scholarly journals Clay Figurines from Sirkeli Höyük

2019 ◽  
Vol 3 ◽  
Author(s):  
Moira Looney
Keyword(s):  
Bronze Age ◽  
Iron Age ◽  
Second Phase ◽  
Hellenistic Period ◽  
Final Phase ◽  
Different Types ◽  
Master's Thesis ◽  
Terracotta Figurines ◽  
Middle Bronze Age ◽  
Temporal Dispersion

Sirkeli Höyük is a settlement mound in the cilician plain near Adana, Turkey. It was first excavated in the 1930s by John Garstang. Work there was resumed in the 1990s by Barthel Hrouda and Horst Ehringhaus, and then again from 2006 until the present day; initially by the Universities of Tübingen and Çanakkale and subsequently (2011 onwards) by the Universities of Bern and Çanakkale. My Master’s thesis focused on the terracotta figurines unearthed during the excavations from 1992 onwards. Its aim was to construct a classification for the material from Sirkeli Höyük, which I documented, classified and catalogued according to their shape. I did not create a completely new classification, but rather tried to build on work form A. Pruss and H. Goldmann, who’s approaches I adapted to suit the material from Sirkeli Höyük. The terracotta figurines found to date span the following epochs: the Hellenistic period, the Iron Age, the Late Bronze Age, and the Middle Bronze Age. The first aim of my PhD is to construct a working typology for these terracotta figurines by clearly defining the criteria of each of the different types. In a second phase I intend to elaborate my existing comparison of the material from Sirkeli Höyük and figurines from other excavations in the cicilian plain, to document their geographical distribution and diversity. The final phase will be an evaluation of the temporal dispersion of differing styles with a view to determining the extent of any extra-regional influences.

scholarly journals New relative sea-level (RSL) indications from the Eastern Mediterranean: Middle Bronze Age to the Roman period (~3800–1800 y BP) archaeological constructions at Dor, the Carmel coast, Israel

PLoS ONE ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 16 (6) ◽  
pp. e0251870
Author(s):  
Assaf Yasur-Landau ◽  
Gilad Shtienberg ◽  
Gil Gambash ◽  
Giorgio Spada ◽  
Daniele Melini ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Bronze Age ◽  
Sea Level ◽  
Iron Age ◽  
Eastern Mediterranean ◽  
Roman Period ◽  
Hellenistic Period ◽  
Relative Sea Level ◽  
The North ◽  
Middle Bronze Age

This article presents new archaeological observations and multidisciplinary research from Dor, Israel to establish a more reliable relative sea level for the Carmel Coast and Southern Levant between the Middle Bronze Age and the Roman period (ca. 3500–1800 y BP). Our record indicates a period of low relative sea level, around -2.5 m below present, from the Middle Bronze Age to the Hellenistic period (ca. 3500–2200 y BP). This was followed by a rapid rise to present levels, starting in the Hellenistic period and concluding during the Roman period (ca. 2200–1800 y BP). These Roman levels agree with other relative sea-level indications from Israel and other tectonically stable areas in the Mediterranean. Several relative sea-level reconstruction models carried out in the current study provide different predictions due to their parameters and do not model the changes observed from field data which points to a non-isostatic origin for the changes. Long-term low stable Iron Age relative sea level can be seen in Dor, where Iron Age harbor structures remain around the same elevation between ca. 3100–2700 y BP. A similar pattern occurs at Atlit, the Iron Age harbor to the north used continuously from ca. 2900 y BP to the beginning of the Hellenistic period (ca. 2200 y BP). An examination of historical and archaeological sources reveals decline and occasional disappearance of Hellenistic sites along the coast of Israel at ca. 2200 y BP (2nd century BCE), as in the case of Yavneh Yam, Ashdod Yam, Straton’s Tower, and tel Taninim. In Akko-Ptolemais, the large harbor installations built in the Hellenistic period were never replaced by a substantial Roman harbor. The conclusions of this research are thus relevant for the sea-level research community and for the historical analyses of the Israeli and South Levantine coastline.

Challenging the Traditional Chronological Framework of Funerary Rituals in the Meuse-Demer-Scheldt Region: 14C Results from the Site of Lummen-Meldert (Belgium)

Radiocarbon ◽  
2014 ◽  
Vol 56 (02) ◽  
pp. 461-468
Author(s):  
Guy De Mulder ◽  
Guido Creemers ◽  
Mark Van Strydonck
Keyword(s):  
Bronze Age ◽  
Iron Age ◽  
Late Iron Age ◽  
Size Number ◽  
Specific Category ◽  
Dating Methods ◽  
Different Types ◽  
Middle Bronze Age ◽  
Absolute Dating ◽  
Middle Iron Age

Archaeologists tend to use typochronological frameworks to date their sites. These are based on the appearance of certain cultural markers such as grave types or houseplans. In the Meuse-Demer-Scheldt region, a chronological framework is used for the cremation cemeteries from the Middle Bronze Age until the Late Iron Age based on the size, number, and presence of different types of cremation graves. Radiocarbon dating of cremated bone from the small cemetery at Lummen-Meldert dates this site to the Late Bronze Age. These results challenge the hypothesis that small cremation cemeteries with mostly “unurned” graves date to the Middle Iron Age. The cremation graves without an urn and grave goods are a specific category that has to be dated by absolute dating methods such as14C. The results also suggest a connection with the funerary traditions in the Atlantic region.

scholarly journals Orientations of Late Neolithic to Bronze Age and Iron Age Long Cairns in Coastal Finland

2017 ◽  
Vol 21 (1 and 2) ◽  
pp. 73-86
Author(s):  
Mariana P. Ridderstad
Keyword(s):  
Bronze Age ◽  
Iron Age ◽  
Cultural Influences ◽  
Cultural Continuity ◽  
Early Bronze Age ◽  
Western Coast ◽  
Late Neolithic ◽  
Different Types ◽  
Middle Bronze Age

In this study, the orientations of c. 138 long cairns located in coastal Finland were measured and examined, along with other properties of the cairns. The length of the cairns varies from a few metres to almost 50 m. The dominant color of the stones in most of the cairns is red, and they were usually built on locally elevated terrain, e.g. on ridges, rocky outcrops or small islets on the ancient shore. It was found that in the category of long cairns there were several different types of elongated cairns: the ‘simple’ and curved long cairns, some of which were attached to round cairns; the rectangular cairns with one or more central chambers; the very large rectangular cairns; and two different types of ship-formed cairns, Type 1 and Type 2, the latter of which was a previously an unrecognised type of Late Neolithic/Early Bronze Age long cairn. The comparison of the orientations of the cairns of different types and locations suggest that there was some cultural continuity between the Neolithic and the Early Bronze Age cultures on the western coast of Finland. However, based on the present analysis, this continuity does not seem to have extended beyond the Middle Bronze Age. It is also suggested that the appearance of the Type 2 ship-formed cairn in the Ostrobothnia region in the Late Neolithic may have resulted from outside cultural influences, perhaps from the earliest contacts with the central ideologies of the Nordic Bronze Age.

Challenging the Traditional Chronological Framework of Funerary Rituals in the Meuse-Demer-Scheldt Region: 14C Results from the Site of Lummen-Meldert (Belgium)

Radiocarbon ◽  
2014 ◽  
Vol 56 (2) ◽  
pp. 461-468 ◽  
Author(s):  
Guy De Mulder ◽  
Guido Creemers ◽  
Mark Van Strydonck
Keyword(s):  
Bronze Age ◽  
Iron Age ◽  
Late Iron Age ◽  
Size Number ◽  
Specific Category ◽  
Dating Methods ◽  
Different Types ◽  
Middle Bronze Age ◽  
Absolute Dating ◽  
Middle Iron Age

Archaeologists tend to use typochronological frameworks to date their sites. These are based on the appearance of certain cultural markers such as grave types or houseplans. In the Meuse-Demer-Scheldt region, a chronological framework is used for the cremation cemeteries from the Middle Bronze Age until the Late Iron Age based on the size, number, and presence of different types of cremation graves. Radiocarbon dating of cremated bone from the small cemetery at Lummen-Meldert dates this site to the Late Bronze Age. These results challenge the hypothesis that small cremation cemeteries with mostly “unurned” graves date to the Middle Iron Age. The cremation graves without an urn and grave goods are a specific category that has to be dated by absolute dating methods such as 14C. The results also suggest a connection with the funerary traditions in the Atlantic region.

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.

The Expansion of Settlement (1100–250 BC)

2015 ◽  
Author(s):  
Richard Bradley ◽  
Colin Haselgrove ◽  
Marc Vander Linden ◽  
Leo Webley
Keyword(s):  
Bronze Age ◽  
Iron Age ◽  
Raw Material ◽  
Basic Unit ◽  
Funerary Monuments ◽  
Main Metal ◽  
Political Transformations ◽  
Metal Artefacts ◽  
First Millennium ◽  
Middle Bronze Age

The previous chapter addressed an important period of change, but this would not have been apparent to the scholars who devised the Three Age Model. The most important developments between 1600 and 1100 BC were most clearly evidenced in the ancient landscape and registered to a smaller extent by the metalwork finds on which the traditional scheme depends. The same is true of the evidence considered in this chapter, for it cuts across the conventional distinction between the Bronze and Iron Ages. It begins in a period when bronze was still the main metal, but also considers a time when a new kind of raw material was employed. Similarly, it ends part way through the phase usually characterized as ‘Iron Age’, so that the drastic economic and political transformations that communities experienced in the late first millennium BC can be considered separately. These provide the subject of Chapter 7. By the late Bronze Age, evidence for settlements and houses is fairly abundant, and some sparsely used parts of the landscape were occupied for the first. This expansion—which continued into the Iron Age—is associated with new agricultural techniques and a wider range of crops. The nature of settlements suggests an emphasis on small household groups as the basic unit of society. New kinds of focal sites also appeared, which may have been used for assemblies and public ceremony. They include hillforts in upland regions, while other communal centres may have played the same role in lowland areas. Meanwhile, the trend towards less elaborate burial practices that had begun during the middle Bronze Age spread increasingly widely. Investment in funerary monuments was generally modest, and mortuary rituals displayed social distinctions in relatively subtle ways. While prestige objects were rarely placed with the dead, the deposition of metalwork in rivers and other places in the landscape increased. These metal artefacts have provided the basis for studies of long-distance interaction, and their styles have been used to define three geographically extensive traditions, in Atlantic, Nordic, and central Europe. Other ritual practices that developed during this time involved feasting and cooking.

Grave Structures and Altars: Archaeological Traces of Bronze Age Eschatological Conceptions

1998 ◽  
Vol 1 (2) ◽  
pp. 177-198 ◽  
Author(s):  
Anders Kaliff
Keyword(s):  
Bronze Age ◽  
Iron Age ◽  
Early Iron Age ◽  
Late Bronze Age ◽  
Burial Site ◽  
Mortuary Practice ◽  
Life And Death ◽  
Southern Scandinavia ◽  
Different Types ◽  
People’S Perceptions

Mortuary practice can be interpreted as a system of rituals based on people's perceptions of life and death. There is a great deal to suggest the prehistoric find sites we usually call cemeteries also had an important function as ritual sites. Several types of structure occurring at cemeteries from the late Bronze Age and the early Iron Age in southern Scandinavia favour a broader interpretation of these sites. This article is based on the results of the excavated ritual and burial site at Ringeby in Kvillinge parish, Östergötland, an excavation which was undertaken with the express purpose of studying the archaeology of religion. The article also includes a general discussion of the concept of ‘grave’ and different types of structure which can be interpreted as places for cults.

scholarly journals Early human impact on soils and hydro-sedimentary systems: Multi-proxy geoarchaeological analyses from La Narse de la Sauvetat (France)

The Holocene ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 30 (12) ◽  
pp. 1780-1800
Author(s):  
Alfredo Mayoral ◽  
Salomé Granai ◽  
Anne-Lise Develle ◽  
Jean-Luc Peiry ◽  
Yannick Miras ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Bronze Age ◽  
Middle Ages ◽  
Iron Age ◽  
Late Antiquity ◽  
Environmental Changes ◽  
Anthropogenic Impacts ◽  
Late Neolithic ◽  
Societal Factors ◽  
Late Iron Age ◽  
Middle Bronze Age

We analysed the late-Holocene pedo-sedimentary archives of La Narse de la Sauvetat, a hydromorphic depression in the southern Limagne plain (central France), where chronologically accurate studies are scarce. The multi-proxy geoarchaeological and palaeoenvironmental analysis of two cores from different areas of the basin was carried out through sedimentological, geochemical, micromorphological and malacological investigations. Integration of these datasets supported by a robust radiocarbon-based chronology allowed discussion of socio-environmental interactions and anthropogenic impacts from Late Neolithic to Early Middle Ages. Until the Middle Bronze Age, there was no clear evidence of anthropogenic impact on soils and hydro-sedimentary dynamics of the catchment, but two peaks of high alluvial activity probably related to the 4.2 and 3.5 kyr. BP climate events were first recorded in Limagne. Significant anthropogenic impacts started in the Late Bronze Age with increased erosion of the surrounding volcanic slopes. However, a major threshold was reached c. 2600 cal BP with a sharp increase in the catchment erosion interpreted as resulting from strong anthropogenic environmental changes related to agricultural activities and drainage. This implies an anthropogenic forcing on soils and hydro-sedimentary systems much earlier than was usually considered in Limagne. These impacts then gradually increased during Late Iron Age and Roman periods, but environmental effects were certainly contained by progress in agricultural management. Late Antiquity environmental changes are consistent with regional trend to drainage deterioration in lowlands, but marked asynchrony in this landscape change suggests that societal factors implying differential land management were certainly predominant here.

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