Diaspora and the Origins of the Syro-Anatolian Culture Complex

Author(s):  
James F. Osborne

This chapter proposes a model for how the Syro-Anatolian Culture Complex (SACC) arose during the Late Bronze–Iron Age transition at the end of the second millennium and start of the first millennium BCE. It presents SACC as a case study for diaspora studies in the tradition of Paul Gilroy and James Clifford. A series of demographic transformations took place at this time, including small-scale migrations from central Anatolia and the Aegean into southeastern Anatolia, as well as a ruralization of the local settlement patterns from previous major urban centers. Together, these transformations brought several different populations into close contact with one another, resulting in a diverse ethnolinguistic landscape reminiscent of certain contemporary situations of diaspora. It is precisely these mixed cultural origins that have led SACC to be so difficult for scholars to characterize, leading as it did to multiple affiliation groups sharing cultural and political traditions.

2007 ◽  
Vol 57 ◽  
pp. 141-150 ◽  
Author(s):  
J.N. Postgate

AbstractStarting from Kilise Tepe in the Göksu valley north of Silifke two phenomena in pre-Classical Anatolian ceramics are examined. One is the appearance at the end of the Bronze Age, or beginning of the Iron Age, of hand-made, often crude, wares decorated with red painted patterns. This is also attested in different forms at Boğazköy, and as far east as Tille on the Euphrates. In both cases it has been suggested that it may reflect the re-assertion of earlier traditions, and other instances of re-emergent ceramic styles are found at the end of the Bronze Age, both elsewhere in Anatolia and in Thessaly. The other phenomenon is the occurrence of ceramic repertoires which seem to coincide precisely with the frontiers of a polity. In Anatolia this is best recognised in the case of the later Hittite Empire. The salient characteristics of ‘Hittite’ shapes are standardised, from Boğazköy at the centre to Gordion in the west and Korucu Tepe in the east. This is often tacitly associated with Hittite political control, but how and why some kind of standardisation prevails has not often been addressed explicitly. Yet this is a recurring phenomenon, and in first millennium Anatolia similar standardised wares have been associated with both the Phrygian and the Urartian kingdoms. This paper suggests that we should associate it directly with the administrative practices of the regimes in question.


Author(s):  
Nurcan Küçükarslan

Middle Iron Age (MIA): 9th-8th c. BC in Central Anatolia.Yassıhöyük is a mound located 160 km southeast of Ankara (Turkey), 25 km north of Kırşehir and 30 km east of Kaman-Kalehöyük.Kaman-Kalehöyük is a mound located 100 km southeast of Ankara.Region 1 (Representative Site: Gordion)Gordion was the capital city of Phrygia, 100 km southwest of Ankara.Diagnostic pottery type: monochrome grey wares.Political Entity: PhrygiaRegion 2 (Representative Site: Boğazköy)Boğazköy is a slope settlement located 208 km northeast of Ankara and 82 km southwest of Çorum.Diagnostic pottery type: painted pottery with matt dark paint, Alisar IV ceramics.Political Entity: -Region 3 (Representative Site: Porsuk-Zeyve Höyük)Porsuk is a mound located 359 km southeast of Ankara and 55 km southwest of Niğde.Diagnostic pottery type: -Political Entity: Many kingdoms under Assyrian control (Tabal Region) (More info:http://www.tayproject.org)


2019 ◽  
Vol 11 (11) ◽  
pp. 6111-6140 ◽  
Author(s):  
Marta Díaz-Guardamino ◽  
Leonardo García Sanjuán ◽  
David W. Wheatley ◽  
José Antonio Lozano Rodríguez ◽  
Miguel Ángel Rogerio Candelera ◽  
...  

Abstract Iberian ‘warrior’ stelae have captured the imagination of researchers and the public for more than a century. Traditionally, stelae were considered ‘de-contextualised’ monuments, and research typically focused on the study of their iconography, paying little or no attention to their immediate contexts. As a result, despite the large number of these stelae known to date (c. 140) and the ample body of literature that has dealt with them, fundamental questions remain unanswered. This paper aims to demonstrate the potential of a multidisciplinary and contextual approach to push forward the research agenda on these monuments through a case study. Firstly, we introduce the Mirasiviene stela and the methods deployed for its investigation, which include a variety of digital imaging techniques, petrography, pXRF, intensive survey and multiscalar spatial analysis. Secondly, we discuss the results in relation to three main topics: stela biography, social practices and landscape context. Comparisons to the well-known nearby Bronze Age and Iron Age site of Setefilla are made throughout the discussion. Ultimately, this paper makes a case for the stelae of Mirasiviene and Setefilla being polyvalent monuments made by local artisans, that served both as landmarks and memorials in connection with dense late second and early first millennium BCE settlement patterns in the region. Probably linked to elites, ‘houses’ or kin groups of this time, stelae were set in symbolically charged places, liminal spaces nearby water, burials and pathways, attracting a range of ritual activities throughout the centuries. The study of the newly discovered Mirasiviene stela shows that multidisciplinary, cutting-edge non-destructive archaeology can shed significant new light on these prehistoric monuments, thus providing a glimpse of what in our opinion is a paradigm shift in the research of similar monuments throughout Europe.


2007 ◽  
Vol 1047 ◽  
Author(s):  
Charles C. Kolb

AbstractFor nearly four millennia, Afghanistan has been at the crossroads of Eurasian commerce and remains ethnically and linguistically diverse, a mosaic of cultures and languages, especially in the north, where the Turkestan Plain is a conduit for the so-called Silk Route, a series of “roads” that connected far-flung towns and urban centers and facilitated the transfer of goods and services. The research reported herein involves the comparative analysis of archaeological ceramics from a series of archaeological sites excavated in northern Afghanistan in the mid-1960s by the late Louis Dupree and me. I served as the field director (1965-1966) and analyzed the ceramics excavated from all six archaeological sites. These were Aq Kupruk I, II, III, and IV located in Balkh Province (north-central Afghanistan) and Darra-i-Kur and Hazar Gusfand situated on the border between Badakshan and Tarkar Provinces (extreme northeastern Afghanistan). Ten of the 72 ceramic types from the Aq Kupruk area have been published [1, 2, 3] but none of the 53 wares from northeastern Afghanistan have been described. The majority of the Aq Kupruk materials are undecorated (plain ware) ceramics but there is a unique series of red-painted decorated ceramics (Red/Buff, numbered types 45 through 52) with early first millennium BCE designs but the pottery dates to the BCE-CE period. The results of ceramic typological, macroscopic, binocular and petrographic microscopy (thin-section analysis and point counting) are reported.


1985 ◽  
Vol 51 (1) ◽  
pp. 215-245 ◽  
Author(s):  
Owen Bedwin ◽  
Robin Holgate ◽  
P. L. Drewett ◽  
C. R. Cartwright ◽  
S. D. Hamilton ◽  
...  

Two farmsteads, one of late Iron Age (second-first centuries BC) date and the other dating to the early Romano-British period (first-second centuries AD), were excavated at Copse Farm, Oving. The site is situated within the Chichester dykes on the Sussex/Hampshire Coastal Plain. The Iron Age farmstead produced pottery spanning ‘saucepan’ and ‘Aylesford-Swarling’ traditions, a transition in ceramic production which is poorly understood in Sussex. Information on the agricultural economy and small-scale industries (principally metalworking) practised at this site give an insight into the way the Coastal Plain was settled and exploited at the end of the first millennium BC.


Author(s):  
Frands Herschend

The long Iron Age in northern Europe (c.500 BC–750 AD) was characterized by centuries of gradual development, punctuated by major episodes of transformation in the first century BC and the mid-first millennium AD. This chapter adopts a thematic approach, starting with the economy, envisaged as the intertwining of subsistence, exploitation of natural resources, and external acquisition. These lead to wider issues such as land ownership, social stratification, and over-exploitation. A second theme is warfare, ranging from small-scale fighting in earlier centuries to the battlefields of the Roman Iron Age. Next, the implications of key changes in material culture are examined, from domestic artefacts, to grave goods, and architecture. The final theme covers narrative, belief, and ritual, as manifested in lakes with votive and war offerings, founder graves, magical use of runic inscriptions, and the ideologically tinted myths relating to Iron Age societies preserved in poems written down in later centuries.


1983 ◽  
Vol 10 (1) ◽  
pp. 41-71 ◽  
Author(s):  
G J Barclay

SUMMARY Myrehead has revealed the eroded remnants of activity from the Beaker period (Period A) onwards, with actual settlement evinced only from about the early first millennium be. The three houses and the cooking pits of Period B may have been constructed and used sequentially. This open settlement was probably replaced during the mid first millennium bc, possibly without a break, by a palisaded enclosure (Period C), which may have contained a ring-groove house and a four-post structure. Continued domestic activity (Period D) was suggested by a single pit outside the enclosure, dated to the late first millennium bc/early first millennium ad. The limited evidence of the economy of the settlements suggests a mixed farming system.


2021 ◽  
pp. 136700692110231
Author(s):  
Francesca Romana Moro

Aims and Objectives/Purpose/Research Questions: The Alorese in eastern Indonesia are an Austronesian community who have inhabited two Papuan-speaking islands for approximately 600 years. Their language presents a paradox: contact with the neighbouring Papuan languages has led to both complexification and simplification. This article argues that these opposite outcomes of contact result from two distinct scenarios, and formulates a hypothesis about a shift in multilingual patterns in Alorese history. Design/Methodology/Approach: To formulate a hypothesis about the discontinuity of multilingual patterns, this article first sketches the past and present multilingual patterns of the Alorese by modelling language contact outcomes in terms of bilingual optimisation strategies. This is followed by a comparison of the two scenarios to pinpoint similarities and differences. Data and Analysis: Previous research shows that two types of contact phenomena are attested in Alorese: (a) complexification arising from grammatical borrowings from Papuan languages, and (b) morphological simplification. The first change is associated with prolonged child bilingualism and is the result of Papuan-oriented bilingual strategies, while the latter change is associated with adult second language (L2) learning and is the result of universal communicative strategies. Findings/Conclusions Complexification and simplification are the results of two different layers of contact. Alorese was first used in small-scale bilingual communities, with widespread symmetric multilingualism. Later, multilingualism became more asymmetric, and the language started to undergo a simplification process due to the considerable number of L2 speakers. Originality: This article is innovative in providing a clear case study showing discontinuity of multilingual patterns, supported by linguistic and non-linguistic evidence. Significance/Implications: This article provides a plausible explanation for the apparent paradox found in Alorese, by showing that different outcomes of contact in the same language are due to different patterns of acquisition and socialisation. This discontinuity should be taken into account by models of language contact.


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