Woodland dynamics and use during the Bronze Age: New evidence from Irish archaeological charcoal

The Holocene ◽  
2017 ◽  
Vol 27 (8) ◽  
pp. 1078-1091 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lorna O’Donnell
Keyword(s):  
Bronze Age ◽  
Late Holocene ◽  
Charcoal Analysis ◽  
Celtic Tiger ◽  
Pollen Diagrams ◽  
Middle Bronze Age ◽  
New Methodologies ◽  
New Evidence ◽  
The Bronze Age ◽  
Woodland Dynamics

Swathes of roads and pipelines cut through the Irish landscape during the ‘Celtic Tiger’ years (approximately 1994–2008) leading to an unprecedented number of archaeological excavations and creating a unique opportunity for extensive research of past landscapes on a broad scale. The vast quantities of bulk soil samples suddenly available necessitated the development and adaptation of new methodologies. Despite the huge volumes of these samples, of which charcoal is the most ubiquitous ecofact, to date charcoal analysis has been considerably under-utilised in the study of past Irish woodlands. This research presents one of the largest Bronze Age archaeological charcoal datasets in Europe. It provides new palaeoecological evidence contributing to the understanding of woodland cover transformation on the island of Ireland during the late-Holocene period. The most common taxa identified in the charcoal assemblage compare well with regional pollen diagrams, particularly the use of Quercus and Corylus. With intensifying human activity during the middle Bronze Age, the proportion of Maloideae, a light demanding family rose. This is the first clear evidence of anthropogenic influence during the middle Bronze Age in Ireland derived from archaeological charcoal. The size of the charcoal dataset makes it possible to evaluate woodland cover and resourcing from two perspectives – both archaeological and palaeoecological.

The concentration and centralization of late prehistoric settlement in central Italy: the evidence from the Nepi Survey

2013 ◽  
Vol 81 ◽  
pp. 1-38 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ulla Rajala
Keyword(s):  
Bronze Age ◽  
Iron Age ◽  
Central Italy ◽  
Population Pressure ◽  
Early Iron Age ◽  
Late Prehistoric ◽  
Gis Modelling ◽  
Middle Bronze Age ◽  
New Evidence ◽  
The Bronze Age

This article discusses the evidence for the concentration and centralization of late prehistoric settlement in central Italy, using the territory of Nepi as an example of settlement aggregation in southern Etruria. This example helps to explain the regional developments leading to urbanization and state formation in Etruria from the Bronze Age to the Iron Age. The article also publishes new sites with late prehistoric ceramic material from the Neolithic or Epineolithic to the Iron Age in the territory of Nepi found during the Nepi Survey Project. This new evidence is discussed together with previously published material, and presented as further evidence that the developments leading to the occupation of naturally defended sites in the Final Bronze Age had their origins in the Middle Bronze Age. Similarly, the analysis, aided by agricultural and GIS modelling, suggests that the hiatus in the settlement and its dislocation after an apparent break between the Final Bronze Age and the Early Iron Age may have been caused by population pressure. After the settlement aggregated in one centre at Nepi, there are signs of further expansion in the Iron Age.

Scientific Analysis of Metal Objects and Metallurgical Remains from Kastri, Kythera

2007 ◽  
Vol 102 ◽  
pp. 219-238 ◽  
Author(s):  
Cyprian Broodbank ◽  
Thilo Rehren ◽  
Antonia-Maria Zianni
Keyword(s):  
Bronze Age ◽  
Preliminary Information ◽  
Surface Survey ◽  
Scientific Analysis ◽  
The 1960S ◽  
New Evidence ◽  
The Bronze Age ◽  
Late Roman

Scientific analysis of samples takes from metal objects and metallurgical products excavated during the 1960s at Kastri on Kythera provide new evidence concerning, variously, the Aegean metals trade and metallurgy on Kythera. The samples date to the Second Palace (Neopalatial), Classical and Late Roman periods. The Bronze Age material comprises fragments of copper ingots and silver cups, neither of which metal is locally available in Kythera, and the later material relates largely to local smelting and possibly smithing of iron, whose origin is uncertain. These activities are related to preliminary information concerning the distribution at each period of metallurgical activity across the island that has been generated by the intensive surface survey of the Kythera Island Project.

scholarly journals New evidence for prehistoric copper metallurgy in the vicinity of Bor

Starinar ◽  
2016 ◽  
pp. 173-191
Author(s):  
Aleksandar Kapuran ◽  
Dragana Zivkovic ◽  
Nada Strbac
Keyword(s):  
Material Culture ◽  
Bronze Age ◽  
Iron Age ◽  
Copper Ore ◽  
North Eastern ◽  
Metallurgical Furnaces ◽  
Copper Metallurgy ◽  
New Evidence ◽  
The Bronze Age

The last three years of archaeological investigations at the site Ru`ana in Banjsko Polje, in the immediate vicinity of Bor, have provided new evidence regarding the role of non-ferrous metallurgy in the economy of the prehistoric communities of north-eastern Serbia. The remains of metallurgical furnaces and a large amount of metallic slags at two neighbouring sites in the mentioned settlement reveal that locations with many installations for the thermal processing of copper ore existed in the Bronze Age. We believe, judging by the finds of material culture, that metallurgical activities in this area also continued into the Iron Age and, possibly, into the 4th century AD.

scholarly journals Emberi ábrázolás a Változások korában, 4000 és 2000 BC között

2014 ◽  
pp. 113-144
Author(s):  
Tünde Horváth
Keyword(s):  
Bronze Age ◽  
Middle Age ◽  
Late Phase ◽  
Early Bronze Age ◽  
Copper Age ◽  
Cultural Impacts ◽  
Middle Bronze Age ◽  
Archaeological Cultures ◽  
The Bronze Age

Our survey should by necessity begin earlier, from the close of the Middle Age Copper Age, and should extend to much later, at least until the onset of the Middle Bronze Age, in order to identify and analyse the appearance and spread of the cultural impacts affecting the Baden complex, their in-teraction with neighbouring cultures and, finally, their decline or transformation. Discussed here will be the archaeological cultures flourishing between 4200/4000 and 2200/2000 BC, from the late phase of the Middle Copper Age to its end (3600 BC), the Late Copper Age (ending in 2800 BC), the transi-tion between the Copper Age and the Bronze Age (ending in 2600 BC), and the Early Bronze Age 1–3 (ending in 2000 BC), which I have termed the Age of Transformation.

Did prehistoric landscape management retard the post-glacial spread of woodland in Southwest Asia?

Antiquity ◽  
2002 ◽  
Vol 76 (294) ◽  
pp. 1002-1010 ◽  
Author(s):  
Neil Roberts
Keyword(s):  
Bronze Age ◽  
Human Impacts ◽  
Landscape Management ◽  
Southwest Asia ◽  
Mediterranean Environment ◽  
East Mediterranean ◽  
Late Season ◽  
Pollen Diagrams ◽  
New Evidence ◽  
Trees And Shrubs

Pre-Bronze Age human impacts on the East Mediterranean environment have been hard to detect in pollen diagrams and other off-site contexts. New evidence shows that despite a relatively rapid post-glacial wetting-up of the climate, the re-advance of oak woodland across Southwest Asia was slow. Among the factors likely to have contributed to the apparent disjunction between climate and vegetation is Neolithic landscape management, particularly through regular use of late-season ground fires to encourage grasses at the expense of trees and shrubs.

The first religious buildings: ‘sacred huts’

2015 ◽  
Author(s):  
Charlotte R. Potts
Keyword(s):  
Bronze Age ◽  
Iron Age ◽  
Hot Springs ◽  
Central Italy ◽  
Fourth Century ◽  
Religious Activity ◽  
Neolithic Period ◽  
Religious Buildings ◽  
Middle Bronze Age ◽  
The Bronze Age

The votive assemblages that form the primary archaeological evidence for non-funerary cult in the Neolithic, Bronze, and early Iron Ages in central Italy indicate that there is a long tradition of religious activity in Latium and Etruria in which buildings played no discernible role. Data on votive deposits in western central Italy is admittedly uneven: although many early votive assemblages from Latium have been widely studied and published, there are few Etruscan comparanda; of the more than two hundred Etruscan votive assemblages currently known from all periods, relatively few date prior to the fourth century BC, while those in museum collections are often no longer entire and suffer from a lack of detailed provenance as well as an absence of excavations in the vicinity of the original find. Nevertheless, it is possible to recognize broad patterns in the form and location of cult sites prior to the Iron Age, and thus to sketch the broader context of prehistoric rituals that pre-dated the construction of the first religious buildings. In the Neolithic period (c.6000–3500 BC), funerary and non-funerary rituals appear to have been observed in underground spaces such as caves, crevices, and rock shelters, and there are also signs that cults developed around ‘abnormal water’ like stalagmites, stalactites, hot springs, and pools of still water. These characteristics remain visible in the evidence from the middle Bronze Age (c.1700–1300 BC). Finds from this period at the Sventatoio cave in Latium include vases containing traces of wheat, barley seed cakes, and parts of young animals including pigs, sheep, and oxen, as well as burned remains of at least three children. The openair veneration of underground phenomena is also implied by the discovery of ceramic fragments from all phases of the Bronze Age around a sulphurous spring near the Colonelle Lake at Tivoli. Other evidence of cult activities at prominent points in the landscape, such as mountain tops and rivers, suggests that rituals began to lose an underground orientation during the middle Bronze Age. By the late Bronze Age (c.1300–900 BC) natural caves no longer seem to have served ritual or funerary functions.

An Archaeological Investigation of Early Mineworkings on Copa Hill, Cwmystwyth: New Evidence for Prehistoric Mining

1988 ◽  
Vol 54 ◽  
pp. 329-333 ◽  
Author(s):  
Simon Timberlake ◽  
Roy Switsur
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Bronze Age ◽  
Radiocarbon Dating ◽  
Archaeological Investigation ◽  
Middle Bronze Age ◽  
Mine Workings ◽  
Prehistoric Mining ◽  
The Hill ◽  
New Evidence

In September 1986 a small excavation was done by S. T. to investigate an area of primitive-style mine-workings on Copa Hill, Cwmystwyth, Dyfed (SN816756). A small opencast and several overgrown tips associated with pebble hammers occur where the copper-rich Comet Lode outcrops on the brow of the hill. Copa Hill is within an area of seventeenth–twentieth-century lead-mine workings which extend for 1.2 km along the N side of the Ystwyth Valley (fig. 1). Radiocarbon dating of charcoal from within one of the tips suggests that mining commenced in the middle Bronze Age.

The antiquity of the Greek epic tradition: some new evidence

1980 ◽  
Vol 26 ◽  
pp. 1-11 ◽  
Author(s):  
G.C. Horrocks
Keyword(s):  
Bronze Age ◽  
Subsequent Development ◽  
Late Bronze Age ◽  
Poetic Tradition ◽  
Epic Tradition ◽  
Narrative Poetry ◽  
Greek Epic ◽  
Careful Handling ◽  
New Evidence ◽  
The Bronze Age

Since the decipherment of Linear B a number of scholars have argued, on the basis of supposed Mycenaean survivals in the Homeric poems, that the Greek legendary poetic tradition ran continuously from the Bronze Age through the Dark Age down to the singers of the Ionian towns in the ninth and eighth centuries. However, the directness of the connection between the narrative poetry of the Mycenaean Age, if indeed such existed, and the subsequent development of the Epic in Greece has been called into question. Thus Shipp, for example, has argued that most of the items listed by Chadwick in his article Mycenaean elements in the Homeric dialect in fact left their mark for a time at least on forms of Greek other than that of the Epic, and so could well have entered this tradition in post-Mycenaean times and in some other way than through a direct poetical current from the Bronze Age. A similar conclusion has been reached by Kirk, who has expressed his views forcefully in a series of publications. Consider the following:The two objective criteria for dating elements within the Homeric poems, namely archaeology and language, require careful handling and reveal less than is generally claimed for them. They enable certain elements to be recognized as having existed as early as the late Bronze Age, but do not necessarily prove that these all passed into the Ionian Epic tradition by the medium of late Bronze Age poetry.

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document