The first cup marks from the territory of Poland and their archaeological context

2019 ◽  
Vol 94 (1) ◽  
pp. 116-132
Author(s):  
Mateusz Jaeger ◽  
Jakub Niebieszczański ◽  
Mateusz Stróżyk

Abstract Thus far, prehistoric rock art has not been featured in the discourse concerned with the archaeology of Poland due to the absence of finds there belonging to this category. This text presents the very first identified specimens of cup marks in the present-day territory of Poland; all differ significantly in terms of context, which consequently determines the potential for interpreting the finds. The first is a boulder which was put in place as grave-marker at a Wielbark Culture site dated to Late Iron Age. The find appears to overlap with the general pattern of regularities observed in the funerary rituals of the Wielbark communities. The second instance is an isolated boulder with cup marks – most likely positioned ex situ – discovered at Wilcza (Greater Poland). Regarding the latter, available information contributes little to determination of chronology of the cup marks and the original location of the boulder in the landscape, thus obscuring the primary function of the feature. The third boulder yielded the most contextual information; it is situated within a complex of numerous Middle Bronze Age barrows in Smoszew, at a site which constitutes a part of the Bronze Age cultural landscape that has survived in the Krotoszyn Forest in southern Greater Poland. For the authors, this very feature served as a basis for a contextual and chronological analysis of rock art which has hitherto remained unknown in Poland. In light of obtained data, the cup-marked boulder from Smoszew should be approached as an element of the funerary landscape created by the Tumulus Culture community and evidence of broader cultural processes which linked particular regions of Europe in the Bronze Age.

Author(s):  
С. С. Мургабаев ◽  
Л. Д. Малдыбекова

Статья посвящена новому памятнику наскального искусства хребта Каратау, открытому в урочище Карасуйир. Приводится краткое описание памятника, публикуются наиболее важные изображения. Сюжеты и стилистические особенности основной чaсти петроглифов памятника Карасуйир связаны с эпохой бронзы, остaльные рисунки отнесены к эпохе рaннего железа и, возможно, к эпохе камня. Для некоторых из них предложена предварительная интерпретация. The article is devoted to a new rock art site of the Karatau Range, discovered in the Karasuyir Area. A brief description of the site is provided, and the most important images are published. Subjects and stylistic features of the main part of Karasuyir petroglyphs are associated with the Bronze Age, and other engravings are related to the early Iron Age and, perhaps, to the Stone Age. A preliminary interpretation is proposed for some of them.


Author(s):  
Joakim Goldhahn

This chapter offers a long-term perspective on rock art in northern Europe. It first provides an overview of research on the rock art traditions of northern Europe before discussing the societies and cultures that created such traditions. It then considers examples of rock art made by hunter-gatherer societies in northern Europe, focusing on the first rock art boom related to Neolithization. It also examines the second rock art boom, which was associated with social and religious changes within farming communities that took place around 1600–1400 bc. The chapter concludes by analysing the breakdown of long-distance networks in the transition from the Bronze Age to the Iron Age and its consequences for the making of rock art within the southern traditions, as well as the use of rock art sites during the Pre-Roman Iron Age, Roman Iron Age, and Migration Period.


2013 ◽  
Vol 16 (4) ◽  
pp. 685-703 ◽  
Author(s):  
Peter Skoglund

This paper discusses the chronology of the Järrestad rock-art site in south-east Sweden. Drawing on recent developments in ship chronology, it argues that images were produced from the very beginning of the Scandinavian Bronze Age, c. 1700 BC, to the earliest Iron Age, c. 200 BC. The images are not randomly spread, however, but cluster in two phases: c. 1700–1100 BC and c. 900–200 BC, each with its different characteristics. It is argued that the later phase should be viewed against the background of central and western European Hallstatt cultures which affected not only the iconography of the Järrestad panel but also the organization of the surrounding cultural landscape.


2018 ◽  
Vol 45 ◽  
pp. 154-165
Author(s):  
Javier Rodriguez-Corral

During the Late Iron Age, monumental stone statues of warriors were established in the northwest of Iberia, ‘arming’ landscapes that ultimately encouraged specific types of semiotic ideologies in the region. This paper deals with how these statues on rocks not only worked in the production of liminality in the landscape – creating transitional zones on it –, but also how they functioned as liminal gateways to the past, absorbing ideas from the Bronze Age visual culture up to the Late Iron Age one, in order to create emotional responses to a new socio-political context.


AmS-Varia ◽  
2020 ◽  
pp. 77-86
Author(s):  
Marianne Lönn

This article discusses the meaning of stones and the practice of gathering stones, in graves, clearance cairns and stone-covered hillocks. The emphases are on stone-covered hillocks and their long-term usage (up to 1500 years), analyzed using the concept of longue durée. In this paper I propose that the stones in themselves have a cultic meaning as well as the actions, i.e. the remodeling of hillocks and the placing of clearance cairns among graves. In this, I see a connection between stone-covered hillocks, graves and clearance cairns. The underlying concept is a stable, but slowly changing, prehistoric religious tradition that lasted from the Bronze Age to the Migration Period and possibly also through the Late Iron Age. A basic change in this does not take place until the coming of Christianity in the Medieval Period. The reason that Medieval and later clearance cairns were placed together with graves is probably due to their similar appearance.


Author(s):  
Jennifer Newton ◽  
Kate Domett

This chapter synthesizes documented evidence of intentional dental modification in prehistoric mainland Southeast Asia. Through previously published work, potential reasons for the practice of ablation and filing are explored, examining archaeological sites spanning the Neolithic to late Iron Age. Cases of intentional ablation have been documented throughout prehistoric Southeast Asia, however, evidence to date indicates cases have been limited to Neolithic and Iron Age sites with only four tentative cases of intentional ablation in the Bronze Age. The increasing number of samples from newly documented sites in Cambodia, including the first evidence of filing in this region, and previously documented evidence from other parts of Southeast Asia, such as Thailand and Vietnam, allows the opportunity to systematically examine ablation and filing patterns from a regional perspective and put it into worldwide context.


2019 ◽  
Vol 45 ◽  
pp. 154-165
Author(s):  
Javier Rodriguez-Corral

During the Late Iron Age, monumental stone statues of warriors were established in the northwest of Iberia, ‘arming’ landscapes that ultimately encouraged specific types of semiotic ideologies in the region. This paper deals with how these statues on rocks not only worked in the production of liminality in the landscape – creating transitional zones on it –, but also how they functioned as liminal gateways to the past, absorbing ideas from the Bronze Age visual culture up to the Late Iron Age one, in order to create emotional responses to a new socio-political context.


Author(s):  
Elsa Neveu ◽  
Véronique Zech-Matterne ◽  
Cécile Brun ◽  
Marie-France Dietsch-Sellami ◽  
Frédérique Durand ◽  
...  

2011 ◽  
Vol 77 ◽  
pp. 251-278 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ian Armit ◽  
Rick Schulting ◽  
Christopher J. Knüsel ◽  
Ian A.G. Shepherd

Excavations at the Sculptor's Cave (north-east Scotland) during the 1930s and 1970s yielded evidence for activity in the Late Bronze Age, Late Iron Age, and early medieval periods, including a substantial human skeletal assemblage with apparent evidence for the removal, curation, and display of human heads. The present project, combining osteological analysis and a programme of AMS dating, aimed to place the surviving human remains from the site into their appropriate chronological context and to relate them to the broader sequence of human activity in the cave. A series of AMS determinations has demonstrated that the human remains fall into two distinct chronological groups separated by a millennium or more: one from the Mid-Late Bronze Age and one from the Late Iron Age. Osteological analysis suggests that while the Bronze Age group may, as previously suggested, include the remains of the heads of juveniles formerly displayed at the cave entrance, this was not the sole mechanism by which human remains arrived in the cave at this time. The Late Iron Age group provides evidence for decapitation and other violent treatments within the cave itself.


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