The Carpathian and Danubian area

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Aurel Rustoiu
Keyword(s):  
Bronze Age ◽  
Black Sea ◽  
Iron Age ◽  
Carpathian Basin ◽  
The Black Sea ◽  
The North ◽  
Late Iron Age ◽  
First Millennium ◽  
Danube Region ◽  
Greek World

This chapter provides an overview of Iron Age societies in the eastern Carpathian basin and lower Danube region, from the Great Hungarian Plain to the Black Sea, drawing on funerary and settlement data from the different regions. The first iron objects occur in Transylvania in the late Bronze Age, but ironworking only developed fully in the early first millennium BC. Throughout the period, the area was open to contacts with central Europe, as well as the Mediterranean and Black Sea regions. The so-called Scythian and Celtic horizons in the Carpathian basin were both associated with newcomers, although the nature and extent of population movement remains open to discussion. In the north Balkans, a series of opulent graves and fortified settlements attests to the development of an aristocracy with strong ties to the Greek world, followed in the late Iron Age by the rise of the impressive but short-lived Dacian kingdom.

The northern Black Sea and North Caucasus

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Valenina Mordvinceva ◽  
Sabine Reinhold
Keyword(s):  
Black Sea ◽  
Iron Age ◽  
Seventh Century ◽  
The Black Sea ◽  
North Caucasus ◽  
The North ◽  
Long Time ◽  
History Of ◽  
Northern Shore ◽  
Greek Colonization

This chapter surveys the Iron Age in the region extending from the western Black Sea to the North Caucasus. As in many parts of Europe, this was the first period in which written sources named peoples, places, and historical events. The Black Sea saw Greek colonization from the seventh century BC and its northern shore later became the homeland of the important Bosporan kingdom. For a long time, researchers sought to identify tribes named by authors such as Herodotus by archaeological means, but this ethno-deterministic perspective has come under critique. Publication of important new data from across the region now permits us to draw a more coherent picture of successive cultures and of interactions between different parts of this vast area, shedding new light both on local histories and on the role ‘The East’ played in the history of Iron Age Europe.

Possibilities and limitations of pXRF as a tool for analysing ancient pottery: a case study of Late Bronze and Early Iron Age pottery (1100–600 BC) from the northern Black Sea region

2020 ◽  
Vol 95 (1) ◽  
pp. 238-266
Author(s):  
Malgorzata Daszkiewicz ◽  
Nadezhda Gavrylyuk ◽  
Kirsten Hellström ◽  
Elke Kaiser ◽  
Maya Kashuba ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Bronze Age ◽  
Black Sea ◽  
Iron Age ◽  
The Black Sea ◽  
Early Iron Age ◽  
Black Sea Region ◽  
Working Groups ◽  
Fluorescence Spectrometer ◽  
Archaeological Cultures

AbstractIn an archaeometric research project supported by the Volkswagen Foundation (Project 90216 [https://earlynomads.wordpress.com/]), working groups consisting of chemists, geologists and archaeologists in Berlin, Kiev and Saint Petersburg collaborated on analysing pottery recovered from Late Bronze Age and Early Iron Age burials and settlements from sites of different archaeological cultures in the steppes and forest steppes north of the Black Sea. The article presents the results of the classification of 201 samples using energy-dispersive X-Ray fluorescence spectrometer (pXRF) compared to the results of MGR-analysis and WD-XRF of these samples. Fingerprints for the seven sites studied could be defined.

On the History and Evolution of Qws: The Portrait of a First Millennium BCE Deity Explored through Community Identity

2021 ◽  
Vol 20 (2) ◽  
pp. 113-189
Author(s):  
Andrew J. Danielson
Keyword(s):  
Bronze Age ◽  
Iron Age ◽  
Community Identity ◽  
Immigrant Communities ◽  
Current Collection ◽  
Late Iron Age ◽  
First Millennium ◽  
Patterns Of Behavior ◽  
Shifting Identities ◽  
A Current

Abstract This article explores the history and evolution of the deity Qws through a study of the communities affiliated with Qws, presenting also a current collection of all inscriptional references to this deity. Diachronic and spatial analyses of the references reveal nuanced insights into how Qws was understood by his adherents, as well as the patterns of behavior, linguistic practices, and identities that marked these communities. The attestations of Qws demonstrate the deity’s relative obscurity during the Late Bronze Age, a rapid rise in inscriptional popularity among persons associated with the region of Edom during the late Iron Age, and a regional perpetuation of attestation following the dissolution of the Iron Age southern Levantine polities. Furthermore, attestations of Qws among diasporic community’s present insights into the shifting identities and cultic practices of the immigrant communities affiliated with the deity.

scholarly journals Isolated and backward Westerwolde (Groningen, the Netherlands)? A confrontation of archaeological and historical data from the Middle Ages in a wider geographical context

2021 ◽  
pp. 273-344
Author(s):  
Henny A. Groenendijk ◽  
Remi Van Schaïk
Keyword(s):  
The Netherlands ◽  
Bronze Age ◽  
19Th Century ◽  
Middle Ages ◽  
Iron Age ◽  
Critical Study ◽  
Ecological Data ◽  
The North ◽  
Late Iron Age ◽  
The 19Th Century

The aim of this paper is to question the supposed isolated and backward position of the region of Westerwolde, in the north-eastern part of the Netherlands. Westerwolde’s geographically rather isolated position has traditionally been brought forward to explain its backward image. Progressive peat growth ever since the Bronze Age occupation had transformed Westerwolde into an island. It was abandoned in the Late Iron Age, only to be recolonized in the early Middle Ages. During the 19th century, romantics were still admiring Westerwolde’s arcadian scenery and cultural traditions. In contrast, from the mid-19th century until well into the 20th century, protagonists of modern agriculture criticized its backward farming methods and standard of living, as well as its poor infrastructure. The central issues we address here is whether critics were justified in describing it as backward in the 19th century and whether concrete indications for this assumed backwardness are to be found in previous centuries. To jump from early medieval times to the 19th century is too big a leap, but combining archaeological and ecological data with a renewed and more critical study of written sources against the background of huge landscape transformations has brought a nuanced understanding of how Westerwolde evolved. We present new insights for the period starting with the conquest of Frisia and Saxony by the Carolingians and the introduction of Christianity, when missionaries and newly founded monasteries acquired agricultural assets and rights in the conquered region, up to the late Middle Ages. We therefore analyze church foundations, livelihoods or economic conditions of existence in connection with occupation structures, infrastructure and exchange of consumer goods interdisciplinarily. Conservatism appears easily confused with backwardness, and an aversion to innovation, with indifference, as underlying external factors often forced the inhabitants to adopt a wait-and-see attitude. Westerwolde is viewed continuously in connection with the adjacent regions of Drenthe and Lower Saxon Emsland.

A Preliminary Investigation of Two Prehistoric Cave Sites in Southern Albania

2009 ◽  
Vol 104 ◽  
pp. 9-26 ◽  
Author(s):  
K.D. Francis ◽  
D.J. Bescoby ◽  
I. Gjipali
Keyword(s):  
Bronze Age ◽  
Iron Age ◽  
Preliminary Investigation ◽  
Radiocarbon Dates ◽  
Lithic Assemblage ◽  
The North ◽  
Late Iron Age ◽  
Middle Bronze Age ◽  
Trading Networks ◽  
The Town

In this article we describe the evaluation of two prehistoric sites situated within the coastal zone of south-western Albania, originally investigated by the Italian prehistorian Luigi Cardini in 1939. The first is a cave site in the town of Himara; the second a rock-shelter at Kanalit in the Acroceraunian Mountains to the north. Investigations at both locations revealed stratified evidence of prehistoric activity dating from the mid-Holocene. At Kanalit, an extensive lithic assemblage provided evidence for the exploitation of the adjoining coastal lowlands during the Mesolithic, while at Himara, a largely unbroken sequence of deposits records often intensive human activity at the cave from the Early Bronze Age. Radiocarbon dates have provided a significant independent chronological marker for Early/Middle Bronze Age horizons. The ceramic evidence indicates a predominance of local influences, the site not becoming part of wider trading networks until the late Iron Age, c. seventh to sixth centuries BC.Σε αυτό το άρθρο πραγματευόμαστε τη σημασία δύο προϊστορικών θέσεων, οι οποίες βρίσκονται στην παράκτια ζώνη της ΝΔ Αλβανίας. Οι θέσεις αυτές είχαν αρχικά ερευνητεί από τον Ιταλό προϊστορικό αρχαιολόγο Luigi Cardini το 1939. Η πρώτη θέση αφορά ένα σπήλαιο στην πόλη της Χειμάρρας και η δεύτερη μία βραχοσκεπή, στη θέση Kanalit, στα Ακροκεραύνια όρη προς βορρά. Έρευνες στις δύο θέσενς αποκάλυψαν στρωματογραφημένες ενδείξεις προϊστορικής δραστηριότητας, που χρονολογούνται από το μέσο Ολόκαινο. Στη θέση Kanalit ένα ευρύ σύνολο λίθινων αντικειμένων παρέχει στοιχεία για την εκμετάλλευση των γειτονικών παράκτιων πεδινών περιοχών κατά τη Μεσολιτική περίοδο. Στο σπήλαιο της Χειμάρρας μία σειρά από αδιάσπαστες, στο μεγαλύτερο μέρος τους, αποθέσεις μαρτυρεί συχνά έντονη ανθρώπινη δραστηριότητα από την Πρώιμη Εποχή του Χαλκού. Οι ραδιοχρονολογήσεις παρέχουν ένα σημαντικό ανεξάρτητο χρονολογικό δείκτη για τους ορίζοντες της Πρώιμης/Μέσης Εποχής του Χαλκού. Η κεραμική φανερώνει την επικράτηση τοπικών επιρροών, με τη θέση αυτή να μην λαμβάνεν μέρος στα ευρύτερα εμπορικά δίκτυα πριν από την όψιμη Εποχή του Σιδήρου, περίπου τον 70 – 60 αιώνα π.Χ.

scholarly journals Anatolia as a bridge from north to south? Recent research in the Hatti heartland

2007 ◽  
Vol 57 ◽  
pp. 65-75
Author(s):  
Thomas Zimmermann
Keyword(s):  
Bronze Age ◽  
Black Sea ◽  
Central Anatolia ◽  
Early Bronze Age ◽  
The Black Sea ◽  
Southeast Europe ◽  
The Caucasus ◽  
Black Sea Region ◽  
The Third ◽  
The North

AbstractThis paper aims to reappraise and evaluate central Anatolian connections with the Black Sea region and the Caucasus focusing mainly on the third millennium BC. In its first part, a ceremonial item, the knobbed or ‘mushroom’ macehead, in its various appearances, is discussed in order to reconstruct a possible pattern of circulation and exchange of shapes and values over a longer period of time in the regions of Anatolia, southeast Europe and the Caucasus in the third and late second to early first millennium BC. The second part is devoted to the archaeometrical study of selected metal and mineral artefacts from the Early Bronze Age necropolis of Resuloğlu, which together with the contemporary settlement and graveyard at Kalınkaya-Toptaştepe represent two typical later Early Bronze Age sites in the Anatolian heartland. The high values of tin and arsenic used for most of the smaller jewellery items are suggestive of an attempt to imitate gold and silver, and the amounts of these alloying agents suggest a secure supply from arsenic sources located along the Black Sea littoral in the north and probably tin ores to the southeast of central Anatolia. This places these ‘Hattian’ sites within a trade network that ran from the Pontic mountain ridge to the Taurus foothills.

scholarly journals Archaeogenetics of Late Iron Age Çemialo Sırtı, Batman: Investigating maternal genetic continuity in North Mesopotamia since the Neolithic

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Reyhan Yaka ◽  
Ayşegül Birand ◽  
Yasemin Yılmaz ◽  
Ceren Caner ◽  
Sinan Can Açan ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Genetic Diversity ◽  
Bronze Age ◽  
Iron Age ◽  
Demographic History ◽  
High Genetic Diversity ◽  
Asian Populations ◽  
Late Iron Age ◽  
First Millennium ◽  
Genetic Continuity ◽  
The Impact

AbstractNorth Mesopotamia has witnessed dramatic political and social change since the Bronze Age, but the impact of these events on its demographic history is little understood. Here we study this question by analysing the recently excavated Late Iron Age settlement of Çemialo Sırtı in Batman, southeast Turkey. Archaeological and/or radiocarbon evidence indicate that the site was inhabited during two main periods: the first half of the 2nd millennium BCE and the first millennium BCE. Çemialo Sırtı reveals nomadic items of the Early Iron Age, as well as items associated with the Late Achaemenid and subsequent Hellenistic Periods. Mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) haplotypes from 12 Çemialo Sırtı individuals reveal high genetic diversity in this population, conspicuously higher than early Holocene west Eurasian populations, which supports the notion of increasing population admixture in west Eurasia through the Holocene. Still, in its mtDNA composition, Çemialo Sırtı shows highest affinity to Neolithic north Syria and Neolithic Anatolia among ancient populations studied, and to modern-day southwest Asian populations. Population genetic simulations do not reject continuity between Neolithic and Iron Age, nor between Iron Age and present-day populations of the region. Despite the region’s complex political history and indication for increased genetic diversity over time, we find no evidence for sharp shifts in north Mesopotamian maternal genetic composition within the last 10,000 years.

The Swedish Jordan Expedition 2013 at Tall Abu al-Kharaz. Preliminary results from Areas 9, 10 and 11

2014 ◽  
Vol 7 ◽  
pp. 129-148 ◽  
Author(s):  
Peter M. Fischer ◽  
Teresa Bürge
Keyword(s):  
Bronze Age ◽  
Iron Age ◽  
Early Bronze Age ◽  
Jordan Valley ◽  
North East ◽  
The North ◽  
Late Iron Age ◽  
12Th Century ◽  
Iron Age I ◽  
The City

The Swedish excavations at Tall Abu al-Kharaz, a twelve-hectare tell in the central Jordan Valley, continued in 2013 in order to shed further light on the Iron Age occupation of this city that was first settled around 3200 BC, corresponding to the conventional Early Bronze Age IB. The Iron Age occupation lasted from the 12th century BC until 732 BC, when the city was conquered by the Neo-Assyrians. From 2009 to 2012, excavations in Area 9 revealed an exceptionally well-preserved two-storey compound dating from Iron Age I (local Phase IX), i.e. around 1100 BC. The stone compound was exposed for a length of 46 m. It consists of 21 rooms, with walls still standing to a height of more than 2 m. Several hundred complete vessels and other objects point to the extensive contacts of a fairly rich society. Contacts with the Aegean and Cyprus, through offshoots of the Sea Peoples/Philistines, and with Egypt and Phoenicia, were ascertained. At the end of the 2012 season, the eastern limit of the compound was reached. In 2013, complementary excavations were carried out to the north and east of the compound. The eastern extension revealed a defence system which had originally been built in the Early Bronze Age IB/II around 3100 BC but had been reused as a part of the Iron Age I defence structures. Test trenches in the north-eastern part of Area 10 and in Area 11 north-east of Area 10, i.e. a hitherto unexplored area of the city, revealed remains from the Late Bronze Age and the Early and Late Iron Age.

An Overview of the 2nd Millennium BC and Iron Age Cultures of the Province of Sinop in Light of New Research

2010 ◽  
Vol 16 (1-2) ◽  
pp. 153-540
Author(s):  
Şevket Dönmez
Keyword(s):  
Bronze Age ◽  
Black Sea ◽  
Iron Age ◽  
City Centre ◽  
Early Bronze Age ◽  
The Black Sea ◽  
Neolithic Period ◽  
Late Chalcolithic ◽  
Chalcolithic Period ◽  
Middle Bronze Age

Abstract Archaeological research conducted to date has shown that the earliest settlements in the province of Sinop date to the Late Chalcolithic period. However, despite these Late Chalcolithic period cultural strata, identified during the Kocagöz Höyük and Boyabat-Kovuklukaya excavations, the stone bracelet fragments from Maltepe Höyüğü and potsherds supposedly from Kıran Höyük and Kabalı Höyük (but hitherto unpublished) indicate that the settlement process of the region may have started in the Early Chalcolithic or even Late Neolithic period. In the Early Bronze Age, following the Late Chalcolithic period, the number of settlements increased in parallel with the population. A number of settlements identified during the excavations at Kocagöz Höyük and Kovuklukaya, as well as during surveys, indicate that the Early Bronze Age was a very active period in the province of Sinop. Finds from the ensuing Middle Bronze Age, pointing to the fact that the Sinop area was one of the northern extremities of the commercial network of the Assyrian Trade Colonies period, centered at Kültepe/Kaneš, have come to light from the Gerze-Hıdırlı cemetery and its settlement at Keçi Türbesi Höyüğü. As is the case with the neighboring province of Samsun, it is understood that the province of Sinop probably did not host any settlements in the late phases of the Middle Bronze Age. All along the Black Sea coast of Anatolia no centre or even find dating to the Early Iron Age (1190-900 BC) has been identified to date. However, settlements become more frequent in the inland part of the central Black Sea region during the Middle Iron Age (900-650/600 BC), and by the Late Iron Age (650/600-330 BC) they are seen both inland and along the coastline. Evidence to confirm this pattern has been obtained from the city centre of Sinop and Kovuklukaya.

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