Scandinavia and Northern Germany

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Frands Herschend
Keyword(s):  
Material Culture ◽  
Iron Age ◽  
Social Stratification ◽  
First Century ◽  
Small Scale ◽  
Northern Germany ◽  
Gradual Development ◽  
First Millennium ◽  
External Acquisition ◽  
Over Exploitation

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.

Iron Age landscape, society, and regionality : The material culture

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Stephen Rippon
Keyword(s):  
Material Culture ◽  
Iron Age ◽  
Large Scale ◽  
Good Reason ◽  
First Century ◽  
The Political ◽  
Symbolic Meanings ◽  
Big Picture ◽  
History Of ◽  
Shed Light

In his review of South East Britain in the later Iron Age, Hill (2007, 16) observed that ‘Since the 1980s, little attention has been given to large-scale social explanations and narratives in British Iron Age archaeology. Debates over core–periphery models, the interpretation of hillforts, and the nature of social organization, were—for good reason—eclipsed by a focus on the symbolic meanings of space, structured deposition, and ritual.’ He goes on to argue that British archaeology is in need of more ‘straightforward storyboards’ around which data can be arranged (Hill 2007, 16), and Brudenell (2012, 52) has similarly noted how ‘close-grained understandings have often been won at the expense of broader pictures . . . [and that] with a few exceptions, recent approaches have atomized the study of later prehistoric society, focussing on the specifics of the local social milieu at the expense of broader scales of social analysis’. There have been some ‘big picture’ studies—most notably Cunliffe’s (1974; 1978; 1991; 2005) Iron Age Communities in Britain—but all too often studies of this period have focused on specific counties, types of site, or artefact, and it is noticeable how little systematic mapping of data there was in three recent collections of papers (Gwilt and Haselgrove 1997; Haselgrove and Moore 2007; Haselgrove and Pope 2007). This study, in contrast, aims to shed light on one important ‘storyboard’: the territorial structures within which communities built their landscapes. The written history of Britain begins in the first century BC when we first get insights into its political and territorial arrangements, although as this was a period when the island was becoming embroiled in the political instability caused by the expansion of the Roman world, the trends seen then may not reflect the longer-term patterns of territorial stability or instability that preceded it. In 54 BC, for example, Caesar describes how his major opponents were a civitas (usually translated as ‘tribe’) who had recently surpassed the neighbouring Trinovantes as the paramount group in South East Britain (Gallic War, 20–1; Dunnett 1975, 8; Moore 2011).

Diaspora and the Origins of the Syro-Anatolian Culture Complex

2020 ◽  
pp. 30-68
Author(s):  
James F. Osborne
Keyword(s):  
Iron Age ◽  
Close Contact ◽  
Central Anatolia ◽  
Small Scale ◽  
Urban Centers ◽  
Political Traditions ◽  
First Millennium ◽  
Paul Gilroy ◽  
Cultural Origins

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.

The Romano-British urban and religious landscape

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Stephen Rippon
Keyword(s):  
Material Culture ◽  
Regional Variation ◽  
First Century ◽  
British Society ◽  
Small Scale ◽  
Regional Government ◽  
East Region ◽  
Landscape Character ◽  
Religious Landscape ◽  
Page Book

There has been a long-standing tendency to divide Roman Britain into just two regions. This simplistic view goes back toHaverfield’s (1912) ‘civil’ and ‘military’ districts, and Fox’s (1932) ‘lowland’ and ‘upland’ zones, and the persistence of these binary characterizations contributes to the impression of homogeneity in Romano-British landscape character (Collingwood 1930; Frere 1967; Salway 1981, 4–5). Dark and Dark’s (1997) substitution of the term ‘villa landscape’ for ‘civil zone’, and ‘native landscape’ for ‘military zone’, simply reinforces this over-simplification. While there have been many discussions of local distinctiveness within the Romano-British landscape, this has all too often been within the context of modern counties (e.g. papers in Thomas 1966a), and Taylor’s (2007a) use of twenty-first century units of regional government was no better (his ‘South East’ region, for example, stretches from Kent to the foot of the Cotswold Hills and embraced regions of very different character in the Roman period). In An Imperial Possession Mattingly (2006) moves the debate on a long way, in discussing how three ‘communities’—military, civil (urban), and rural—interacted with each other in different regions, although his 621-page book, which is so rich in ideas, contains just fifteen very small-scale maps, reflecting how our understanding of regional variation in landscape character is not as well advanced as it is for the medieval period. The need to improve our understanding of regionality within Romano-British society across eastern England has recently been highlighted as a priority in the Research Framework for this region (Medlycott 2011b, 47); the following three chapters will hopefully go some way towards achieving that. The Roman Conquest brought about a transformation of lowland Britain as it was progressively drawn into the Roman world. One effect of this is an archaeological record that appears, at first sight, remarkably homogeneous, with the landscape apparently characterized by towns and villas, the economy seemingly dominated by market-based trade, and material culture increasingly using a relatively uniform repertoire of forms.

Excavations at Copse Farm, Oving, West Sussex

1985 ◽  
Vol 51 (1) ◽  
pp. 215-245 ◽  
Author(s):  
Owen Bedwin ◽  
Robin Holgate ◽  
P. L. Drewett ◽  
C. R. Cartwright ◽  
S. D. Hamilton ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Iron Age ◽  
Coastal Plain ◽  
The Other ◽  
Ceramic Production ◽  
Small Scale ◽  
Agricultural Economy ◽  
Late Iron Age ◽  
First Millennium ◽  
Small Scale Industries ◽  
Insight Into

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.

Central Europe

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Carola Metzner-Nebelsick
Keyword(s):  
Material Culture ◽  
Iron Age ◽  
Early Iron Age ◽  
Urban Forms ◽  
History Of Research ◽  
History Of ◽  
First Millennium ◽  
La Tène ◽  
The Alps ◽  
La Tene

This chapter covers the area between eastern France and western Hungary, and from the Alps to the central European Mittelgebirge, following the established division between the early Iron Age (Hallstatt) and later Iron Age (La Tène) periods, beginning each section with a summary of the history of research and chronology. After characterizing the west–east Hallstatt cultural spheres, early Iron Age burial rites, material culture, and settlements are explored by region, including the phenomenon of ‘princely seats’. In the fifth century BC, a new ideological, social, and aesthetic concept arose, apparent both in the burial record, and especially in the development of the new La Tène art style. This period also saw the emergence of new, larger proto-urban forms of settlement, first unfortified agglomerations, and later the fortified oppida. Finally, the chapter examines changes in the nature and scale of production, material culture, and religious practices through the first millennium BC.

scholarly journals From the Iron Age to early cities at Sri Ksetra and Beikthano, Myanmar

2016 ◽  
Vol 47 (3) ◽  
pp. 341-365
Author(s):  
Janice Stargardt
Keyword(s):  
Southeast Asia ◽  
Iron Age ◽  
First Century ◽  
Iron Production ◽  
Water Control ◽  
Monumental Architecture ◽  
Radiocarbon Dates ◽  
Spatial Continuity ◽  
Economic Complexity ◽  
First Millennium

This article traces the evolutionary record of urbanism at two sites in Myanmar: their transition from late prehistory inc. second to first century BCE to proto-urban and fully urban development at Sri Ksetra and Beikthano by the mid-first millennium CE. The Pyu cities are remarkable because of their spatial continuity, for their early achievements in water control, iron production, ritual and domestic ceramics, brick monumental architecture, rich funerary culture, literacy and adoption of Buddhism on both elite and popular levels. Though the radiocarbon dates for Pyu urbanism are at present earlier, they share many features with other urbanising societies in mainland Southeast Asia, where new chronologies are emerging for social and economic complexity at Dvaravati, Pre-Angkorian and Co Loa sites. The article provides new and specific evidence on the dates and types of contacts between the Pyu, India, and other areas of Southeast Asia to interrogate the meaning of Indianisation in Southeast Asia.

The emergence of the Scythians: Bronze Age to Iron Age in South Siberia

Antiquity ◽  
2006 ◽  
Vol 80 (310) ◽  
pp. 843-859 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sophie Legrand
Keyword(s):  
Material Culture ◽  
Bronze Age ◽  
Iron Age ◽  
Way Of Life ◽  
Eurasian Steppe ◽  
The People ◽  
Minusinsk Basin ◽  
South Siberia ◽  
History Of ◽  
First Millennium

The Minusinsk Basin is located where China, Mongolia, Siberia and Kazakhstan meet. Enclosed, but broad, and rich in copper and other minerals, the valley offers missing links between the prehistory of China and that of the greater Russian steppes. In the late Bronze Age the material from Minusinsk was important for the origins of bronze metallurgy in China, and in the Iron Age the area was a focus for the development of that equestrian mobility which was to become the elite way of life for much of the Eurasian steppe for more than a millennium.We are privileged to publish the following two papers deriving from research at the Institute for the History of Material Culture at Saint Petersburg, which give us the story so far on the archaeology of this remarkable place. In The emergence of the Karasuk culture Sophie Legrand discusses the people who occupied the Minusinsk Basin in the Bronze Age, and in The emergence of the Tagar culture, Nikolai Bokovenko introduces us to their successors, the horsemen and barrow-builders of the first millennium BCE.

Southern France

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Dominique Garcia
Keyword(s):  
Material Culture ◽  
Iron Age ◽  
Eighth Century ◽  
Territorial Organization ◽  
First Millennium ◽  
Temperate Europe ◽  
Production Agriculture ◽  
Burial Grounds ◽  
Mediterranean Communities ◽  
Insight Into

A distinct material culture, economy, and society developed in the south of France during the Iron Age. This phenomenon was related to the way in which local communities were situated between the traditional Celtic societies of temperate Europe, and Mediterranean communities such as the Phoenicians, Etruscans, Greeks, and Romans. This chapter examines the changing nature of settlement types (architecture, urbanization, material culture, topography) and territorial organization during the first millennium BC. From the eighth century BC, local forms of production (agriculture, crafts, trade) were confronted with market activity that greatly expanded after the foundation of Massalia in 600 BC, and towns began to develop soon after. The distinctive monuments and sculpture, public buildings, and burial grounds of the region provide a wealth of insight into religious and funerary practices. The place of different ethnic groups in the regional history is also considered.

The Excavation of a Settlement of the Later Bronze Age and Iron Age at Myrehead, Falkirk District

1983 ◽  
Vol 10 (1) ◽  
pp. 41-71 ◽  
Author(s):  
G J Barclay
Keyword(s):  
Bronze Age ◽  
Iron Age ◽  
Farming System ◽  
Activity Period ◽  
Limited Evidence ◽  
Ring Groove ◽  
Domestic Activity ◽  
First Millennium ◽  
First Millennium Bc ◽  
Actual Settlement

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.

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.

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document