states, thereby bringing structure to the landscape and legitimacy to society in Iron Age Central and Southern Africa. These myths narrate the instituting of social legitimacy in their respective societies based on a resolution of the inherent contradiction between the concepts of authority and power, lineage and land. The structure of rights to possession of land is examined, and the text considers the role of sumptuary goods such as glass beads and metonymic signifiers such as birds within this structure. This study examines the prominence of hilltops as the residence of paranormal power and its association with human authority, and relates this to the archaeological interpretation of the Iron Age site Nqoma (Tsodilo Hills); this is compared with Bosutswe (eastern Botswana), Mapungubwe (Shashe-Limpopo basin), and the Shona Mwari myth recorded by Frobenius as used by Huffman in his analysis of Great Zimbabwe.

Generations of aristocracy

2002 ◽  
Vol 9 (1) ◽  
pp. 2-15 ◽  
Author(s):  
Greg Woolf
Keyword(s):  
Material Culture ◽  
Social Structure ◽  
Iron Age ◽  
Social Power ◽  
Roman Period ◽  
Social Hierarchies ◽  
Continuity And Change ◽  
Roman Imperialism ◽  
Late Iron Age ◽  
The Social

AbstractThis paper sets out to examine issues of continuity and change in the social hierarchies of the peoples of the Gallic interior, between the late Iron Age and the early Roman period. This part of the empire is one in which we might reasonably expect to find substantial continuity of social structure. Many scholars have argued that this is indeed the case, notwithstanding the evident changes in material culture. This paper argues that the opposite was true. Apparent similarities, I suggest, reinforced by the ways we have studied provincial cultures, have masked dramatic changes in the basis of social power. That conclusion has implications for other provincial societies, and for Roman imperialism in general.

Tankards of the British Iron Age

2015 ◽  
Vol 81 ◽  
pp. 311-341 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jonathan A. Horn
Keyword(s):  
Material Culture ◽  
Iron Age ◽  
Copper Alloy ◽  
Alloy Sheet ◽  
Manufacturing Processes ◽  
Roman Britain ◽  
Systematic Analysis ◽  
The Social ◽  
New Evidence

Iron Age tankards are stave-built wooden vessels completely covered or bound in copper-alloy sheet. The distinctive copper-alloy handles of these vessels frequently display intricate ‘Celtic’ or La Tène art styles. They are characterised by their often highly original designs, complex manufacturing processes, and variety of find contexts. No systematic analysis of this artefact class has been undertaken since Corcoran’s (1952a) original study was published in Volume 18 of these Proceedings. New evidence from the Portable Antiquities Scheme for England and Wales and recent excavations have more than quadrupled the number of known examples (139 currently). It is therefore necessary and timely to re-examine tankards, and to reintegrate them into current debates surrounding material culture in later prehistory. Tankards originate in the later Iron Age and their use continued throughout much of the Roman period. As such, their design was subject to varying influences over time, both social and aesthetic. Their often highly individual form and decoration is testament to this fact and has created challenges in developing a workable typology (Corcoran 1952a; 1952b; 1957; Spratling 1972; Jackson 1990). A full examination of the decoration, construction, wear and repair, dating, and deposition contexts will allow for a reassessment of the role of tankards within the social and cultural milieu of later prehistoric and early Roman Britain.

scholarly journals The Odal and its Manifestation in the Landscape

1994 ◽  
Vol 2 (1) ◽  
pp. 219-238
Author(s):  
Torun Zachrisson
Keyword(s):  
Iron Age ◽  
Viking Age ◽  
Wide Sense ◽  
Narrow Sense ◽  
Late Iron Age ◽  
Time Period ◽  
The Individual

The concept odal can be regarded in a narrow sense, i.e. as the inherited landed property of a family. But here it is argued that odal should be viewed in a wide sense - as a mentality that is of great importance to the understanding of Late Iron Age society in Sweden. The article focuses on the material expressions which belonging to a family and possessing a farm could take in the individual farmstead in the Mälar Valley. The Viking Age is interpreted as a time period in which there was a need to make the odal visible. The acts of burying dead relatives on top of the graves of early ancestors, erecting runestones, and possibly also erecting mounds are regarded as ways of guarding, marking, and confirming the possession of the odal in the odal man's own eyes and in his neighbours' and consequently also the odal man's position in society.

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