Iron in Anatolia and the Nature of the Hittite Iron Industry

1985 ◽  
Vol 35 ◽  
pp. 67-84 ◽  
Author(s):  
J. D. Muhly ◽  
R. Maddin ◽  
T. Stech ◽  
E. Özgen

The development of the skills necessary for working in iron, making possible the transition from the Bronze Age to the Iron Age, has long been regarded as one of the major break-throughs in man's technological history. For Lewis Henry Morgan, writing in 1877, the smelting of iron ore was a development on a par with the domestication of animals (Morgan 1877:39):“The most advanced portion of the human race were halted, so to express it, at certain stages of progress, until some great invention or discovery, such as the domestication of animals or the smelting of iron ore, gave a new and powerful impulse forward.”The importance of the appearance of iron as a practical, utilitarian metal has usually been seen in terms of a military context. With iron it was possible to produce weapons not only superior to those of bronze but also much cheaper. These improvements made it possible to arm a large peasant infantry in order to challenge the military superiority of the chariot forces of the Late Bronze Age aristocracy, armed with bronze weapons.

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.


2012 ◽  
Vol 107 ◽  
pp. 189-209 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alexandra Livarda

Archaeobotanical material was collected from the Bronze Age fill and the Protogeometric phases underneath the Roman Villa Dionysus, Knossos, Crete. The Bronze Age assemblage was poor, representing only accidental intrusions to a tight fill of sherds and stones. The Protogeometric data were more plentiful, providing a rare glimpse into the everyday life of the period. Glume wheat, barley, legumes, fruits, nuts and several wild species were present across two Protogeometric floors. No significant differences were observed in their spatial and temporal distribution. The plant remains, along with other bio-archaeological classes of material, indicated a series of domestic activities, including cooking and consumption events, the remnants of which gradually accumulated in the habitation floors. The archaeobotanical evidence from Villa Dionysus was then compared with other Protogeometric Cretan and Greek mainland sites. An overview of these sites allowed some general trends to be observed, tentatively suggesting a picture more similar to Bronze Age than Iron Age archaeobotanical assemblages. It also highlighted differences, which would both dictate and be shaped by different socio-economic systems, and the need for more contextualised studies.


Author(s):  
KOVALEVSKY S. ◽  

The article is devoted to the consideration of the origin and dating of celts with on the side ears, which originate from the settlements of the Late Bronze Age and transition time from the Bronze Age to the Iron Age in the Kazakh steppe and south of Western Siberia (some of which are accidental finds) and are identified by most experts to be antiquities of the Sargarinsko-Aleekseyevskaya, Begazy-Dandybayevskaya, Irmenskaya and Bolsherechenskaya cultures. Previously, such celts were dated to the beginning of the first millennium, BC. At present, there have been certain quantitative and qualitative changes. In particular, the fund of archaeological resources for the Late Bronze Age and transition time from the Bronze Age to the Iron Age had been significantly replenished, and new research concepts have appeared. This gave us the opportunity to compare the archaeological finds of the Late Bronze Age of remote regions, namely the Eastern Europe and the Kazakh steppe and south of Western Siberia. A significant similarity was revealed between the celts of the ancient cultures of the Eastern Europe and the region located east of the Urals. It is suggested that the celts with on the side ears are of Eastern Europe origin. Their appearance among the artifacts of archaeological cultures of Kazakhstan and Southern Siberia is dated to the 14th - 11/10th centuries BC. Keywords: late Bronze Age, transition time from Bronze to Iron, celts, south of Western Siberia, eastern Europe


Author(s):  
Gerald Cadogan

Mervyn Popham was a questioning, quiet person, driven by an uncompromising honesty to find the truth, and always ready to doubt accepted explanations or any theory-driven archaeology for which he could find no evidential basis. He was probably the most percipient archaeologist of the Late Bronze Age of Crete and the Aegean to have worked in the second half of the 20th century, and became almost as important in the archaeology of the Early Iron Age, which succeeded the Bronze Age. In his archaeology he took an analytical-empirical approach to what he saw as fundamentally historical problems, reaching unprecedented peaks of intelligent, and commonsensical, refinement.


1999 ◽  
Vol 49 ◽  
pp. 111-122 ◽  
Author(s):  
C. K. Hansen ◽  
J. N. Postgate

The mound of Kilise Tepe, formerly known as Maltepe, stands above the left bank of the Göksu near where the river leaves the Mut basin to plunge between cliffs down to the coast at Silifke about 45km to the southeast. It thus dominates one of the best-known routes from the Mediterranean to the central Anatolian plateau. Excavation at the site began in 1994, and confirmed the presence here of Late Bronze Age occupation, already deduced from collections of surface sherds by Mellaart and French, but also revealed Iron Age, Hellenistic and Byzantine layers. The present article addresses rather specifically the ceramic evidence for the end of the Bronze Age and subsequent Iron Age occupation, with particular emphasis on the chronological framework and certain wares in these levels not previously described.


Author(s):  
Maria Antónia D. Silva ◽  
Ana M. S. Bettencourt ◽  
António S. P. Silva ◽  
Natália Felix

This work intends to update the knowledge related to the human occupation of “Castro do Muro” from the Bronze Age to the Middle Ages. This place has a significant tradition in archaeological literature due to the presence of an imposing walled circuit, whose width oscillates between 3.5 to 4 meters and a perimeter of 3.927 meters, within which was built an important settlement that emerged during the Late Bronze Age and extends to the Old Iron Age. There was also a Roman occupation, a probable rock castle and a medieval monastery, as attested by the ceramic, lithic and metallic materials collected in archaeological works and surface findings.


Author(s):  
В.Р. Эрлих

Статья посвящена предварительной публикации археологического комплекса Шушук в Майкопском районе Республики Адыгея. Открытые в результате охранно-спасательных работ погребения и слой поселения пока не имеют близких аналогий на Северо-Западном Кавказе. Данный памятник относится к периоду между дольменной культурой эпохи средней и поздней бронзы и протомеотской группой памятников эпохи раннего железа. Автор предлагает для памятников данного типа термин «постдольменный горизонт», относит их к эпохе финальной бронзы и предварительно датирует в пределах второй половины II тыс. до н. э. The paper is devoted to preliminary publication of an archaeological site known as Shushuk in the Maykop district, Republic of Adygeya. In the course of rescue archaeological works graves and a cultural deposit of a settlement. At present no close analogies for the discovered site may be pointed to in the Northwest Caucuses. This site dates from the period between the dolmen culture of the Middle and Late Bronze Age and the proto-Maeotian group of sites of the Early Iron Age. The author suggests the following term to denote the sites of this type, namely, the post-dolmen horizon, and attributes them to the terminal stage of the Bronze Age (second half of II – beginning of I mill. BC).


1990 ◽  
Vol 13 ◽  
pp. 329-343
Author(s):  
Marianne Görman

By means of modern archeological research it is today possible to gain much information even from non-written material, This paper covers the late bronze age and early iron age, ca. 1000 B.C. —O. It is based on material from Denmark, the Southwest of Sweden, and the Southeast of Norway. This region formed a cultural unity since the sea bound the area together. Our main sources of knowledge of Nordic religion during this time span are votive offerings and rock-carvings. During the bronze age and early iron age the Nordic peasant population had intensive contacts with the Southeastern and Centralparts of Europe. A great quantity of imported objects bear evidence of widespread connections. The inhabitants of the Nordic area not only brought home objects, but also ideas and religious conceptions. This is clearly reflected in the iconography. The cultures with which connections were upheld and from which ideas were introduced were those of Hallstatt and La Tène. They were both Celtic iron age cultures prospering in Central Europe at the same time as the late bronze age and early iron age in the Nordic area. This means that the new symbols in the Nordic area come from a Celtic environment. Consequently, Celtic religion such as it may be found in the pre-Roman period, can clarify the meaning of the conceptions, linked with these symbols.


2011 ◽  
Vol 77 ◽  
pp. 251-278 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ian Armit ◽  
Rick Schulting ◽  
Christopher J. Knüsel ◽  
Ian A.G. Shepherd

Excavations at the Sculptor's Cave (north-east Scotland) during the 1930s and 1970s yielded evidence for activity in the Late Bronze Age, Late Iron Age, and early medieval periods, including a substantial human skeletal assemblage with apparent evidence for the removal, curation, and display of human heads. The present project, combining osteological analysis and a programme of AMS dating, aimed to place the surviving human remains from the site into their appropriate chronological context and to relate them to the broader sequence of human activity in the cave. A series of AMS determinations has demonstrated that the human remains fall into two distinct chronological groups separated by a millennium or more: one from the Mid-Late Bronze Age and one from the Late Iron Age. Osteological analysis suggests that while the Bronze Age group may, as previously suggested, include the remains of the heads of juveniles formerly displayed at the cave entrance, this was not the sole mechanism by which human remains arrived in the cave at this time. The Late Iron Age group provides evidence for decapitation and other violent treatments within the cave itself.


2019 ◽  
Vol 18 (3) ◽  
pp. 74-89
Author(s):  
A. Yu. Skorobogatova ◽  
T. M. Ponomaryova

The Atlym culture was singled out by E. A. Vasilyev on the materials of the ancient fort of Maly Atlym 1. The researcher dated it as 12–13th centuries BC and identified two chronological stages in its existence (12–10th and 10–8th centuries BC), which corresponded to two types of ceramics different in the form of vessels and ornamentation. In this article we consider some features of the Atlym culture ceramics of the Late Bronze Age based on the materials of the multilayered fort of Strelka located in the basin of the Bol’shoi Yugan River. Remains of the Late Bronze Age structure were found on the site of the ancient fort. The cultural layer associated with the construction of the Late Bronze Age was preserved on a small stretch between the Medieval moat and an additional rampart at the periphery of the site of the settlement. It is blocked by a rampart of an ancient Iron Age fort and the soil removed from the Medieval moat. During the five years of excavations, the most representative collection amongst the well-known Atlym collections in terms of the quantity of items has been gathered on this site. Purpose. We aimed at checking a working hypothesis about the existence of several groups within the ceramic complex using the methods of factor analysis and determining the place of the Late Bronze complex of the Strelka fort among Atlym sites. Results. Statistical analysis of the material revealed three stable characteristic groups where the type of the vessel profile is associated with a certain set of dies, the method of applying and arranging the ornament. Two roughly equal groups of Atlym ceramics of type II (according to Е. А. Vasilyev) and a small group of vessels attributed to the Gamayun culture, which was widespread in the Trans-Ural area during the transition from the Bronze Age to the Iron Age in the 10–4th centuries BC, are distinguished in the complex. Our analysis of the material allocation in the layer showed a lack of significant differences in the occurrence of all ceramics groups. Similar groups were identified in the settlement Yendyrskoye VIII (the Atlym culture, 10–8th centuries BC) in the Lower Ob River area, where they also existed simultaneously. Such groups were not singled out on the other Atlym sites. Conclusion. The two parallel traditions in the Atlym pottery manufacture are established based on the materials from the Strelka site. The Late Bronze complex of the fort Strelka corresponds to the type II of the Atlym ceramics (according to Е. А. Vasilyiev) and dates back to the 10–8th centuries BC. The presence of the Gamayun type vessels indicates some contacts between the population of the Surgut part the Ob River area and the Trans-Ural region.


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