The Emergence of Cremations in Eastern Fennoscandia: Changing Uses of Fire in Ritual Contexts

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jarkko Saipio
Keyword(s):  
Bronze Age ◽  
Western Europe ◽  
Northern Europe ◽  
Northern Eurasia ◽  
Archaeological Research ◽  
Late Neolithic ◽  
Mortuary Ritual ◽  
Cultural Layers ◽  
Germanic Languages ◽  
Neolithic Cultures

Since the 1980s, a rapid increase in the number of Mesolithic and Neolithic cremation burials discovered has prompted a substantial re-evaluation of the position of cremation as a prehistoric mortuary ritual in northern Eurasia. Sporadic but persistent appearances of cremation in a wide variety of cultural contexts from early Mesolithic to late Neolithic have undermined the traditional models seeing cremation and inhumation as two radically different ways to treat the deceased. In studies of north-western Europe, from British Isles to southern Scandinavia, it is now widely recognized that inhumation and cremation co-existed in many Mesolithic and Neolithic cultures traditionally treated as textbook cases of mortuary practices emphasizing the corporeal integrity of the deceased. Importantly, the unexpected appearances of cremation are only one part of a wider challenge to the traditional assumption of dominance of primary burial in Mesolithic and non-megalithic Neolithic cultures of northern Europe. One important aspect of this challenge are finds of scattered burnt and unburned human bones in Mesolithic and Neolithic cultural layers, suggesting that articulated pit inhumations may actually represent exceptional cases (e.g. Hallgren 2008; Larsson 2009). North-eastern Europe still remains a white area in regional studies of pre- Bronze Age appearances of cremation in northern Europe. This border generally coincides with the language barrier between Germanic languages and various ‘eastern’ languages in terms of local archaeological research traditions. On the other hand, the border also roughly coincides with many genuine differences in archaeological record. Therefore, there is an obvious danger that differences in archaeological research histories and differences in archaeological phenomena become intermingled, creating ill-founded generalizations and assumptions. This chapter examines the earliest known cases of cremation in Eastern Fennoscandia, the area consisting of Finland, the Kola Peninsula, and Russian Karelia (Fig. 11.1). It is currently the easternmost part of northern Europe where confirmed cases of Mesolithic and Neolithic cremation have appeared so far. Such cases are currently few and little studied but they have a potential to redefine the whole study of prehistoric mortuary rituals in the area. In most of Eastern Fennoscandia acidic soil usually does not preserve any unburned bone material older than about a thousand years.

scholarly journals Between the 3rd and 2nd Millennia BC: Exploring Cultural Diversity and Change in Late Prehistoric Communities

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Susana Soares Lopes ◽  
◽  
Sérgio Alexandre Gomes
Keyword(s):  
Cultural Diversity ◽  
Bronze Age ◽  
Western Europe ◽  
Late Prehistoric ◽  
Late Neolithic ◽  
Monumental Architecture ◽  
Multiple Points ◽  
Key Aspects ◽  
The University

'Between the 3rd and 2nd Millennia BC: Exploring Cultural Diversity and Change in Late Prehistoric Communities' is a collection of studies on the cultural reconfigurations that occurred in western Europe between the 3rd and 2nd millennia BC. It brings together seven texts focusing on the evidence from the West of the Iberian Peninsula, and one on the South of England. The texts have their origin in a landmark meeting held at the University of Coimbra in November 2018, where scholars explored the grand narratives explaining the differences between what are traditionally considered Chalcolithic (or Late Neolithic) and Bronze Age communities. The contributions look at key aspects of these grand narratives through regional perspectives, asking the following questions: is there clear data to support the idea of an intensification of social complexity towards the emergence of the Bronze Age chiefdoms? What is the role of monumental architecture within this process? How do we best discuss the different levels of architectural visibility during this period? How can we interpret collective and individual burials in relation to the emergence of individual/territorial powers? In answering these questions, the papers explore regional diversity and argue that regional specificities resist a general interpretation of the historical process at stake. In light of this resistance, the book emphasizes that cultural singularities only become visible through contextual, medium, or low-scale approaches. The recognition of singularities challenges grand narratives, but also carries the potential to expand our understanding of the changes that occurred during this key moment of Late Prehistory. The book thus offers readers the opportunity to think about the diversity of archaeological evidence in combination with an exploration of the available range of approaches and narratives. The critical intertwining of multiple points of view is necessary, because it gets us closer to how elusive the cultural differences of prehistoric communities can be. This elusive dimension is precisely what can force us to constantly rethink what we see and what questions we ask.

At the crossroads: prehistoric settlement in the Maeander valley

2007 ◽  
Vol 57 ◽  
pp. 87-99 ◽  
Author(s):  
Daniel Thompson
Keyword(s):  
Bronze Age ◽  
Western Anatolia ◽  
Late Bronze Age ◽  
Archaeological Research ◽  
Neolithic Period ◽  
Late Neolithic ◽  
Geographic Context ◽  
Settlement Dynamics ◽  
Permanent Settlement ◽  
Over Time

AbstractThe Maeander river (modern Büyük Menderes Nehri) provides the longest natural route through the mountains of central western Anatolia to link the Aegean basin to inner Anatolia, and research suggests that permanent settlement within the river's catchment had begun at least tentatively by the Late Neolithic period. However, the limited amount of archaeological research in the region has restricted our understanding of the inhabitants' settlement histories and intra- and inter-regional cultural contacts during prehistory. This paper seeks to understand better the nature of settlement dynamics and cultural interactivity from the Neolithic period through to the Late Bronze Age in this region by reviewing the available literature within a broad geographic context encompassing western Anatolia and the Aegean, neighbours whose archaeological evaluations have largely been conducted in isolation from each other. The evidence suggests that these early communities interacted with each other and inter-regionally with fluctuating intensities during prehistory, with the interior remaining more traditionally Anatolian, while the lower, coastal area experienced increasing interaction with and influence from Aegean cultures over time. The lower valley also displays a relatively static number of prehistoric sites in contrast to the middle and upper regions, where more dynamic and largely parallel settlement histories are seen.

scholarly journals Radiocarbon and Thermoluminescence Dating of Prehistoric Sites in Hungary and Yugoslavia

Radiocarbon ◽  
1989 ◽  
Vol 31 (03) ◽  
pp. 992-1002 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lázár Benkö ◽  
Ferenc Horváth ◽  
Nada Horvatinčić ◽  
Bogomil Obelić
Keyword(s):  
Bronze Age ◽  
Early Bronze Age ◽  
Copper Age ◽  
Late Neolithic ◽  
Dose Rates ◽  
Gamma Dose Rates ◽  
Thermoluminescence Dating ◽  
Cultural Layers ◽  
Quartz Inclusion ◽  
Quartz Grains

Direct dating by simultaneous independent physical methods is of particular interest to prehistoric archaeology in central Europe. Radiocarbon and thermoluminescence measurements were made to date two tell settlements in the Carpathian Basin: the Late Neolithic site at Gorzsa (southeast Hungary) and the Eneolithic site of Vučedol (east Croatia, Yugoslavia). Samples from Gorzsa span from the Szakalhát to the Proto-Tiszapolgár periods, while most important cultural layers from the Vučedol site belong to the Baden, Kostolac, and Vučedol cultures. By including some of our earlier dates from the Tiszapolgár-Basatanya Copper Age site, a chronological framework, spanning the period from Late Neolithic to Early Bronze Age can be established. The quartz inclusion technique was used for TL dating of pottery. Beta and gamma dose rates were determined by TL dosimetry. Allowances were made for supralinearity, water content, and beta attenuation in quartz grains. The TL ages range from 1900 to 4300 BC and 3600 to 2900 BC, for the Gorzsa and Vučedol sites, respectively.

Towards the Garden of the Hesperides, 1000 BC–400 BC

The Great Sea ◽  
2011 ◽  
Author(s):  
David Abulafia
Keyword(s):  
Bronze Age ◽  
Iron Age ◽  
Western Europe ◽  
Eastern Mediterranean ◽  
Late Neolithic ◽  
Agricultural Resources ◽  
Greek Culture ◽  
The Everyday ◽  
The Rich ◽  
The Impact

The impact of contact with the eastern Mediterranean was felt in very different ways within what we now call Italy. Greek culture seeped more slowly into the everyday life of the native peoples of Sicily – Sikans, Sikels and Elymians – than into the life of the peoples of Tuscany and Latium. In Sicily, both the Greeks and the Carthaginians kept themselves largely apart from the native population. Sardinia, rich in minerals, had for centuries been the seat of a lively civilization characterized by the stone towers known as nuraghi, of which many thousands still dot the island; they were surrounded by what seem to have been prosperous villages, firmly rooted in the rich agricultural resources of the island. They began to be built around 1400 BC, but new nuraghi were still being constructed well into the Iron Age. In the Mycenaean era, there had been some contact with the outside world, as eastern Mediterranean traders arrived in search of copper. The wealth of the native elite as far back as the second millennium BC can be measured from the tombs of Anghelu Ruju, near Alghero in north-western Sardinia; these are among the richest to have been unearthed in late Neolithic and early Bronze Age western Europe, and they indicate contact with Spain, southern France and the eastern Mediterranean. The Spanish influence can be traced in the bell beaker jars found at this site. Another Spanish connection was linguistic. The Sardinians left no written records, whether because they did not use writing or because they used friable materials that have failed to survive. But place-names, many in current use, provide suggestive evidence, as does the Sard language, a distinctive form of late vulgar Latin that incorporates a number of pre-Latin words within its many dialects. It appears that the nuraghic peoples spoke a language or languages related to the non-Indo-European language Basque. Thus a Sard word for a young lamb, bitti, is very similar to a Basque term for a young goat, bitin.

scholarly journals Понятие «эпоха раннего металла» в археологии Северной Европы

2020 ◽  
Vol 2 ◽  
pp. 77-88
Author(s):  
Eugen Kolpakov ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Bronze Age ◽  
Iron Age ◽  
Northern Europe ◽  
Late Neolithic ◽  
The North ◽  
Lake Onega ◽  
The Bronze Age ◽  
As If ◽  
Neolithic Pottery

The paper deals with the histo- ry of appearance and usage of the concept of Early Metal Period in the archaeology of Northern Europe. The concept appears to have been conceived in the 1920s by V. I. Ra- vdonikas and A. Ya. Bryusov, but the term it- self was irst introduced into archaeologi- cal literature by N. N. Gurina in the 1940s af- ter the discovery in the Lake Onega region of a number of assemblages seemingly com- bining Late Neolithic pottery with iron- and bronze-making. However, the existence of such assemblages has not been conirmed by subsequent researches, and as early as 1947 the Early Metal Period was redeined as a period comprising the Bronze and Ear- ly Iron Ages. The original basis of the concept disappeared, but the term has become natu- ralized, though with a diferent sense. Thus, as applies to the northern part of Europe, the Three-Age system as if bifurcates in the Neo- lithic and unites again in the Iron Age. The North European Early Metal Period is a pe- ripheral variant of the Bronze Age. Therefore, it would be logical and rational to abandon the concept of the Early Metal Period in favor of the Bronze Age.

A Neolithic Structure and Bronze Age Activity at West Flank Road, Drumchapel, Glasgow

2003 ◽  
Vol 25 (2) ◽  
pp. 103-128
Author(s):  
Gavin Macgregor ◽  
Irene Cullen ◽  
Diane Alldritt ◽  
Michael Donnelly ◽  
Jennifer Miller ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Bronze Age ◽  
Archaeological Research ◽  
Research Division ◽  
Close Proximity ◽  
Archaeological Work ◽  
Age Features ◽  
The Bronze Age

Summary A programme of archaeological work was undertaken by Glasgow University Archaeological Research Division (GUARD) at West Flank Road, Drumchapel, in close proximity to the site of the prehistoric cemetery of Knappers. This paper considers the results of excavation of a range of negative features, including earlier Neolithic and Bronze Age pits and postholes. The earlier Neolithic features date to c. 3500–3000 BC and are interpreted as the partial remains of a subrectangular structure. The Bronze Age features may relate to ceremonial activities in the wider area. The significance of these remains is considered in relation to the site of Knappers and wider traditions during the fourth to second millennia BC.

The Political Machine

2015 ◽  
Author(s):  
Adam T. Smith
Keyword(s):  
Material Culture ◽  
Bronze Age ◽  
Small Scale ◽  
Mortuary Ritual ◽  
Contemporary World ◽  
Organized Violence ◽  
Political Sovereignty ◽  
Political Machine ◽  
Material Goods ◽  
The Bronze Age

This book investigates the essential role that material culture plays in the practices and maintenance of political sovereignty. Through an archaeological exploration of the Bronze Age Caucasus, the book demonstrates that beyond assemblies of people, polities are just as importantly assemblages of things—from ballots and bullets to crowns, regalia, and licenses. The book looks at the ways that these assemblages help to forge cohesive publics, separate sovereigns from a wider social mass, and formalize governance—and it considers how these developments continue to shape politics today. The book shows that the formation of polities is as much about the process of manufacturing assemblages as it is about disciplining subjects, and that these material objects or “machines” sustain communities, orders, and institutions. The sensibilities, senses, and sentiments connecting people to things enabled political authority during the Bronze Age and fortifies political power even in the contemporary world. The book provides a detailed account of the transformation of communities in the Caucasus, from small-scale early Bronze Age villages committed to egalitarianism, to Late Bronze Age polities predicated on radical inequality, organized violence, and a centralized apparatus of rule. From Bronze Age traditions of mortuary ritual and divination to current controversies over flag pins and Predator drones, this book sheds new light on how material goods authorize and defend political order.

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