OFFSHORE FINDS FROM THE BRONZE AGE IN NORTH-WESTERN EUROPE: THE SHIPWRECK SCENARIO REVISITED

2006 ◽  
Vol 25 (4) ◽  
pp. 371-388 ◽  
Author(s):  
ALICE V.M. SAMSON
Keyword(s):  
Bronze Age ◽  
Western Europe ◽  
North Western ◽  
The Bronze Age

The Neolithic in The Cambridgeshire Fens

Antiquity ◽  
1962 ◽  
Vol 36 (141) ◽  
pp. 10-23 ◽  
Author(s):  
J. G. D. Clark ◽  
H. Godwin
Keyword(s):  
Bronze Age ◽  
Western Europe ◽  
Age Determination ◽  
Radiocarbon Dates ◽  
Cambridge University ◽  
Radiocarbon Age ◽  
Neolithic Culture ◽  
University Department ◽  
The University ◽  
North Western

By common consent the spread of Neolithic culture has been one of the first objectives of radiocarbon dating in north-western Europe. This is due primarily to the intrinsic historical importance of this process, but the fact that the inception of husbandry has left clear indicators in the palaeobotanical record means that decisive samples are readily available. In the present paper an account will first be given of the reinvestigation of the site on Peacock’s Farm, Shippea Hill, Cambridgeshire, a locality where in 1934 Neolithic pottery had been found stratified in a vertical sequence between Mesolithic and Early Bronze Age remains, each in deposits with fossil pollen. In view of the stratigraphical importance of the site it may be appropriate in this same context to review the radiocarbon dates for the inception of Neolithic culture in the British Isles as a whole. The excavations were undertaken during June, 1960, by the Cambridge University Department of Archaeology and Anthropology with the support of the Crowther-Beynon Fund. Samples were collected for pollen analysis and radiocarbon age determination and the laboratory work was carried out in the University Sub-department of Quaternary Research at Cambridge.

Property Relations in the Bronze Age of South-western Europe: an Archaeological Analysis of Infant Burials from El Argar (Almeria, Spain)

2005 ◽  
Vol 71 ◽  
pp. 247-268 ◽  
Author(s):  
Vicente Lull ◽  
Rafael Micó Pérez ◽  
Cristina Rihuete Herrada ◽  
Roberto Risch
Keyword(s):  
Bronze Age ◽  
Western Europe ◽  
The Political ◽  
Social Production ◽  
Research Topics ◽  
Property Relations ◽  
Funerary Rituals ◽  
Recent Debate ◽  
Archaeological Analysis ◽  
The Bronze Age

Political and economic organisation of Argaric society has been one of the most interesting research topics among Iberian Prehistory. Recent debate has focused upon how to define and assess the socio-economic differentiation which is characteristic of Argaric communities, as well as the suitability of the term ‘State’ when approaching those differences at the political level. Arguments for and against it have been mainly drawn from the Argaric funerary record (2250–1550 cal BC). This paper attempts to approach this issue through the analysis of grave-goods associated with infant tombs. Our main goal is to ascertain if Argaric society established rules concerning asymmetric consumption of goods through infant funerary rituals. If so, this will allow us to infer relevant differences affecting the property of various elements involved in social production.

The earliest horse-bits of western Europe

1973 ◽  
Vol 39 ◽  
pp. 425-452 ◽  
Author(s):  
C. J. Balkwill
Keyword(s):  
Iberian Peninsula ◽  
Bronze Age ◽  
Iron Age ◽  
Western Europe ◽  
Central Italy ◽  
Early Iron Age ◽  
Archaeological Record ◽  
New Combinations ◽  
The Bronze Age ◽  
Burial Rite

Within recent years, much attention has been focused on the earliest objects of harness which have long been noticed in the archaeological record. They are a matter of some importance in the perception of social structure from extant remains; Kossack (1954) presented strong arguments in favour of interpreting, in this manner, the early Hallstatt (Ha C) horse harness from Bavarian graves. Other major publications have since added to the picture of widespread, supposedly aristocratic adoption of harness and wagons in association with burial rite (northern and central Italy in the Early Iron Age, von Hase 1969; the Iberian peninsula in the same period, Schüle 1969; the Middle Danube to the Russian Steppes and to the Asian hinterland, Potratz 1966). Nor has the thesis of Gallus and Horvath (1939) been ignored, and the activities of ‘Thraco-Cimmerian’ cavalry still play a large part in the interpretation of west European horse harness. Already in 1954, however, Kossack observed the continuing elements of native, western Urnfield Europe in the entirely new combinations of grave-goods in Ha C and he indicated that the cheekpieces, while being modelled closely on the lines of preceding types found in the region of the Middle Danube, were, in fact, local variants chiefly concentrated in the graves of Bohemia and Bavaria. That western Europe had long had its own forms of cheekpiece was demonstrated by Thrane in 1963, yet the mouthpieces themselves have received no consolidated attention. This paper is an attempt to redress the balance, by gathering together the earliest metal bits in Europe west of Slovakia and Hungary, in order to see what light they throw on the problems of continuity and transition at the end of the Bronze Age and the beginning of the Iron Age.

The Sword-bearers

Antiquity ◽  
1930 ◽  
Vol 4 (14) ◽  
pp. 157-172 ◽  
Author(s):  
Estyn Evans
Keyword(s):  
Comparative Study ◽  
Bronze Age ◽  
Western Europe ◽  
Late Bronze Age ◽  
British Isles ◽  
Type Specimens ◽  
General Acceptance ◽  
Invasion Theory ◽  
Corroborative Evidence ◽  
The Bronze Age

Eight years ago, in an article entitled ‘A prehistoric invasion of England’, Mr O. G. S. Crawford put forward the hypothesis that ‘towards the close of the Bronze Age the British Isles were invaded by the first wave of Celtic-speaking peoples bringing with them leaf-shaped bronze swords, many other entirely new types of bronze objects, and at least two types of pottery new to these islands’. It may perhaps be said that this view, with certain qualifications, notably as regards chronology, has met with general acceptance. A comparative study of types of bronze implements over a wide geographical field, while yielding corroborative evidence in support of the invasion theory, has also raised important problems in other directions; and it is my present object to give the results of an enquiry into the origins and distributions of certain type-specimens of the late Bronze Age cultures of western Europe.

Silk Road riches no embarrassment

Antiquity ◽  
2011 ◽  
Vol 85 (328) ◽  
pp. 654-656 ◽  
Author(s):  
N. James
Keyword(s):  
Central Asia ◽  
Bronze Age ◽  
Tarim Basin ◽  
Silk Road ◽  
Western China ◽  
Domestic Life ◽  
Sven Hedin ◽  
North Western ◽  
The Bronze Age ◽  
The Silk Road

The survival of organicmaterials in the waterless fringes of the Takla Makan and Lop Deserts in the Tarim basin in Xinjiang (north-western China) has fascinated us for a century, since Sven Hedin, Aurel Stein and Albert von Le Coq found the remains of settlements and cemeteries at the Great Wall's lonely outposts and along the routes between China and Central Asia known as the Silk Road. The finds date from the Bronze Age to the later firstmillennium AD. In the 1980s and '90s, it was shown that the most striking of them, the Tarim 'mummies', belong to both Mongoloid and Caucasoid peoples (Mallory&Mair 2000). The archaeology here of public and domestic life is full of the kinds of surprises and contradictions that we are learning to expect—if not accept—with 'globalisation'. Development in the region is now prompting new discoveries but also looters, so the research is urgent.

scholarly journals On the Curious Date of the Rylstone Log-Coffin Burial

2016 ◽  
Vol 82 ◽  
pp. 383-392 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nigel D. Melton ◽  
Janet Montgomery ◽  
Benjamin W. Roberts ◽  
Gordon Cook ◽  
Susanna Harris
Keyword(s):  
Bronze Age ◽  
Iron Age ◽  
Western Europe ◽  
The Body ◽  
Early Bronze Age ◽  
Early Medieval ◽  
Extended Body ◽  
Radiocarbon Dates ◽  
The Bronze Age ◽  
Grave Goods

Radiocarbon dates have been obtained from a log-coffin burial excavated in 1864 by Canon William Greenwell from a ditched round barrow at Scale House, near Rylstone, North Yorkshire. The oak tree-trunk coffin had contained an extended body wrapped in a wool textile. The body had entirely decayed and there were no other extant grave goods. In the absence of other grave goods, Greenwell attributed the burial to the Bronze Age because it lay under a ditched round barrow and had similarities with log-coffin burials from Britain and Denmark. This attribution has not been questioned since 1864 despite a number of early medieval log-coffin burials subsequently being found in northern Britain. Crucially, the example excavated near Quernmore, Lancashire in 1973, was published as Bronze Age but subsequently radiocarbon dated to ad 430–970. The Rylstone coffin and textile were radiocarbon dated to confirm that the burial was Early Bronze Age and not an early medieval coffin inserted into an earlier funerary monument. Unexpectedly, the dates were neither Early Bronze Age nor early medieval but c. 800 bc, the cusp of the Bronze Age–Iron Age transition in Britain. The burial at Rylstone is, therefore, one of only two sites in Britain, and is unparalleled elsewhere in north-western Europe at a time when disposal of the dead was primarily through dispersed cremated or unburnt disarticulated remains.

Thoughts on death and gender

1994 ◽  
Vol 1 (2) ◽  
pp. 121-124
Author(s):  
Marie Louise Stig Sørensen
Keyword(s):  
Bronze Age ◽  
Western Europe ◽  
Mortuary Practices ◽  
Discursive Practice ◽  
Good Opportunity ◽  
Fully Integrated ◽  
Theoretical Approaches ◽  
And Gender ◽  
Burial Rituals ◽  
North Western

Lohof's paper provides a good opportunity for reflecting upon current theoretical approaches to burial rituals and death in the archaeological past. The paper contains many constructive ideas, and its general social perspective means that the interpretations are of relevance for many regions of north-western Europe. It is particularly noteworthy how this kind of approach can bring out details rather than merging them into general trends. Through such attention the mortuary practices of the period appear as far more fluctuating and varied than usually appreciated; a characteristic that lends support to the idea of mortuary contexts constituting a discursive practice rather than a simple reflection of society. It makes one wonder about the potential variability behind the uniform ‘stories’ created for so many areas for this period. As an example, the ‘coming and going’ of cremation during this time is an important observation, that should be emphasised and more fully integrated in our explanations of the use of cremation in the Late Bronze Age.

Introduction: the development of astronomy in Europe

2002 ◽  
Vol 10 (2) ◽  
pp. 159-169
Author(s):  
PAUL MURDIN
Keyword(s):  
Bronze Age ◽  
Western Europe ◽  
Big Bang ◽  
New Science ◽  
Unknown Form ◽  
Large Telescopes ◽  
The Big Bang ◽  
The Universe ◽  
North Western ◽  
Origin Of The Universe

The tradition of astronomy in Europe has been unbroken from the Neolithic and Bronze Age menhir monuments of north-western Europe to its large telescopes and space-probes. While astronomy still retains practical features, in most part it now concentrates on discovering new science. Recent advances include the discovery of previously unsuspected properties of neutrinos, confirmation of the theory of general relativity near black holes and the successful development of a coherent theory of the origin of the Universe in the Big Bang. These discoveries suggest that 19/20ths of the density of the Universe is of unknown form. There is more to do!

scholarly journals On the existence of a perennial river in the Harappan heartland

2019 ◽  
Vol 9 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Anirban Chatterjee ◽  
Jyotiranjan S. Ray ◽  
Anil D. Shukla ◽  
Kanchan Pande
Keyword(s):  
Bronze Age ◽  
River Basin ◽  
Temporal Changes ◽  
Sediment Provenance ◽  
Western India ◽  
Isotopic Ratios ◽  
Harappan Civilization ◽  
Lesser Himalayas ◽  
North Western ◽  
The Bronze Age

AbstractThe legendary river Saraswati of Indian mythology has often been hypothesized to be an ancient perennial channel of the seasonal river Ghaggar that flowed through the heartland of the Bronze Age Harappan civilization in north-western India. Despite the discovery of abundant settlements along a major paleo-channel of the Ghaggar, many believed that the Harappans depended solely on monsoonal rains, because no proof existed for the river’s uninterrupted flow during the zenith of the civilization. Here, we present unequivocal evidence for the Ghaggar’s perennial past by studying temporal changes of sediment provenance along a 300 km stretch of the river basin. This is achieved using 40Ar/39Ar ages of detrital muscovite and Sr-Nd isotopic ratios of siliciclastic sediment in fluvial sequences, dated by radiocarbon and luminescence methods. We establish that during 80-20 ka and 9-4.5 ka the river was perennial and was receiving sediments from the Higher and Lesser Himalayas. The latter phase can be attributed to the reactivation of the river by the distributaries of the Sutlej. This revived perennial condition of the Ghaggar, which can be correlated with the Saraswati, likely facilitated development of the early Harappan settlements along its banks. The timing of the eventual decline of the river, which led to the collapse of the civilization, approximately coincides with the commencement of the Meghalayan Stage.

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