scholarly journals The never-ending Quest for the Elites:New Approaches to the Study of Cemeteries and Social Organization

2017 ◽  
Vol 1 ◽  
Author(s):  
Pınar Durgun
Keyword(s):  
Social Organization ◽  
Bronze Age ◽  
Early Bronze Age ◽  
Small Scale ◽  
Eastern Anatolia ◽  
Archaeological Data ◽  
The Social ◽  
Great Transition ◽  
Ruling Elites ◽  
Urban Sites

The Early Bronze Age (EBA) in Anatolia (3100/3000-2000 BCE.)[1] is considered a period of great transition when urban societies developed and when extramural cemeteries started to emerge. Western Anatolian sites like Troy and Külloba have yielded monumental walls, or architecturally distinct quarters. However none of these sites have yielded extramural cemeteries. Extramural cemeteries of the EBA are only associated with small-scale sites such as Karataş (southwest Anatolia) and Demircihöyük (northwest Anatolia) which have been referred to as “chiefdoms”. Labeling these non-urban sites as chiefdoms inevitably led to the quest of finding the chief in these cemeteries. As a result, certain burial types, and burials with grave goods of higher quantity and better quality have been used as evidence for wealth and status, hence the presence of ruling elites. In this paper I suggest different ways of making use of the archaeological data from cemeteries to understand the social organization without falling into the same social evolutionary pitfalls.[1] In this presentation when I refer to Anatolia, I will be referring to the central and western parts of the peninsula, not to eastern Anatolia which in the Early Bronze Age is culturally and economically closer to Northern Mesopotamia.

Organization of Flint Sickle Blade Production at an Early Bronze Age Workshop in Anatolia

2002 ◽  
Vol 712 ◽  
Author(s):  
Britt E. Hartenberger
Keyword(s):  
Bronze Age ◽  
Complete Sequence ◽  
Early Bronze Age ◽  
Data Set ◽  
Regional Center ◽  
Period 2 ◽  
The Social ◽  
Titris Hoyuk ◽  
Administrative Center ◽  
Local Farmers

ABSTRACTA specialized workshop for the manufacture of flint sickle blades has recently been excavated at the site of Titris Hoyuk in southeastern Anatolia [1]. This paper will examine the sequence of production for the blades as well as the social context of this craft within the site. The workshop is the first example found containing evidence of the complete sequence of production for the ‘Canaanean blade,’ a type commonly used across the Near East in this period [2]. Since bronze was still new and relatively expensive, high-quality flint was used to manufacture sickle blades. Tabular flint was imported in the form of large slabs from several sources in the nearby hills. Specialists then prepared the blade cores, removed the blades, and then traded the final products to local farmers. A range of manufacturing debris has been found to illustrate the production sequence, including chunks of raw flint, core-shaping pieces, debitage pits, and stacks of exhausted and used cores. The large sample of over 1000 blade cores collected ensures a sizable data set for statistical analyses. Several types of raw flint were utilized for making the blades and production appears to vary slightly by these material types. The workshop is located within a household setting and is the only area within the excavated site containing debris from this craft. Spatial analyses of the types of flint used within the household workshop reveal its division into largely distinct areas for domestic versus specialist craft activities. The placement of the workshop in the suburbs far from the site's administrative center may indicate that its activities were independent of any elite. An estimate of the volume of blades produced combined with the location of the workshop at a major regional center suggest that it also supplied blades to other sites in the region.

Eastern Anatolia in the Early Bronze Age

2012 ◽  
Author(s):  
Catherine Marro
Keyword(s):  
Bronze Age ◽  
Early Bronze Age ◽  
Eastern Anatolia ◽  
Cultural Complex ◽  
Early Transcaucasian Culture

This article presents data on the Early Bronze Age of eastern Anatolia. During the period that for most scholars is recognized as the Early Bronze Age (ca. 3100–2100 BCE), eastern Anatolia was occupied by an intriguing cultural complex related to the Kura–Araxes culture, as it has been described by Kuftin after his excavations in Transcaucasia. This complex has alternatively been called “Karaz,” “Red Black Burnished,” or “Early Transcaucasian,” depending on the viewpoint adopted by successive scholars. Of all the labels used for describing the Early Bronze Age faciès of eastern Anatolia, the term Early Transcaucasian Culture seems to be the most appropriate, as it implies an organic relationship between East Anatolian cultural assemblages and Transcaucasia. Indeed, even if this issue is still a matter of debate, today most of the evidence points to a Transcaucasian origin for the east Anatolian Early Bronze Age.

scholarly journals The Social Role of Non-metal ‘Valuables’ in Late Bronze Age Britain

2018 ◽  
Vol 28 (4) ◽  
pp. 665-688 ◽  
Author(s):  
Joanna Brück ◽  
Alex Davies
Keyword(s):  
Bronze Age ◽  
Social Role ◽  
Social Identities ◽  
Early Bronze Age ◽  
Late Bronze Age ◽  
Cultural Meanings ◽  
Social Agents ◽  
Prestige Goods ◽  
The Social

Bronze Age metal objects are widely viewed as markers of wealth and status. Items of other materials, such as jet, amber and glass, tend either to be framed in similar terms as ‘prestige goods’, or to be viewed as decorative trifles of limited research value. In this paper, we argue that such simplistic models dramatically underplay the social role and ‘agentive’ capacities of objects. The occurrence of non-metal ‘valuables’ in British Early Bronze Age graves is well-documented, but their use during the later part of the period remains poorly understood. We will examine the deposition of objects of amber, jet and jet-like materials in Late Bronze Age Britain, addressing in particular their contexts and associations as well as patterns of breakage to consider the cultural meanings and values ascribed to such items and to explore how human and object biographies were intertwined. These materials are rarely found in burials during this period but occur instead on settlements, in hoards and caves. In many cases, these finds appear to have been deliberately deposited in the context of ritual acts relating to rites of passage. In this way, the role of such objects as social agents will be explored, illuminating their changing significance in the creation of social identities and systems of value.

Figurines of the Anatolian Early Bronze Age: the assemblage from Koçumbeli-Ankara

2017 ◽  
Vol 67 ◽  
pp. 85-108 ◽  
Author(s):  
Çiğdem Atakuman
Keyword(s):  
Social Status ◽  
Bronze Age ◽  
Near East ◽  
Raw Materials ◽  
Early Bronze Age ◽  
The Social ◽  
Comparative Review ◽  
Social Landscape ◽  
Social Concerns ◽  
Third Millennium Bc

AbstractThrough analysis of a figurine assemblage from the site of Koçumbeli-Ankara, this study aims to re-evaluate the origins, meanings and functions of the Early Bronze Age (third millennium BC) anthropomorphic figurines of Anatolia. Conventional typological approaches to figurines are often focused on their origins and sex; however, such approaches hinder an understanding of the context of the norms of production, display and discard within which the figurines become more meaningful. Following an examination of breakage patterns and the decorative aspects of the Koçumbeli assemblage, a comparative review of figurine find contexts, raw materials and abstraction scales in Anatolia is provided, so that the social concerns underlying the use of these figurines can be explored. It is concluded that the origins of the figurines are difficult to pinpoint, due to the presence of similar items across a variety of regions of the Near East from the later Neolithic onwards. The sex of the figurines is equally ambiguous; while some human sexual features can be discerned, it is difficult to decide whether these features are ‘male’, ‘female’, both or beyond classification. Alternatively, the decoration, breakage and find contexts of the figurines suggest that the imagery was embedded in more complex perceptions of social status, death and social regeneration. The need for materialisation of these concerns in the form of the figurines could be related to the development of a new social landscape of interaction leading to political centralisation by the second millennium BC. Furthermore, the figurines were produced through a meaningful linking of particular raw materials and particular abstraction scales to particular use contexts, which seems to have shifted during the centralisation process.

Connecting Fragments: a Sensorial Approach to the Materialization of Religious Beliefs in Rural Mesopotamia at the Beginning of the Second Millennium BC

2011 ◽  
Vol 21 (1) ◽  
pp. 77-94 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nicola Laneri
Keyword(s):  
Bronze Age ◽  
Religious Beliefs ◽  
River Valley ◽  
Small Scale ◽  
Archaeological Data ◽  
Tigris River ◽  
Complex Process ◽  
Middle Bronze Age ◽  
Economic Domain ◽  
Contextual Association

The materialization of religious beliefs is a complex process involving an active dialectic between ideas and practices that are physically engraved in the artefactual remains of ritual activities. However, this process is relevant only if it is based on a contextual association of elements (e.g. the performance of ceremonial activities, the creation of symbolic objects, the construction of ceremonial spaces) that validates the meaning of each component as part of a whole. Thus, archaeologists should try to connect these elements to form a network of meanings that stimulated the senses of ancient individuals in framing their cognitive perception of the divine. The study here presented will thus tackle such general theoretical tenets focusing particularly on the importance of the materialization of religious beliefs in constructing the ideological and economic domain of small-scale societies in rural contexts. In so doing, these topics will be confronted and developed through the analysis and interpretation of the archaeological data obtained from the Middle Bronze Age (c. 2000-1600 BC) architectural complex at the northern Mesopotamian site of Hirbemerdon Tepe, located along the upper Tigris river valley region in modern southeastern Turkey.

The Development of Embossed Goldwork in Bronze Age Europe

2000 ◽  
Vol 80 (1) ◽  
pp. 27-65 ◽  
Author(s):  
Stuart Needham
Keyword(s):  
Bronze Age ◽  
The Other ◽  
Early Bronze Age ◽  
Small Scale ◽  
Time And Space ◽  
Parallel Development ◽  
The Third ◽  
Third Millennium ◽  
Third Millennium Bc ◽  
Craft Skills

The discovery of a pair of armlets from Lockington and the re-dating of the Mold cape, add substance to a tradition of embossed goldworking in Early Bronze Age Britain. It is seen to be distinct in morphology, distribution and decoration from the other previously defined traditions of goldworking of the Copper and Early Bronze Ages, which are reviewed here. However, a case is made for its emergence from early objects employing ‘reversible relief to execute decoration and others with small-scale corrugated morphology. Emergence in the closing stages of the third millennium BC is related also to a parallel development in the embossing of occasional bronze ornaments. Subsequent developments in embossed goldwork and the spread of the technique to parts of the Continent are summarized. The conclusions address the problem of interpreting continuity of craft skills against a very sparse record of relevant finds through time and space.

scholarly journals Argonauts of the North Sea - a Social Maritime Archaeology for the 2nd Millennium BC

2006 ◽  
Vol 72 ◽  
pp. 267-287 ◽  
Author(s):  
Robert Van de Noort
Keyword(s):  
Bronze Age ◽  
Social Order ◽  
Maritime Archaeology ◽  
Social Identities ◽  
Early Bronze Age ◽  
Social Dimensions ◽  
Long Distance ◽  
The North ◽  
The Social ◽  
The North Sea

This paper aims to offer a new analysis of the social dimensions of seafaring in the 2nd millennium BC and a consideration of the role of seafaring in (re)creating the social order at the time through its economic, sociopolitical and ritual significance. It revisits the sewn-plank boats from Ferriby, Kilnsea, Dover, Calidcot, Testwood Lakes, Goldcliff and Brigg, and aspects of the way in which seafarers signified themselves and their world through their imagined relationship with the environment are illuminated. The study argues that in the Early Bronze Age, sewn-plank boats were used for directional, long-distance journeys, aimed at the ‘cosmological acquisition’ of exotic goods, and the contexts of these boats link the overseas journeys to the ancestors. In the Middle and Late Bronze Age, sewn-plank boats were used for down-the-line exchange, and fragments of sewn-plank boats were included in structured deposits, within or near river crossings, reflecting the idioms of transformation and regeneration which are well established for this period. Through the reconstruction of the boats' crews, it is suggested that the development of a retinue was a prerequisite for the successful completion of the long-distance journeys, and the social identities that were cultivated during these voyages are recognised as a potentially important element in the rise of elite groups in the Early Bronze Age.

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