Archaeology of Central Asia during the 1st millennium BC, from the Beginning of the Iron age to the Hellenistic period

2021 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Material Culture ◽  
Central Asia ◽  
Iron Age ◽  
Hellenistic Period ◽  
Present Volume ◽  
Political Transformations ◽  
Archaeological Work ◽  
Key Aspects

The present volume edited by Johanna Lhuillier gathers contributions presented during the workshop “Archaeology of Central Asia during the 1st millennium BC” at the 10th ICAANE in Vienna in 2016. Designed to treat both the Iron Age and the Hellenistic period, it aims to embrace the diversity of current archaeological work led on the 1st millennium BC in Central Asia. The contributions are based on previously unpublished data and ongoing fieldwork, treating key aspects of the covered period, like chronology, the development of settlements and architecture, and the distribution and evolution of material culture. The volume casts new light on this challenging period by characterizing its cultural, socio-economical, and political transformations and focusing on broader interactions with neighbouring cultures.

scholarly journals The Oxford Handbook of Roman Britain

2014 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Roman Empire ◽  
Material Culture ◽  
Iron Age ◽  
Cultural Change ◽  
Main Stream ◽  
Young Generation ◽  
Roman Britain ◽  
Narrative Approaches ◽  
Archaeological Work ◽  
The Rich

Roman Britain is a critical area of research within the provinces of the Roman empire. It has formed the context for many of the seminal publications on the nature of imperialism and cultural change. Roman rule had a profound impact culture of Iron Age Britain, with new forms of material culture, and new forms of knowledge. On the other hand, there is evidence that such impacts were not uniform, leading to questions of resistance and continuity of pre-existing cultural forms. Within the last 15-20 years, the study of Roman Britain has been transformed through an enormous amount of new and interesting work which is not reflected in the main stream literature. The new archaeological work by a young generation has moved away from the narrative historical approach towards one much more closely focused on the interpretation of material. It has produced new interpretations of the material and a new light on the archaeology of the province, grounded in a close reading of the material evidence as collected by previous scholars and exploiting the rich library of publications on Romano-British studies. For the first time, this volume draws together the various scholars working on new approaches to Roman Britain to produce a comprehensive study of the present state and future trajectory of the subject. Arranged thematically and focussed primarily on the archaeological evidence, the volume challenges more traditional narrative approaches and explores new theoretical perspectives in order to better understand the archaeology of the province and its place within the wider context of the Roman Empire.

scholarly journals Age Determination Of Buddhist Cult Complexes Of Northwestern Bactria-Tokharistan

2021 ◽  
Vol 03 (06) ◽  
pp. 19-26
Author(s):  
Jaloliddin Annaev ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Material Culture ◽  
Central Asia ◽  
Fine Arts ◽  
Age Determination ◽  
Point Of View ◽  
Scientific Publications ◽  
Archaeological Work ◽  
Scientific Task ◽  
Ancient Times ◽  
Special Studies

In the Twenty-First Century, in the context of globalization processes, special attention is paid to the study of the contribution of religions to the development of world civilization, spirituality and enlightenment, because spiritual culture determined the progress of society and, since ancient periods, has been closely associated with religious views and beliefs. This definition is fully applying to Buddhism, that existed for many centuries in the south of Central Asia, including in the historical and cultural region of Bactria, along with Zoroastrianism and other religions. Central Asia is considered as a territory of distribution of various religious views, religions and teachings by the world's leading research institutions since ancient times. In this regard, special studies have been conducted and their results were published in many scientific publications. In particular, Uzbek and foreign scientists carried out fundamentally important archaeological work with the aim of studying the Buddhist monuments of Tarmidh-Termez, as well as identifying the features of the spread of Buddhism through this region to Margiana, Sogdiana and East Turkistan. From this point of view and out of the need to analyze other topical issues (spiritual and material culture, fine arts, numismatics and epigraphy, reconstruction of the functions of Buddhist centers), additional research based on new approaches is an urgent scientific task.

Back to the Iron Age Chronology in Southern Central Asia

2021 ◽  
Vol 27 (2) ◽  
pp. 337-377
Author(s):  
Bertille Lyonnet ◽  
Michel Fontugne
Keyword(s):  
Central Asia ◽  
Iron Age ◽  
The Other ◽  
Hellenistic Period ◽  
Southern Central

Abstract The article reconsiders two major sites of the 1st millennium BC in southern Uzbekistan, Kyzyltepa and Kurganzol. It contests their recent dating – exclusively the Achaemenid and transitional Hellenistic period for the first one, and the end of the 4th c. BC for the second one – mainly based upon dendrochronological analyses relating the samples to the time of Alexander the Great’s conquest or slightly before, and ruling out the other dates given to these sites in previous publications. Our argumentation is based upon (1) various archaeological arguments and (2) scientific criteria that question the dendrochronological data and the supposed aging of the 14C results due to “old waters” from glaciers.

Early Iron Age culture of Sistan, Afghanistan

Afghanistan ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 2 (1) ◽  
pp. 29-69
Author(s):  
Mitchell Allen ◽  
William B. Trousdale
Keyword(s):  
Material Culture ◽  
South Asia ◽  
Central Asia ◽  
Historic Preservation ◽  
Iron Age ◽  
Smithsonian Institution ◽  
Settlement Pattern ◽  
Early Iron Age ◽  
Settlement System

The Helmand Sistan Project, conducted by the Smithsonian Institution and Afghan Directorate of Archaeology and Historic Preservation in the 1970s but hitherto unpublished, uncovered through survey and excavation an extensive settlement system along the lower Helmand River dating to the late second and early first millennia BCE. Of note were a series of platform-based settlements in the Sar-o-Tar region east of the Helmand River along of a series of large canals first constructed at this time, which allowed for extensive cultivation in the otherwise deserted region. Excavations at one of these sites, Qala 169, gave us a rich understanding of the settlement pattern and material culture of the early Iron Age, including a style of hitherto-unknown fine ware wheel-made painted ceramics. Finds from Qala 169 are compared to at least 21 other related sites surveyed by the project in the lower Helmand Valley and in Sar-o-Tar. Comparisons are also made between this corpus and early Iron Age sites elsewhere in Afghanistan, Iran, South Asia, and Central Asia, showing that this material represented a unique regional style.

The Anti-Individualistic Ideology of Hellenistic Culture1

Numen ◽  
1994 ◽  
Vol 41 (2) ◽  
pp. 117-140
Author(s):  
Luther H. Martin
Keyword(s):  
Material Culture ◽  
Cultural Values ◽  
Religious Practice ◽  
Hellenistic Period ◽  
Alexander The Great ◽  
Social Strategies ◽  
Early Christian ◽  
Political Transformations ◽  
Social Principle ◽  
Terracotta Figurines

AbstractHistorical generalizations are invariably shaped by modern cultural values. One of the dominant values of modern Western culture is individualism, the origins of which tend to be claimed by historians for their own domains of research, with examples extending from sixth-century B.C. Greece through modern Europe. The generalization about a Hellenistic period of history, first made in the nineteenth-century, clearly reflects this value of individualism which became, consequently, part of the scholarly convention about the culture of this period. With reference to the thought, religious practice, and material culture of the period, this article argues to the contrary that neither Hellenistic idea nor ideal can be held to value in any way an individualistic view of the self. Alexander the Great and the Athenian general Alcibiades were typical examples of individualism taken to task by philosophers. Hellenistic ethics seem, rather, to have been dominated by a social principle of "Socratic care". Similarly, Hellenistic religions, including the early Christian associations, defined their raison d'être on the basis of distinctive social claims. One Christian tradition even explicitly employed the Hellenistic ethical principle of "Socratic care" as its distinctive criterion. Finally, the well-known Hellenistic terracotta figurines, often adduced as examples of Hellenistic individualism, were, in fact, mass-produced and were employed in ritual, i.e., collective, contexts. Whereas the socio-political transformations that characterize Hellenistic culture did challenge traditional collective bases for identity, the intellectual, religious and artistic expressions of this culture all confirm an anti-individualistic character for the alternative social strategies of identity produced during this period.

Trees and shrubs in the sanctuary. Wood charcoal analysis at the Sanctuary of Poseidon at Kalaureia, Poros

2019 ◽  
pp. 255-269 ◽  
Author(s):  
Maria Ntinou
Keyword(s):  
Iron Age ◽  
Economic Activity ◽  
Wood Charcoal ◽  
Early Iron Age ◽  
Hellenistic Period ◽  
Charcoal Analysis ◽  
Additional Source ◽  
Olive Cultivation ◽  
Trees And Shrubs ◽  
By Products

Wood charcoal analysis at the Sanctuary of Poseidon at Kalaureia, Poros aims to provide information on the vegetation of the area and its management and on the range of plants used in the activities taking place at the sanctuary. During the excavations of 2003–2005 in Areas D and C, systematic samples from fills and features from all the excavated strata were recovered and water flotation was used for the separation of wood charcoal from the sediment. Wood charcoal was found in two pits dated to the Early Iron Age, near the supposed altar of the Archaic period (Feature 05), in a deposit of the Hellenistic period (the “dining deposit”), in floor deposits (Early Iron Age and Late Classical/Early Hellenistic periods), and fills of different chrono-cultural periods (Archaic–Early Roman). All the taxa identified in the wood charcoal assemblages are thermophilous Mediterranean elements, most of them evergreen broad-leaved. The assemblages show that the most frequent taxon is the olive, followed by the prickly oak, the Fabaceae, and the heather. In most assemblages mock privet/buckthorn, strawberry tree, the pear and Prunus family species are present, while Aleppo pine, lentisc, the fig, and the carob trees are less frequent. Olive cultivation was an important economic activity during the whole life of the sanctuary and probably olive pruning constantly provided the sanctuary with fuel. The woodland would be the additional source of firewood for the sanctuary’s needs for fuel for mundane activities such as heating and cooking, for more formal ones, such as sacrifice, but also for industrial activities such as tile firing. Activities related to the reorganization of space and the expansion of the sanctuary may be reflected in charcoal of carpentry by-products as the fir, cypress, and maybe pine remains.

The Development of the Southeast Lower Town of Sirkeli Höyük

2020 ◽  
Vol 47 (2) ◽  
pp. 215-286
Author(s):  
Alexander E. Sollee ◽  
Hannah Mönninghoff ◽  
Ekin Kozal ◽  
Doğa Karakaya ◽  
Joëlle Heim ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Iron Age ◽  
Residential Area ◽  
Urban Center ◽  
Residential Areas ◽  
Stratigraphic Sequence ◽  
The People ◽  
Archaeological Work ◽  
Archaeobotanical Remains ◽  
Modern Turkey ◽  
Excavation Area

AbstractThe site of Sirkeli Höyük in the province of Adana in modern Turkey is one of the largest settlement mounds in Plain Cilicia. In 2012, a geophysical survey revealed that the ancient settlement was not confined to the höyük, but also encompassed an extensive lower town to the southeast of the main mound. To gain information on the dating and development of this part of the settlement, an excavation area (“Sector F”) was opened at a spot where the magnetometry survey suggested the presence of a city gate. Since then, archaeological work in this area has continuously produced new discoveries that help us understand how this residential area and its inhabitants developed throughout the periods of its occupation. Especially the Iron Age (Neo Cilician period) levels, which cover approximately the 11th–7th centuries B.C., provide important information on how this urban center of the Neo Hittite kingdom Hiyawa/Que changed over time and to which extent historical events impacted the people living in one of its residential areas. This contribution discusses the stratigraphic sequence, the pottery, and the archaeobotanical remains discovered in Sector F during the 2013–2019 campaigns, and concludes with a synthesis of the development in this area from a historical perspective.

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