scholarly journals Innovation and Agency: to what extent did cultural appropriation affect the development of jewellery in Britain from 50 BCE to 150 CE?

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Elizabeth Webster
Keyword(s):  
Roman Empire ◽  
Iron Age ◽  
Detailed Examination ◽  
Global Market ◽  
Cultural Appropriation ◽  
Cultural Resistance ◽  
Social Agent ◽  
Material Development ◽  
Late Iron Age ◽  
The Social

‘Native’ style objects from the Roman period are rather frequent in many regions of Britain and have often been considered as evidence for a ‘Celtic resurgence’ or ‘cultural resistance’. Through the examination, with a metallurgical focus, of three prominent jewellery types of the period – brooches, finger rings and hairpins – this paper aims to demonstrate that the conventional cultural theories applied to the material development between 50 BCE and 150 CE are outdated, inaccurate, and no longer applicable. Instead of ‘resistance’ we need to focus on innovation and the individual social agent. Do ‘native styles’ then express a form of cultural resistance? We find native and standard Roman objects side-by-side in the same archaeological contexts. Moreover, these ‘native’ styles are innovations with the social agent having consciously adopted specific ‘Roman’ forms and techniques and adapting them to local ‘taste’ and cultural understandings. This resulted in art forms which were often quite different from late Iron Age artefacts. Significant change and development only seem to start occurring as a result of increasing interactions within an interconnected ‘global’ empire, demonstrating that Britain’s integration into empire-wide socio-economic structures served as a catalyst for speeding up already existing developments that were occurring in pre-Roman times. Through the detailed examination of prominent jewellery types of the period, this paper aims to demonstrate that we need to go beyond concepts of ‘cultural resistance’ and ‘Celtic resurgence’ in order to understand the Roman impact on Britain and the extent to which cultural appropriation was feasible. Most cultural theories applied to British jewellery during this period attribute development to appropriation of Roman culture or conform to the understanding that the introduction to a ‘global’ market was the sole cause for change. However, in the case of the latter it accounts for very little in way of innovative developments, and in the case of the former it seems to have merely acted as a catalyst for the speeding up and continuation of developments which were occurring during the LPRIA. The study of jewellery allows us to identify distinct choices of style, colour and techniques in different parts of Roman Britain. Prominent examples include dragon brooches, snake-figure rings, trumpet brooches and so on. Some designs are unique to specific ‘native’ regions, while others conform to a more global ‘zeitgeist’ across the Roman empire. We can identify a continuing development by which ‘native’ and ‘Roman’ styles and techniques were amalgamated. But this process was much more complex than the theory of cultural appropriation presupposes. We need to consider the social agents involved in the process, the regional variations across Britain, and the diverging identities expressed through the various types and designs of jewellery.

Landscape, Ecology and Mentalités: a Long-term Perspective on Developments in the Meuse-Demer-Scheldt Region

2002 ◽  
Vol 68 ◽  
pp. 257-287 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nico Roymans ◽  
Fokke Gerritsen
Keyword(s):  
Landscape Ecology ◽  
Iron Age ◽  
Study Region ◽  
Late Iron Age ◽  
The Social ◽  
Demographic Fluctuations ◽  
Annales School ◽  
Radical Transformation

This study presents a survey of the long-term dynamics with regard to settlement and landscape in the Meuse-Demer-Scheldt region (south Netherlands/north Belgium), thereby using the results of several decades of intensive archaeological fieldwork. In a theoretical sense, this study is inspired by the work of historians from the French Annales school. We use a model of long-term agricultural cycles, set against demographic fluctuations, in an attempt to understand developments within the study region. At the same time, however, we aim to incorporate the social and ideational dimensions of these changes, which are linked to a specific ordering and arrangement of the landscape. Our particular focus is the radical transformation that occurred around the Middle and Late Iron Age, as this had a major impact on the ordering and arrangement of the landscape in later periods.

Generations of aristocracy

2002 ◽  
Vol 9 (1) ◽  
pp. 2-15 ◽  
Author(s):  
Greg Woolf
Keyword(s):  
Material Culture ◽  
Social Structure ◽  
Iron Age ◽  
Social Power ◽  
Roman Period ◽  
Social Hierarchies ◽  
Continuity And Change ◽  
Roman Imperialism ◽  
Late Iron Age ◽  
The Social

AbstractThis paper sets out to examine issues of continuity and change in the social hierarchies of the peoples of the Gallic interior, between the late Iron Age and the early Roman period. This part of the empire is one in which we might reasonably expect to find substantial continuity of social structure. Many scholars have argued that this is indeed the case, notwithstanding the evident changes in material culture. This paper argues that the opposite was true. Apparent similarities, I suggest, reinforced by the ways we have studied provincial cultures, have masked dramatic changes in the basis of social power. That conclusion has implications for other provincial societies, and for Roman imperialism in general.

Generations of aristocracy

2002 ◽  
Vol 9 (1) ◽  
pp. 2-15 ◽  
Author(s):  
Greg Woolf
Keyword(s):  
Material Culture ◽  
Social Structure ◽  
Iron Age ◽  
Social Power ◽  
Roman Period ◽  
Social Hierarchies ◽  
Continuity And Change ◽  
Roman Imperialism ◽  
Late Iron Age ◽  
The Social

AbstractThis paper sets out to examine issues of continuity and change in the social hierarchies of the peoples of the Gallic interior, between the late Iron Age and the early Roman period. This part of the empire is one in which we might reasonably expect to find substantial continuity of social structure. Many scholars have argued that this is indeed the case, notwithstanding the evident changes in material culture. This paper argues that the opposite was true. Apparent similarities, I suggest, reinforced by the ways we have studied provincial cultures, have masked dramatic changes in the basis of social power. That conclusion has implications for other provincial societies, and for Roman imperialism in general.

Britain, Gaul, and Germany

2015 ◽  
Author(s):  
Tom Moore
Keyword(s):  
Roman Empire ◽  
Social Change ◽  
Iron Age ◽  
Cultural Change ◽  
Fifth Century ◽  
First Century ◽  
Late Iron Age ◽  
Before And After ◽  
Burial Rites ◽  
Cultural Interactions

Britain’s place in the Roman Empire cannot be seen in isolation. The province’s close links to Gaul and Germany stemmed from earlier interaction in the late Iron Age, and these connections have been seen as highly significant in explaining the changes in burial, dress, and settlement that took place in Britain from the first century BC to the fifth century AD. Exploring evidence from changes in diet, architecture, and burial rites, this chapter will assess the nature and extent of cultural interactions between these provinces. In particular, it will examine whether these links can be used to argue for a ‘Gallicization’ of Britain, rather than a ‘Romanization’. It will question whether such terms are helpful in reconceptualizing the processes of cultural change before and after the Roman Conquest or whether they present their own set of problems for understanding cultural interactions and social change.

scholarly journals Forging the trowel, hammering the Dacians: Marxism and Late Iron Age Archaeology in Romania (1948–1989)

2020 ◽  
Vol 57 ◽  
pp. 23-62
Author(s):  
Alin Henț ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Social History ◽  
Iron Age ◽  
Critical Evaluation ◽  
Communist Regime ◽  
Cultural Changes ◽  
Late Iron Age ◽  
The Social ◽  
History Of ◽  
Political Economic ◽  
Key Events

The aim of this paper is to make a critical evaluation of the Romanian historiography from 1948–1989 which had as a subject of study the social history of the northern Balkan communities in the Late Iron Age period. The two years that I have chosen have both a symbolical and a chronological value. The year 1948 marks the beginning of an extensive and radical process of political, economic, social, and cultural changes, while the year 1989 symbolizes the fall of the Romanian “communist” regime. I propose a contextual analysis, which takes into account the evolution of the “communist” regime, as well as some key events that shaped the discourse. Through this evaluation, I want to intervene in the symbolic struggles that had as a final stake the Late Iron Age archaeology from Romania. Without claiming an objective analysis, I want to offer an alternative to the distorted portrayals which had existed so far. Although labelled as a “Communist” or “Marxist” historiography, it never strayed too far from the nationalist ideology, creating massive distortions along its way. In almost 50 years, the Romanian Late Iron Age historiography has gone from a formal and superficial application of Marxist theories, to a relative liberalization, and finally returned to an almost right‑wing discourse over the Dacian past. Moreover, I will show, in contrast to the classical post‑Communist view that the Late Iron Age archaeology in Romania was in touch, at least at some point, to the contemporary historiographical debates.

Total Landscapes (250 BC to the Early Roman Period)

2015 ◽  
Author(s):  
Richard Bradley ◽  
Colin Haselgrove ◽  
Marc Vander Linden ◽  
Leo Webley
Keyword(s):  
Roman Empire ◽  
Iron Age ◽  
Radiocarbon Dating ◽  
Social Complexity ◽  
First Century ◽  
Northern Europe ◽  
North West ◽  
Late Iron Age ◽  
Mediterranean World ◽  
Written Sources

By the late first century BC, most of north-west Europe had been incorporated into the Roman Empire or had fallen under its shadow. This has profoundly affected how the late Iron Age is perceived and studied. Being able to view peoples and places through written sources and coin inscriptions means that the archaeology of the period is often approached very differently to those discussed in previous chapters, with greater emphasis on historical events and causality. The chronology encourages this. Late La Tène sites on the Continent can now be dated to within a generation or so, anchored by a growing number of dendrochronological fixed points (Kaenel 2006; Durost and Lambert 2007), although similar precision is rarely attainable in northern Europe or in Ireland and northern Britain, which rely largely on radiocarbon dating. The prevailing narrative for the late Iron Age in central Europe, Gaul, and southern Britain—essentially the areas that later became part of the Roman empire—is one of increasing hierarchy, social complexity, political centralization, urbanization, and economic development. These changes are seen as bound up with increasing contact with the Mediterranean world, leading up to the Roman conquests of the first centuries BC and AD. This is contrasted with the situation in northern Britain, Ireland, and ‘Germanic’ northern Europe, which are assumed to have been more tradition-bound and resistant to change. As we shall see, recent excavations do not necessarily contradict this narrative, but they do suggest that the picture is far more complex. Not all developments can be fitted into the story of growing social complexity, whilst to assume that Roman expansion was the most important factor at work at this period is to see events through the eyes of Classical writers (Bradley 2007). It is important to understand late Iron Age societies in their own terms, rather than just as precursors to provincial Roman societies. Many influential approaches to the period—from core–periphery models to the current emphasis on the agency of client rulers (Creighton 2000)—suffer from teleology as a result of having been constructed with half an eye to explaining the pattern of Roman expansion.

Pins and the Chronology of Brochs

1956 ◽  
Vol 21 ◽  
pp. 282-294 ◽  
Author(s):  
Robert B. K. Stevenson
Keyword(s):  
Roman Empire ◽  
Iron Age ◽  
Early Iron Age ◽  
Late Iron Age ◽  
Single Culture

Prehistorians have unreservedly extended the Early Iron Age in territories north of the Roman Empire to include, in addition to a pre-Roman Iron Age, a Roman Iron Age during which the native barbarism evolved without a break though not unaffected by the Empire. That a Late Iron Age continued in Scotland, as in Scandinavia, during post-Roman times has been less readily realized. Professor Childe nominally ended his Prehistory of Scotland with the 4th century A.D. and spoke of an unbridged chasm thereafter, four or five centuries long, to which few and undecisive relics were attributable. The extent of archaeological perplexity 30 years ago was such that J. G. Callander maintained that Skara Brae represented the same Iron Age culture as the brochs and earth-houses. Following the studies of brochs and wheel-houses by Lindsay Scott and Lethbridge, which agreed that they formed a single culture datable to the first three centuries A.D., the latter wrote recently that the culture of the Western Isles between the 3rd century and the 9th ‘is completely unknown and I think unsought’.

scholarly journals What Makes a Mound? Earth-Sourced Materials in Late Iron Age Burial Mounds

2021 ◽  
pp. 1-17
Author(s):  
Rebecca J.S. Cannell
Keyword(s):  
Iron Age ◽  
Viking Age ◽  
Archaeological Interpretation ◽  
Late Iron Age ◽  
Political Implications ◽  
The Social ◽  
Burial Mounds ◽  
Materials Used ◽  
Southern Norway

The interpretation of Late Iron Age burial mounds often focuses exclusively on the discovered contents, the social identity or role of the interred and the economic and political implications that can be extracted. This article considers the mound itself as a basis for archaeological interpretation, and attempts to place substantial late Iron Age burial mounds within the landscape they are made of. Within these burial mounds internal references to time, place and the transformations and imbued associations within the earth-sourced materials are purposeful and significant. This is illustrated via comparable examples from southern Norway, and to add contrast, cases from the Viking Age Isle of Man will be explored. This article will outline why the selected mounds should be seen as closely related to each other in the references they contain, and how the materials used can be seen as a purposeful link to the land itself.

scholarly journals ‘Fire Burn and Cauldron Bubble’: Iron Age and Early Roman Cauldrons of Britain and Ireland

2014 ◽  
Vol 80 ◽  
pp. 327-362 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jody Joy
Keyword(s):  
Iron Age ◽  
Social Role ◽  
Detailed Examination ◽  
Large Capacity ◽  
Unpublished Study ◽  
Physical Evidence ◽  
The Social

‘A man can live to 50 but a cauldron will live to 100’ – Old Kazakh sayingThis paper presents a re-examination of Iron Age and early Roman cauldrons, a little studied but important artefact class that have not been considered as a group since the unpublished study of Loughran of 1989. Cauldrons are categorised into two broad types (projecting-bellied and globular) and four groups. New dating evidence is presented, pushing the dating of these cauldrons back to the 4th centurybc. A long held belief that cauldrons are largely absent from Britain and Ireland between 600 and 200bcis also challenged through this re-dating and the identification of cauldrons dating from 600–400bc. Detailed examination of the technology of manufacture and physical evidence of use and repair indicates that cauldrons are technically accomplished objects requiring great skill to make. Many have been extensively repaired, showing they were in use for some time. It is argued that owing to their large capacity cauldrons were not used every day but were instead used at large social gatherings, specifically at feasts. The social role of feasting is explored and it is argued that cauldrons derive much of their significance from their use at feasts, making them socially powerful objects, likely to be selected for special deposition.

The World of P

2019 ◽  
Vol 69 (2) ◽  
pp. 173-218
Author(s):  
Avraham Faust
Keyword(s):  
Iron Age ◽  
Historical Evidence ◽  
Material World ◽  
Late Iron Age ◽  
The Social ◽  
The World ◽  
Priestly Source

Abstract The Priestly source (P) is a common designation in scholarship for significant parts of the Pentateuch, which are assumed to have been written in priestly circles. While the social circles and theological background of P are more agreed upon, its dating is hotly debated, and various textual, intertextual, linguistic and historical evidence were employed in an attempt to date its composition. The present paper aims to examine the material world that is assumed by a number of Priestly texts, and the landscape in which the writings are embedded, in order to shed new light on their dating. The paper concludes that much of the priestly writings (inclusive of some of the texts commonly attributed to the Holiness school) are quite intelligible on the background the late Iron Age, mainly the 8th-7th centuries BCE.

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