The Militarization of a Society: The Example of Transcaucasia in the Early Iron Age

2017 ◽  
Vol 23 (1) ◽  
pp. 91-126
Author(s):  
Manuel Castelluccia
Keyword(s):  
Bronze Age ◽  
Iron Age ◽  
Social Life ◽  
Political System ◽  
Landscape Architecture ◽  
Social Process ◽  
The Political ◽  
Early Iron Age ◽  
Funerary Customs ◽  
Human Landscape

The aim of the present paper is to analyze the particular political and social process which began in the lands south of the main Caucasus range at the end of the Late Bronze Age and continued and strengthened during the following Iron Age. This process was characterized by the marked militarization of the society, which involved many related aspects, not just the political system but also social life and organization. The following pages will be dedicated to an analysis of some well-defined aspects, such as the organization of the human landscape, architecture, funerary customs, arts, politics and economy. Emphasis will be placed on how these were affected by this process of militarization and the main features of the latter will be described.

The Early Iron Age Metal Workshop at Tell Tayinat, Turkey

2011 ◽  
Vol 1319 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jim Roames
Keyword(s):  
Bronze Age ◽  
Iron Age ◽  
The Political ◽  
Early Iron Age ◽  
Iron Production ◽  
Late Bronze Age ◽  
Prestige Goods ◽  
Political Landscape ◽  
Dramatic Rise ◽  
Tell Tayinat

ABSTRACTScholars have tried to link the dramatic rise of iron production in the Near East during the Early Iron Age with changes to the political landscape that occurred at the end of the Late Bronze Age. These attempts have been hindered by a lack of excavated iron production contexts dating to the Early Iron Age. The recent discovery of an Early Iron Age metal workshop at the site of Tell Tayinat, Turkey, provides an opportunity to reexamine some previous assumptions. Preliminary chemical analysis of metal and slag samples indicates that during the 12th century BC iron- and bronze-working were not separate, specialized industries. Instead, production of both materials took place within the same workshop context. Furthermore, this work highlights the importance of prestige goods in the Early Iron Age repertoire.

The Early Iron Age at Tell Abu al-Kharaz, Jordan Valley

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Teresa Bürge
Keyword(s):  
Material Culture ◽  
Social Organization ◽  
Bronze Age ◽  
Iron Age ◽  
Eastern Mediterranean ◽  
Political Organization ◽  
The Political ◽  
Early Iron Age ◽  
Jordan Valley ◽  
Starting Point

The present monograph by Teresa Bürge deals with the material culture of the city of Tell Abu al-Kharaz in the northern part of the Jordan Valley. The basis and starting point is an extremely well-preserved domestic compound dating from the early Iron Age – one of the most controversial periods of the Eastern Mediterranean: it follows the political and economic collapse of the Late Bronze Age and results in a re-structuration of the political and social organization, which – due to the present state of research – is well documented only for the later Iron Age. In addition to a detailed examination of the architecture, the find material, its contexts, the relative and absolute chronology, and the possible function of the building, the study aims at an integration of the evidence from Tell Abu al-Kharaz into a broader picture. Special attention is devoted to the economy and social organization of the early Iron Age town, to aspects of tradition versus innovation, and patterns of economic contacts and migration. Therefore, the study contributes to a better understanding of processes of continuity and change in social and political organization and cross-cultural relations of pre- and protohistoric societies.

Shaping Social Identities in Bronze Age and Early Iron Age Western Iberia: The Role of Funerary Practices, Stelae, and Statue-Menhirs

2014 ◽  
Vol 17 (2) ◽  
pp. 329-349 ◽  
Author(s):  
Marta Díaz-Guardamino
Keyword(s):  
Bronze Age ◽  
Iron Age ◽  
Social Life ◽  
Spatial Relations ◽  
Social Identities ◽  
Early Iron Age ◽  
Funerary Practices ◽  
Shared Understandings ◽  
The Bronze Age

This paper assesses the applicability of modern notions of gender identity and individuality, and examines ‘relationality’ as a key dimension structuring social identity during the Bronze Age and the beginning of the Early Iron Age in western Iberia through a focus on funerary practices and stelae- and statue-menhir-making. It is argued that these practices were involved in the recollection of genealogical and mythical pasts. They entailed the creation of the dead and the ancestors as relational entities through the explicit inscription of graphic and spatial relations. Ultimately, these practices were structured by, and structured, shared understandings of the self and the roles of the deceased and the ancestors in social life—understandings in which ‘relationality’ played a seminal role.

The bronze headbands of Prehistoric Lofkënd and their Aegean and Balkan connections

2010 ◽  
Vol 3 ◽  
pp. 33-54 ◽  
Author(s):  
John K. Papadopoulos
Keyword(s):  
Bronze Age ◽  
Iron Age ◽  
Early Period ◽  
Early Bronze Age ◽  
Early Iron Age ◽  
Southeast Europe ◽  
Young Females ◽  
The Many ◽  
Votive Offerings

This paper begins with an overview of the bronze headbands from the prehistoric (Late Bronze to Early Iron Age) burial tumulus of Lofkënd in Albania, which were found among the richest tombs of the cemetery, all of them of young females or children. It is argued that these individuals represent a class of the special dead, those who have not attained a critical rite de passage: marriage. In their funerary attire these individuals go to the grave as brides, married to death. The significance of the Lofkënd headbands is reviewed, as is their shape and decoration, but it is their context that contributes to a better understanding of Aegean examples, including the many bronze, gold, and silver headbands found in tombs from the Early Bronze Age through the Early Iron Age, as well as those dedicated as votive offerings in sanctuaries. In addition to discussing the evidence for headbands in the Aegean and much of southeast Europe, this paper also attempts to uncover the word used in this early period in Greece for these distinctive items of personal ornament. In memory of Berit Wells.

Nuragic Settlement Dynamics

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Cezary Namirski
Keyword(s):  
Bronze Age ◽  
Iron Age ◽  
East Coast ◽  
Early Iron Age ◽  
Central Mediterranean ◽  
Settlement Dynamics ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
The Bronze Age

The book is a study of the Bronze Age and Early Iron Age Nuragic settlement dynamics in two selected areas of the east coast Sardinia, placing them in a wider context of Central Mediterranean prehistory. Among the main issues addressed are the relationship between settlement and ritual sites, the use of coastline, and a chronology of settlement.

Bronze Age and early Iron Age Crete

Antiquity ◽  
2003 ◽  
Vol 77 (298) ◽  
pp. 858-860
Author(s):  
Susan Sherratt
Keyword(s):  
Bronze Age ◽  
Iron Age ◽  
Early Iron Age

Neolithic Pits, a Bronze Age Cremation and an Early Iron Age Ring-Ditch at Newton Farm, Cambuslang, Lanarkshire

2009 ◽  
Vol 31 (1-2) ◽  
pp. 1-31
Author(s):  
Leonora O'Brien ◽  
Victoria Clements ◽  
Mike Roy ◽  
Neil Macnab
Keyword(s):  
Bronze Age ◽  
Iron Age ◽  
Housing Development ◽  
Early Iron Age ◽  
Small Ring ◽  
Late Bronze Age ◽  
River Terraces

Fieldwork at Newton Farm, Cambuslang (NGR NS 672 610) was undertaken in advance of housing development in 2005–6. A cluster of six shallow Neolithic pits were excavated, and a collection of 157 round-based, carinated bowl sherds and a quern fragment were recovered from them. The pits produced a date range of 3700 to 3360 cal BC. Most of the pits yielded burnt material, and one of the pits showed evidence of in situ burning. The pottery may form ‘structured deposits’. A Bronze Age adult cremation placed in a Food Vessel dated to 3610±30 BP (2040–1880 cal BC) was set in a wider landscape of single and multiple cremations and inhumations on the river terraces overlooking the Clyde. A possible unurned cremation was also identified. This was cut by the course of a small ring-ditch dated to the very late Bronze Age or early Iron Age 2520±30 BP (800–530cal BC).

III. Villanovan Veii

1961 ◽  
Vol 29 ◽  
pp. 20-25 ◽  
Author(s):  
J. B. Ward-Perkins
Keyword(s):  
Bronze Age ◽  
Iron Age ◽  
Late Antiquity ◽  
Central Italy ◽  
Early Iron Age ◽  
Long Period ◽  
The Social ◽  
Precise Relationship ◽  
Relationship Of ◽  
The City

The roads and gates described in the previous section are of very varied dates, and many of them were in use over a long period. They have been described first because they constitute the essential framework for any serious topographical study of Veii. Within this framework the city developed, and in this and the following sections will be found described, period by period, the evidence for that development, from the first establishment of Veii in Villanovan times down to its final abandonment in late antiquity.Whatever the precise relationship of the Villanovan to the succeeding phases of the Early Iron Age in central Italy in terms of politics, race or language, it is abundantly clear that it was within the Villanovan period that the main lines of the social and topographical framework of historical Etruria first took shape. Veii is no exception. Apart from sporadic material that may have been dropped by Neolithic or Bronze Age hunters, there is nothing from the Ager Veientanus to suggest that it was the scene of any substantial settlement before the occupation of Veii itself by groups of Early Iron Age farmers, a part of whose material equipment relates them unequivocally to the Villanovan peoples of coastal and central Etruria.

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