scholarly journals Pottery of Early Iron Age from the Glinjeni II-La Șanț (North-Western Pontic Sea Region): Composition, Technology and Raw Material Sources

Heritage ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 4 (4) ◽  
pp. 2853-2875
Author(s):  
Marianna A. Kulkova ◽  
Maya T. Kashuba ◽  
Aleksandr M. Kulkov ◽  
Maria N. Vetrova

Transition to the Early Iron Age was marked by the appearance of innovations such as iron technology and changes in the lifestyle of local societies on the territory of the North-Western Pontic Sea region. One of the most interesting sites of this period is the Glinjeni II-La Șanț fortified settlement, located in the Middle Dniester basin (Republic of Moldova). Materials of different cultural traditions belonged to the Cozia-Saharna culture (10th–9th cc. BC) and the Basarabi-Șoldănești culture (8th–beginning of 7th cc. BC) were found on this site. The article presents the results of a multidisciplinary approach to the study of ceramic sherds from these archaeological complexes and cultural layers as well as raw clay sources from this area. The archaeometry analysis, such as the XRF-WD, the thin section analysis, SEM-EDX of ceramics, m-CT of pottery were carried out. The study of ancient pottery through a set of mineralogical and geochemical analytic methods allowed us to obtain new results about ceramic technology in different chronological periods, ceramic paste recipes and firing conditions. Correlation of archaeological and archaeometry data of ceramics from the Glinjeni II-La Șanț site gives us the possibility to differ earlier and later chronological markers in the paste recipes of pottery of 10th–beginning of 7th cc. BC in the region of the Middle Dniester basin.

Balcanica ◽  
2004 ◽  
pp. 7-22 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nikola Tasic

The paper offers a historical survey of the development of Early Iron Age cultures in Danubian Serbia, its characteristics, relations with contemporary cultures of the Pannonian Plain, the Balkans, Carpathian Romania (Transylvania) and the Romanian Banat. It describes the genesis of individual cultures, their styles, typological features and interrelationships. Danubian Serbia is seen as a contact zone reflecting influences of the Central European Urnenfelder culture on the one hand, and those of the Gornea-Kalakaca and the Bosut-Basarabi complex on the other. The latter?s penetration into the central Balkans south of the Sava and Danube rivers has been registered in the Morava valley, eastern Serbia north-western Bulgaria and as far south as northern Macedonia. The terminal Early Iron Age is marked by the occurrence of Scythian finds in the southern Banat, Backa or around the confluence of the Sava and the Danube (e.g. Ritopek), and by representative finds of the Srem group in Srem and around the confluence of the Tisa and Danube rivers. The powerful penetration of Celtic tribes from Central Europe into the southern Pannonian Plain marked the end of the Early Iron Age.


2021 ◽  
Vol 20 (7) ◽  
pp. 135-143
Author(s):  
Oleg A. Mitko ◽  
Sergey G. Skobelev

Purpose. The article is devoted to the characteristics of a double-edged iron sword, which can be attributed to the unique phenomena of the early Iron Age of the Minusinsk Basin. Results. According to its morphological characteristics, the sword is an increased technological modification of the traditional Tagar dagger. The total length of the sword is 59.5 cm; the width of the lenticular blade in cross-section is about 7 cm. The handle with a volute-like pommel is separated from the blade by a narrow butterfly-shaped crosshair. The length of the hilt is 8 cm, which corresponds to the size of the hilts of most Scythian swords. This is a very small size, since in men the average palm width is about 12 cm. Probably, the rounded outlines of the pommel and narrow crosshairs allow, due to their shape, to hold the short handle of a heavy sword more tightly. Conclusion. According to the classification of O. I. Kura, Scythian swords with a narrow butterfly-shaped crosshair and volute-like pommel are included in Group III, Type II A2 dating from the end of the 5th – 4th centuries BC, which corresponds to the boundary between the Podgorny and Saragashen stages of the Tagar culture. The earliest form of sword hilts with typologically similar forms of crosshairs (kidney-shaped, heart-shaped, butterfly-shaped) with bar-shaped pommels appeared in the North Caucasus in the first half of the 7th century BC. On the territory of the Minusinsk Basin, most morphologically similar daggers are usually dated to the 6th – 4th centuries BC. Before the discovery of the Krasnoyarsk sword, long-bladed iron weapons were not known there. At the same time, swords of the Scythian time were found in the nearest regions of Altai and Kazakhstan. The later appearance of the technology for processing iron in the Minusinsk Basin makes it possible to consider the Krasnoyarsk sword an import item. According to another hypothesis, it belongs to the period of the late 3rd – 2nd centuries BC, when local craftsmen mastered the processing of iron and began to make massive quantities of weapons and tools from low-carbon steel. In doing so, they copied traditional archaic forms.


2016 ◽  
Vol 16 (1) ◽  
pp. 178-188
Author(s):  
Yueying Shan

Abstract Through the systematic trimming and analysis to the remains of the archaeological cultures of the Eastern Zhou Period through the Qin Dynasty in northern China, this paper puts forward that during this period, there were two cultural zones (the north and south cultural “belts”) with clearly different cultural features and connotations and peoples bearing clearly different physical characteristics in northern China, and discussed the regional differences of the remains of the archaeological cultures in each cultural belt and their developments and changes. The cultures in the south cultural belt could not be regarded as a part of the early Iron Age cultures in the Eurasian Steppes, but a kind of culture peculiar to the transitional zone between the cultures in the Eurasian Steppes and that in the Central Plains; the development and evolution of the north cultural belt, which emerged in the mid to the late Spring-and-Autumn Period, can be divided into three clear phases: the first phase was a part of the early Iron Age cultures in the Eurasian Steppes, but since the second phase, the cultural features and connotations of this belt began to stray out of the cultures in the Eurasian Steppes, which would be closely related to the military conquering and political management of the Central Plains polities and the powerful northward advance of the cultures of the Central Plains. Referring to the relevant historic literature, this paper made further observations to the interactions among the polities of the Central Plains and the peoples in these two cultural belts and the changes of the cultural patterns in each of the two cultural belts, and revealed the processes of the Sinicization of the Rong, Di and Hu ethnic groups in northern China. This paper pointed out that the Hu ethnic group lived in northern China since the mid Spring-and-Autumn Period, and the later appearance of the Hu people in the historic literatures was related to the northward advances of the territories of polities of the Central Plains rather than the southward invasion of the nomadic tribes living in the present-day Mongolian Plateau.


1951 ◽  
Vol 17 (2) ◽  
pp. 214-225 ◽  
Author(s):  
R. Rainbird Clarke

The widespread adoption of deeper ploughing has led to the discovery during recent years of many remarkable antiquities in East Anglia. Prominent among recent discoveries resulting from this practice have been a series of finds of metal objects of the Early Iron Age in north-western Norfolk. These have ranged from an iron anthropoid sword with an inhumation burial at Shouldham through isolated finds, such as tores at Bawsey and North Creake, to the impressive group of hoards of ornaments and coins at Snettisham and the small hoard here studied found at Ringstead five miles from Snettisham and two miles east of Hunstanton.Few remains of the latter part of the Iron Age from about 100 B.C. to A.D. 43 had previously been recorded from north-west Norfolk. Within a ten-mile radius of Ringstead only indefinite traces of human occupation had been noted, such as pottery from Hunstanton and coins of the Iceni from Brancaster, Burnham Thorpe and possibly Ingoldisthorpe. A much-damaged hillfort at South Creake has been attributed to this period, though on very little direct evidence. Actual indications of settlement at this period are still very scanty.


2003 ◽  
Vol 6 (3) ◽  
pp. 267-299 ◽  
Author(s):  
César Parcero Oubiña

The article reviews the usefulness of the historical–anthropological models of peasantry and Germanic Mode of Production applied to the analysis of the Castro culture (Cultura Castrexa, the Iron Age of the north-western Iberian Peninsula). A historical reconstruction of the period is developed, in which the strain between local community and familial units constitutes one of the most important agents in the process of change, according to a discourse largely based on the proposals of P. Clastres on ‘societies against the state’. A relevant role is given to different forms of violence and conflict; initially they are understood as active mechanisms in inter-community relations although later they would rather become virtual and latent elements that allow the development of a model of social relations that can be defined as a non-class ‘heroic society’.


Antiquity ◽  
1928 ◽  
Vol 2 (6) ◽  
pp. 189-191 ◽  
Author(s):  
Einar Gjerstad

The Swedish archaeological expedition in Cyprus worked last year at Lapithos on the north and at Karavostassi, the ancient Soli, on the north-west.At Lapithos 23 tombs from the early and middle Copper Age and zo tombs from the early Iron Age were opened and examined. The former cover a period from the end of early Cypriote I to the beginning of middle Cypriote 11. The main part of the finds consists of a very representative series of pottery : red polished I-IV ware, black polished ware, black slip 1-11 ware, white painted I-IV ware. The later tombs have yielded a rich collection of tools and weapons, bracelets and rings of copper, finger-rings of silver and gold, 8 necklaces of paste beads, idols of terra cotta and one marble idol, etc. The gold rings (early Cypriote III) represent the first gold found in Cvprus of the early Copper Age. One necklace (early Cypriote III), coniists of 156 globular beads of various sizes arranged in 8 rhythmic series, with one large bead in the middle of each series. Another necklace (middle Cypriote I) consists of 64 large globular beads and more than 500 small cylindrical beads inserted between the large ones. A third is of round, fluted and double-conical beads in symmetrical arrangement. The idols are of the plank-shaped type. One represents a mother holding a baby in her arms, another a mother and a baby in a bed, and a third a man and a woman in a bed.


2000 ◽  
Vol 95 ◽  
pp. 259-299 ◽  
Author(s):  
J. N. Coldstream

Among over 1800 boxes of Sir Arthur Evans's finds now stored in the Stratigraphical Museum at Knossos, at least 150 contain Greek pottery from Subminoan to Classical. A systematic study of this material, in relation to its recorded find spots, throws new light on the eastern part of the early Greek town, bordering the site of the Minoan Palace. Above the Palace itself, fresh evidence is produced, and fresh interpretation offered, for the Greek sanctuary described by Evans. In its immediate surroundings, there are signs of busy domestic and industrial life in the early Greek town above the South-West Houses, the West Court, the Theatral Area, and the Pillared Hall outside the North Entrance to the Palace. Greek occupation is also noted above the House of Frescoes, the Little Palace and the Royal Villa. A wider aim of this article is to trace the limits of the early Greek town of Knossos, both of its original Early Iron Age nucleus surviving from Late Minoan times, and of its spacious extension towards the north in the late eighth and seventh centuries BC.


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