“Minding the Gap”: Against the Gaps. The Early Bronze Age and the Transition to the Middle Bronze Age in the Northern and Eastern Aegean/Western Anatolia

2013 ◽  
Vol 117 (4) ◽  
pp. 569 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ourania Kouka
Keyword(s):  
Bronze Age ◽  
Early Bronze Age ◽  
Western Anatolia ◽  
Eastern Aegean ◽  
Middle Bronze Age

Archaeological Evidence for an Early Second Millennium BC Potter’s Kiln at Liman Tepe

Belleten ◽  
2016 ◽  
Vol 80 (287) ◽  
pp. 1-22
Author(s):  
Ayşegül Aykurt ◽  
Hayat Erkanal
Keyword(s):  
Bronze Age ◽  
Transition Phase ◽  
Early Bronze Age ◽  
Western Anatolia ◽  
Archaeological Evidence ◽  
Middle Bronze Age ◽  
Pottery Sherds ◽  
Comprehensive Manner ◽  
Pottery Kiln

This article will focus on a pottery kiln which is dated to the transition phase between the Early Bronze Age and the Middle Bronze Age in Liman Tepe. The kiln is not only important in terms of being one of the earliest examples on the Western Anatolian coast, but also for the local pottery sherds amongst its debris. They demonstrate the continuation of relationships with Central Anatolian cultures which began in the early periods. Very few centers in Western Anatolia have levels from the Early Bronze to Middle Bronze Age phase. This transition phase is being investigated in a comprehensive manner at Liman Tepe and this will provide an important contribution to understanding the region's chronology.

From tools to production: recent research on textile economies in Greece

2021 ◽  
Vol 67 ◽  
pp. 109-128
Author(s):  
Bela Dimova ◽  
Margarita Gleba
Keyword(s):  
Bronze Age ◽  
Roman Period ◽  
Raw Material ◽  
Wool Fibre ◽  
Early Bronze Age ◽  
Textile Production ◽  
Spindle Whorls ◽  
Middle Bronze Age ◽  
Of Greece

The aim of this report is to provide a summary of the latest developments in the textile archaeology of Greece and the broader Aegean from the Neolithic through to the Roman period, focusing in particular on recent research on textile tools. Spindle-whorls and loomweights appeared in the Aegean during the Neolithic and by the Early Bronze Age weaving on the warp-weighted loom was well established across the region. Recent methodological advances allow the use of the physical characteristics of tools to estimate the quality of the yarns and textiles produced, even in the absence of extant fabrics. The shapes of spindle-whorls evolved with the introduction of wool fibre, which by the Middle Bronze Age had become the dominant textile raw material in the region. The spread of discoid loomweights from Crete to the wider Aegean has been linked to the wider Minoanization of the area during the Middle Bronze Age, as well as the mobility of weavers. Broader issues discussed in connection with textile production include urbanization, the spread of different textile cultures and the identification of specific practices (sealing) and previously unrecognized technologies (splicing), as well as the value of textiles enhanced by a variety of decorative techniques and purple dyeing.

scholarly journals Emberi ábrázolás a Változások korában, 4000 és 2000 BC között

2014 ◽  
pp. 113-144
Author(s):  
Tünde Horváth
Keyword(s):  
Bronze Age ◽  
Middle Age ◽  
Late Phase ◽  
Early Bronze Age ◽  
Copper Age ◽  
Cultural Impacts ◽  
Middle Bronze Age ◽  
Archaeological Cultures ◽  
The Bronze Age

Our survey should by necessity begin earlier, from the close of the Middle Age Copper Age, and should extend to much later, at least until the onset of the Middle Bronze Age, in order to identify and analyse the appearance and spread of the cultural impacts affecting the Baden complex, their in-teraction with neighbouring cultures and, finally, their decline or transformation. Discussed here will be the archaeological cultures flourishing between 4200/4000 and 2200/2000 BC, from the late phase of the Middle Copper Age to its end (3600 BC), the Late Copper Age (ending in 2800 BC), the transi-tion between the Copper Age and the Bronze Age (ending in 2600 BC), and the Early Bronze Age 1–3 (ending in 2000 BC), which I have termed the Age of Transformation.

scholarly journals Exchange networks from close-up: The case of Lipari obsidian

2016 ◽  
Vol 3 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Andrea Vianello ◽  
Robert Howard Tykot
Keyword(s):  
Bronze Age ◽  
Systematic Study ◽  
Explanatory Model ◽  
Early Bronze Age ◽  
Specific Situation ◽  
Archaeological Record ◽  
Single Source ◽  
Early Neolithic ◽  
Exchange Networks ◽  
Middle Bronze Age

A systematic study on obsidian tools in Calabria and Sicily carried out by the authors have revealed the uniqueness in the patterns of production, exchange and consumption of Lipari obsidian. The study has concentrated on the Middle Neolithic primarily, with other Neolithic and Bronze Age contexts recognised at a later stage in the research since many contexts, especially in Sicily, have been excavated by pioneering archaeologists, some over a century ago, or were mislabelled. The chronology is Early Neolithic to Early Bronze Age, with very few materials dating Middle Bronze Age. A review of chronological contexts is in progress, which spans from the 6th millennium BC to the end of the 2nd millennium BC. The typology of obsidian tools is very homogenous, the vast majority of used tools are small blades, bladelets and sharp flakes; there is negligible variance across time; and Lipari obsidian is preferred over other sources. The patterns of the exchanges are also unique, revealing two major types of redistribution of obsidian, one particularly intriguing because it is quite organized with a single source in Lipari, prominent and reminiscent for its stability and reach of Bronze Age redistribution dynamics associated with hierarchical societies. We present here some observations on patterns substantiated by the archaeological record, and consider possible scenarios that can explain them. This work provides an update on progressing research and reveals aspects that will need further investigation, focusing on the patterns identified so far and possible explanations. More work is certainly needed to produce a working model, but the unusual patterns deserve some attention on their own, unencumbered by an overarching explanatory model. In particular, we want to assess the Neolithic redistribution pattern suggestive as typical of hierarchical polities, and contextualize it to the specific situation of Neolithic Lipari.

Pottery

2012 ◽  
Author(s):  
Peter S. Wells
Keyword(s):  
Bronze Age ◽  
Early Bronze Age ◽  
Late Prehistoric ◽  
Roughened Surface ◽  
Middle Bronze Age

This chapter analyzes the pottery of late prehistoric Europe. Jars, bowls, and cups were the three main categories of pottery vessels that were in use in the Early Bronze Age. Bowls and cups were decorated differently from jars, and their surfaces were finished differently. Jars are the only category that had a purposely roughened surface. Bowls and cups were polished smooth. And jars are the only category within which each individual vessel was distinguished from every other by the pattern of its ornament. From the latter fact, it is argued that jars in the Early and Middle Bronze Age were individualized in a way that bowls and cups were not; each was deliberately made different from all others in order that the household that owned it could mark it as its own, and perhaps even use it to display to others in the community that it had abundant stores of grain.

Social landscapes

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Joanna Brück
Keyword(s):  
Bronze Age ◽  
Significant Degree ◽  
Natural World ◽  
Population Pressure ◽  
Early Bronze Age ◽  
Human Environment ◽  
Economic Exploitation ◽  
Natural Rock ◽  
Middle Bronze Age ◽  
Field Systems

In 1960 a rock climber found a small Middle Bronze Age pot wedged in a cleft in the rock halfway down the eastern face of Crow’s Buttress, a granite outcrop on the southern edge of Dartmoor in Devon (Pettit 1974, 92). The Middle Bronze Age was a period during which extensive field systems were constructed on Dartmoor (Fleming 1988). As we shall see later in this chapter, these have often been thought to indicate the intensification of agriculture and an increasing concern to define land ownership in response to population pressure (e.g. Barrett 1980a; 1994, 148–9; Bradley 1984, 9; Yates 2007, 120–1; English 2013, 139–40). Such models imply the commodification of the natural world: the landscape is viewed primarily as a resource for economic exploitation. Yet this small pot calls such assumptions into question, for it can surely be best interpreted as an offering to spirit guardians or ancestors associated with a striking natural rock formation. This hints at a quite different way of engaging with and understanding the landscape. In this chapter we will explore the links between people and landscape, beginning with the monumental landscapes of the Chalcolithic and Early Bronze Age, moving then to consider what the appearance of field systems during the Middle and Late Bronze Age tells us about human–environment relationships during the later part of the period, and finally considering some of the ways in which animals were incorporated into the social worlds of Bronze Age communities. Funerary and ceremonial monuments of various sorts are the most eye-catching feature of the Early Bronze Age landscape and have dominated our interpretations of the period. By contrast, as we have seen in Chapter 4, settlement evidence of this date is relatively sparse. This, and recent isotope analyses of Chalcolithic and Early Bronze Age inhumation burials (Jay et al. 2012; Parker Pearson et al. 2016), suggest a significant degree of residential mobility.

Memory and its Demolition: Ancestors, Animals and Sacrifice at Umm el-Marra, Syria

2013 ◽  
Vol 23 (3) ◽  
pp. 495-522 ◽  
Author(s):  
Glenn M. Schwartz
Keyword(s):  
Bronze Age ◽  
Early Bronze Age ◽  
Human Sacrifice ◽  
Ancestor Veneration ◽  
The Past ◽  
Middle Bronze Age

At Umm el-Marra in western Syria, a sequence of Bronze Age ritual installations facilitates the investigation of how Syrian elites employed memory, ancestor veneration, and animal (and perhaps human) sacrifice to reinforce their position, and how others used countermemory to contest it. Relevant data derive from an Early Bronze Age complex of elite tombs and animal interments and a Middle Bronze Age monumental platform and shaft containing animal and human bodies deposited ritually. Analysis of the spatial landscape, with patterns of access or inaccessibility, facilitates additional insights, as does the consideration of the intentionality or lack of it in ancient references to the past.

Metals and Metallurgy

2012 ◽  
Author(s):  
James D. Muhly
Keyword(s):  
Bronze Age ◽  
Molten Copper ◽  
Early Bronze Age ◽  
Western Anatolia ◽  
Late Chalcolithic ◽  
The Impact ◽  
The Bronze Age

This article reviews the impact of metals and metallurgy on Anatolian societies, from the first emergence of metal experimentation in the Neolithic to the full-blown metallurgical societies of the Bronze Age. Evidence suggests that Late Chalcolithic metalworkers thought of tin as a metal to be used for coating the surface of a copper artifact, presumably to imitate the appearance of silver, before they thought of adding tin to molten copper to produce bronze. During the transition from Late Chalcolithic to the beginning of the Early Bronze Age, ca. 3000 BCE, the main focus of metallurgical development in Anatolia shifted from the eastern part of the country to central and western Anatolia.

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