scholarly journals Origin and distribution of slightly biconical bowls with facetted or channeled rim from the end of bronze and the beginning of iron ages on the Balkan peninsula: Contribution to the study of ethnic and cultural movements in southeast Europe at the end of bronze and the beginning of iron ages

Starinar ◽  
2009 ◽  
pp. 89-108 ◽  
Author(s):  
Aleksandar Bulatovic

Slightly biconical shaped bowls, the upper cone (rim and shoulder) of which is decorated with horizontal and slanted facets or slanted channels, as well as semi-globular bowls of inverted rim decorated with horizontal facets or slanted channels are characteristic of the end of Bronze Age and mark the beginning of Iron Age in many cultural groups within the Balkan Peninsula. Problem of their origin, chronology and distribution is present in archaeological literature for a long time. Many authors perceived the significance of this ceramic shape for the chronological, ethnic and cultural interpretation of the Late Bronze, that is, of the Early Iron Ages within the territory of the Balkans. Pottery from the burned layers in Vardina and Vardaroftsa sites in the north of Greece, among which there were bowls with inverted, slanted channeled rim, was designated way back by W. Heurtley as Danubian pottery or Lausitz ware, connecting its origin with the Danube Basin. Anumber of conclusions have been reached upon the study of finds of slightly biconical bowls and bowls of inverted rim, decorated with channels or facets, from several indicative sites from Late Bronze and Early Iron Ages within the Balkan Peninsula and south part of the Middle Europe. It has been stated that the bowls appear first within the southwest Slovakia and northwest Hungary in the Br D period, to spread very fast, already in the Br D/Ha A1 period, from its home territory to the east, to the northeast Hungary and northwest Romania. Namely, this first spreading wave into these territories brought along only variety Ia bowls, which were further distributed to the south, during the Ha A1 period, to the central parts of the Balkan Peninsula and consequently it can be concluded that these bowls are somewhat older than other varieties. In the period Br D - Ha A1, in north Hungary, under the influence of Gava Culture, on one hand, and Caka Culture, on the other, appear also variety IIa bowls (turban dish), distributed to the east with a new migration wave, in the same manner as was the case with the first migration wave, but also to the south, along the Bakonjska Range, to the present day Croatia and Slovenia, where, in the Ha A1/A2 periods, were stated exclusively variety IIa bowls. Representatives of the variety Ia bowls remained in the Pomoravlje region and Juzna Morava Basin, as confirmed by a large number of these bowls and also by other ceramic shapes of that stylistic and typological pattern, prevailing within this region in the Ha A1/A2 periods. First variety IIa bowls (Mediana, Krzince) appear only during the second migration wave coming from the north of the Balkans to the central part of the Balkan Peninsula (Ha A2 period). These bowls, however, are particularly characteristic of Macedonia and lower Povardarje, where variety Ia bowls were not stated at all. The second migration wave representatives, with turban dish bowls (variety IIa), were much more aggressive as witnessed by many burned settlements from that period in the Vranjska-Bujanovacka Valleys and Povardarje. During Ha B-C periods, bowls of both types (particularly variety IIa) became inevitable part of ceramic inventory of nearly all cultural groups in the Balkan Peninsula, which could be explained by the spread of cultural influence of the new stylistic trend, though, however, it could be possible that migrations, which at the time were numerous and of greater or lesser intensity, were one of the spreading causes of this ceramic shape into the east, south and west parts of the Balkan Peninsula in the Ha B period. Representatives of the mentioned migrations, which were carried out in at least two larger migration waves, bringing along bowls to the Balkan Peninsula, are protagonists of historically known migrations from that period, known under names of Doric and Aegean migrations. The assumed direction of these migrations coincides mainly with the distribution direction of bowl types I and II. Migrations spreading the bowl types I and II started in the south part of the Middle Europe, but were initiated by the representatives of the Urnenfelder cultural complex from the Middle Europe, as observed in certain ceramic shapes, stated together with type I bowls and originating from cultures of the Urnenfelder complex, and in numerous metal finds, which were produced in Middle European workshops. It is of interest to point out that bowl movements could be followed up to the northwest shores of the Aegean Sea, but they are not stated in the south Trace and in Troy, thus imposing conclusion that their representatives did not reach Troy. Consequently, their possible participation in destruction of VIIb2 layer settlements is utterly uncertain. The migrations, however, started chain reaction of ethnic movements in the Balkans, causing many ethnic and cultural changes within this territory which will lead to creation of new cultural groups to mark the developed Iron Age. To what extent bowls of this type, particularly variety IIa, left deep trace in the Iron Age Cultures in the central Balkans, is shown in the fact that survivals of this variety remained within these regions even several centuries later, in late phases of the Ha C period (VI/V century BC).

Starinar ◽  
2011 ◽  
pp. 121-140 ◽  
Author(s):  
Aleksandar Bulatovic

This paper deals with the appearance and development of particular ceramic forms that were prevalent on the wider territory from the lower Danube to the northern shores of the Aegean sea during the middle and Late Bronze Age. These forms relate to globular beakers, pear shaped vessels with everted rims with arch shaped handles, cups with handles with plastic applications on their upper surface, etc. Particular attention is devoted to the phenomenon of globular beakers of the LBA in the valleys of Varder, Mesta and Struma rivers. All information collected primarily through analysis of stylistic-typological characteristics of ceramics of the middle and Late Bronze Age - that took into account ritual burials, layout of settlements, trade routes and climactic conditions during that period - points to population movements from the north to the south already by the LBA, i.e. in 15th century BC. These movements contributed to the creation of particular cultural groups in the LBA in the central Balkans, such as the Brnjica cultural group. However, these movements cannot be clearly linked to the so-called Aegean Migration, and for this reason their character and chronology are subject to debate. Ultimately it can be concluded that beakers of the Zimnicea -Cherkovna-Plovdiv type appeared in the late Bronze Age in the Vlasine depression and the Danube valley through the evolution of beaker forms of cultural groups of earlier periods. Almost contemporaneously, during LBA, a variant of this ceramic form, richly ornamented (mostly with spirals) and similar in manner to the cultural group Dubovac-Zuto Brdo-Grla Mare- Krna, appeared in the LBA culture in northern Greece. Clearly this stylistic mannerism, with spirals as characteristic elements, spread relatively quickly through successive migrations in the period of 15th-14th century BC, toward the south of the Balkan Peninsula, thus covering the wider territory from the southern tip of the Carpathian mountains down to the northern shores of the Aegean Sea. Participants in those migrations are in fact representatives of cultural groups that were created in the northern Balkan Peninsula during the 16th and 15th centuries BC through the breakdown of Vatic culture. As the result of pressures from the north and north-west they headed south, contributing to the creation and development of cultural groups on the territory of the central Balkans. The final destination of the migrations were the valleys of the Mesta, Struma and Vardar rivers where, starting in the 15th century BC, a noticeable foreign cultural influence can be felt that became most pronounced during 14th century BC.


1950 ◽  
Vol 30 (1-2) ◽  
pp. 34-46 ◽  
Author(s):  
Audrey Williams

Charmy Down is a plateau three miles north-east of Bath (fig. 1, 1), east of the Bath-Tetbury road. About a square mile in extent it has a general height of well over 600 ft. To the north the scarp falls swiftly, on the east more gently, to the wooded valley of St. Catherine's Brook, a tributary of the Bristol Avon and the modern Somerset–Gloucester boundary. At the foot of the steep western scarp a second stream flows south to the Avon. On the south Chilcombe Bottom separates Charmy Down from Solsbury Hill, distinguished by its Iron Age earthwork. The underlying rock is oolite, a southward continuation of the Cotswold formation.


2018 ◽  
Vol 73 (1) ◽  
pp. 11-89
Author(s):  
Richard Massey ◽  
Elaine L. Morris

Excavation at Heatherstone Grange, Bransgore, Hampshire, investigated features identified in a previous evaluation. Area A included ring ditches representing two barrows. Barrow 1.1 held 40 secondary pits, including 34 cremation-related deposits of Middle Bronze Age date, and Barrow 1.2 had five inserted pits, including three cremation graves, one of which dated to the earlier Bronze Age, and was found with an accessory cup. A number of pits, not all associated with cremation burials, contained well-preserved urns of the regional Deverel-Rimbury tradition and occasional sherds from similar vessels, which produced a closely-clustered range of eight radiocarbon dates centred around 1300 BC. Of ten pits in Area C, three were cremation graves, of which one was radiocarbon-dated to the Early Bronze Age and associated with a collared urn, while four contained only pyre debris. Barrow 1.3, in Area E, to the south, enclosed five pits, including one associated with a beaker vessel, and was surrounded by a timber circle. Area F, further to the south-west, included two pits of domestic character with charcoal-rich fills and the remains of pottery vessels, together with the probable remains of a ditched enclosure and two sets of paired postholes. Area H, located to the north-west of Area E, partly revealed a ring ditch (Barrow 1.4), which enclosed two pits with charcoal-rich fills, one with a single Late Bronze Age/Early Iron Age potsherd, and the other burnt and worked flint. A further undated pit was situated to the east of Barrow 1.4. The cremation cemetery inserted into Barrow 1.1 represents a substantial addition to the regional record of Middle Bronze Age cremation burials, and demonstrates important affinities with the contemporary cemeteries of the Stour Valley to the west, and sites on Cranborne Chase, to the north-west.


1948 ◽  
Vol 14 ◽  
pp. 196-218 ◽  
Author(s):  
C. F. C. Hawkes

This paper is intended as a sequel, reaching into the Early Iron Age, to the preceding one by Professor Childe on ‘The Final Bronze Age in the Near East and in Temperate Europe.’ When he and I were invited to prepare these papers first, as addresses to the Prehistoric Society's Conference in London in April 1948, we purposely agreed to do most of our work on them separately, he approaching the problem of the European Bronze—Iron Age transition from its Bronze Age end, and I from its Iron Age end. But now, through his kindness, I am writing with his paper in its final form before me; and I want therefore to begin by considering what he has written, in order to fit my contribution squarely into his. I shall then turn to Italy, and to its relations with Europe beyond the Alps and with Greece and the Orient, and so approach the Hallstatt question and the Final Bronze Ages of the North and West, upon which the Iron Age, in due time, supervened. I am most grateful to Childe for his approval to this course; and his paper is truly so important, that I cannot but make it the starting-point for mine.


Author(s):  
John K. Papadopoulos

This paper begins with an overview of the bronze headbands from the prehistoric (Late Bronze to Early Iron Age) burial tumulus of Lofkënd in Albania, which were found among the richest tombs of the cemetery, all of them of young females or children. It is argued that these individuals represent a class of the special dead, those who have not attained a critical rite de passage: marriage. In their funerary attire these individuals go to the grave as brides, married to death. The significance of the Lofkënd headbands is reviewed, as is their shape and decoration, but it is their context that contributes to a better understanding of Aegean examples, including the many bronze, gold, and silver headbands found in tombs from the Early Bronze Age through the Early Iron Age, as well as those dedicated as votive offerings in sanctuaries. In addition to discussing the evidence for headbands in the Aegean and much of southeast Europe, this paper also attempts to uncover the word used in this early period in Greece for these distinctive items of personal ornament. In memory of Berit Wells.


1987 ◽  
Vol 107 ◽  
pp. 182-182
Author(s):  
Reynold Higgins

A recent discovery on the island of Aegina by Professor H. Walter (University of Salzburg) throws a new light on the origins of the so-called Aegina Treasure in the British Museum.In 1982 the Austrians were excavating the Bronze Age settlement on Cape Kolonna, to the north-west of Aegina town. Immediately to the east of the ruined Temple of Apollo, and close to the South Gate of the prehistoric Lower Town, they found an unrobbed shaft grave containing the burial of a warrior. The gravegoods (now exhibited in the splendid new Museum on the Kolonna site) included a bronze sword with a gold and ivory hilt, three bronze daggers, one with gold fittings, a bronze spear-head, arrowheads of obsidian, boar's tusks from a helmet, and fragments of a gold diadem (plate Va). The grave also contained Middle Minoan, Middle Cycladic, and Middle Helladic (Mattpainted) pottery. The pottery and the location of the grave in association with the ‘Ninth City’ combine to give a date for the burial of about 1700 BC; and the richness of the grave-goods would suggest that the dead man was a king.


Starinar ◽  
2013 ◽  
pp. 269-286
Author(s):  
Perica Spehar ◽  
Natasa Miladinovic-Radmilovic ◽  
Sonja Stamenkovic

In 2012, in the village Davidovac situated in south Serbia, 9.5 km south-west from Vranje, archaeological investigations were conducted on the site Crkviste. The remains of the smaller bronze-age settlement were discovered, above which a late antique horizon was later formed. Apart from modest remains of a bronze-age house and pits, a late antique necropolis was also excavated, of which two vaulted tombs and nine graves were inspected during this campaign. During the excavation of the northern sector of the site Davidovac-Crkviste the north-eastern periphery of the necropolis is detected. Graves 1-3, 5 and 6 are situated on the north?eastern borderline of necropolis, while the position of the tombs and the remaining four graves (4, 7-9) in their vicinity point that the necropolis was further spreading to the west and to the south?west, occupying the mount on which the church of St. George and modern graveyard are situated nowadays. All graves are oriented in the direction SW-NE, with the deviance between 3? and 17?, in four cases toward the south and in seven cases toward the north, while the largest part of those deviations is between 3? and 8?. Few small finds from the layer above the graves can in some way enable the determination of their dating. Those are two roman coins, one from the reign of emperor Valens (364-378), as well as the fibula of the type Viminacium-Novae which is chronologically tied to a longer period from the middle of the 5th to the middle of the 6th century, although there are some geographically close analogies dated to the end of the 4th or the beginning of the 5th century. Analogies for the tombs from Davidovac can be found on numerous sites, like in Sirmium as well as in Macvanska Mitrovica, where they are dated to the 4th-5th century. Similar situation was detected in Viminacium, former capital of the roman province of Upper Moesia. In ancient Naissus, on the site of Jagodin Mala, simple rectangular tombs were distributed in rows, while the complex painted tombs with Christian motifs were also found and dated by the coins to the period from the 4th to the 6th century. Also, in Kolovrat near Prijepolje simple vaulted tombs with walled dromos were excavated. During the excavations on the nearby site Davidovac-Gradiste, 39 graves of type Mala Kopasnica-Sase dated to the 2nd-3rd century were found, as well as 67 cist graves, which were dated by the coins of Constantius II, jewellery and buckles to the second half of the 4th or the first half of the 5th century. Based on all above mentioned it can be concluded that during the period from the 2nd to the 6th century in this area existed a roman and late antique settlement and several necropolises, formed along an important ancient road Via militaris, traced at the length of over 130 m in the direction NE-SW. Data gained with the anthropological analyses of 10 skeletons from the site Davidovac-Crkviste don't give enough information for a conclusion about the paleo-demographical structure of the population that lived here during late antiquity. Important results about the paleo-pathological changes, which do not occur often on archaeological sites, as well as the clearer picture about this population in total, will be acquired after the osteological material from the site Davidovac-Gradiste is statistically analysed.


Author(s):  
KIRYUSHIN K. ◽  
◽  
KIRYUSHIN Yu. ◽  

The article is devoted to the publication of finds of fragments of ceramic dishes discovered at the settlement of Pestryakovo Lake (Zavyalovsky district of Altai Territory). A group of ceramics which belongs to the early Iron Age and the Middle Ages, is pointed out. Single fragments find analogies in the materials of the sites of the Early and Late Bronze Age. The ceramic collection of the Pestryakovo Lake settlement includes groups of ceramics that belong to the Neolithic or Eneolithic. These are fragments of vessels ornamented with prints of a “string”, pricks, imprints of a short comb stamp, a dingle-dingle stamping. Linear-pricked and receding-pricked ceramics are quite informative. On the outer and inner surfaces, as well as in the fractures, traces of burnt-out organic matter (animal hair) are recorded. Such ceramics are widely represented in the south of Western Siberia and are associated with various settlement and burial complexes from the Ob to the Irtysh and various cultural formations of the Neolithic and Eneolithic. Keywords: settlement, ceramics, ornamentation technique, comparative typological analysis, neolithic, eneolithic


2020 ◽  
Vol 26 (2) ◽  
pp. 266-274
Author(s):  
Flemming Kaul

Abstract The introduction of the folding stool and the single-edged razor into Southern Scandinavia, as well as the testimony of chariot use during the Nordic Bronze Age Period II (1500-1300 BC), give evidence of the transfer of ideas from the Mediterranean to the North. Recent analyses of the chemical composition of blue glass beads from well-dated Danish Bronze Age burials have revealed evidence for the opening of long distance exchange routes around 1400 BC between Egypt, Mesopotamia and South Scandinavia. When including comparative material from glass workshops in Egypt and finds of glass from Mesopotamia, it becomes clear that glass from those distant lands reached Scandinavia. The routes of exchange can be traced through Europe based on finds of amber from the North and glass from the South.


Author(s):  
Kay Prag

Most evidence for the Bronze Age, Iron Age and Post-Exilic settlement of Jerusalem came from Site A on the south-east ridge, and Kenyon unearthed and dated material of almost all these periods, but very little of the Late Bronze Age and Iron Age I. This settlement pattern is reflected to a lesser extent on other sites, but elsewhere occupation of the region appears to continue, in a more dispersed fashion, perhaps partly related to diversification of the inhabitants to a more pastoral economy. Whether the centrality of Jerusalem is linked to its being an ancient place of burial is considered. Other evidence from the archive relates to the reigns of David, Solomon and Nehemiah. Specific issues are addressed, such as the location of the principal administrative buildings and fortifications, the use of volute capitals, the importance of water supply and drainage, and the problem of residuality affecting archaeological dating in Iron Age Jerusalem, which places the emphasis on C14 dating.


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