scholarly journals Bringing Back some Eagleness to Eagles – on Bird Worldings in the Bronze Age

2020 ◽  
pp. 47-73
Author(s):  
Joakim Goldhahn

This paper explores multispecies relations in the Bronze Age in northern Europe in gen-eral, and in particular some of the intra-actions between humans and eagles. The paper is a call to embrace eagles as co-actors in unfolding human worldings. It demonstrates that more than one relationship and intra-action unfolded between humans and eagles during the Bronze Age; some were male-gendered and others were revealed as significant for fe-males and children. It is argued that to be able to detect these and similar complex relation-ships between humans and others-than-humans in the past, we need to try to seek more enmeshed ways to assemble data which combine, contrast, and explore the complexity of different strands of evidence.

Author(s):  
Tiziana Pedrotta ◽  
Erika Gobet ◽  
Christoph Schwörer ◽  
Giorgia Beffa ◽  
Christoph Butz ◽  
...  

AbstractKnowledge about the vegetation history of Sardinia, the second largest island of the Mediterranean, is scanty. Here, we present a new sedimentary record covering the past ~ 8,000 years from Lago di Baratz, north-west Sardinia. Vegetation and fire history are reconstructed by pollen, spores, macrofossils and charcoal analyses and environmental dynamics by high-resolution element geochemistry together with pigment analyses. During the period 8,100–7,500 cal bp, when seasonality was high and fire and erosion were frequent, Erica arborea and E. scoparia woodlands dominated the coastal landscape. Subsequently, between 7,500 and 5,500 cal bp, seasonality gradually declined and thermo-mediterranean woodlands with Pistacia and Quercus ilex partially replaced Erica communities under diminished incidence of fire. After 5,500 cal bp, evergreen oak forests expanded markedly, erosion declined and lake levels increased, likely in response to increasing (summer) moisture availability. Increased anthropogenic fire disturbance triggered shrubland expansions (e.g. Tamarix and Pistacia) around 5,000–4,500 cal bp. Subsequently around 4,000–3,500 cal bp evergreen oak-olive forests expanded massively when fire activity declined and lake productivity and anoxia reached Holocene maxima. Land-use activities during the past 4,000 years (since the Bronze Age) gradually disrupted coastal forests, but relict stands persisted under rather stable environmental conditions until ca. 200 cal bp, when agricultural activities intensified and Pinus and Eucalyptus were planted to stabilize the sand dunes. Pervasive prehistoric land-use activities since at least the Bronze Age Nuraghi period included the cultivation of Prunus, Olea europaea and Juglans regia after 3,500–3,300 cal bp, and Quercus suber after 2,500 cal bp. We conclude that restoring less flammable native Q. ilex and O. europaea forest communities would markedly reduce fire risk and erodibility compared to recent forest plantations with flammable non-native trees (e.g. Pinus, Eucalyptus) and xerophytic shrubland (e.g. Cistus, Erica).


2018 ◽  
Vol 14 (10) ◽  
pp. 20180286 ◽  
Author(s):  
Morgane Ollivier ◽  
Anne Tresset ◽  
Laurent A. F. Frantz ◽  
Stéphanie Bréhard ◽  
Adrian Bălăşescu ◽  
...  

Near Eastern Neolithic farmers introduced several species of domestic plants and animals as they dispersed into Europe. Dogs were the only domestic species present in both Europe and the Near East prior to the Neolithic. Here, we assessed whether early Near Eastern dogs possessed a unique mitochondrial lineage that differentiated them from Mesolithic European populations. We then analysed mitochondrial DNA sequences from 99 ancient European and Near Eastern dogs spanning the Upper Palaeolithic to the Bronze Age to assess if incoming farmers brought Near Eastern dogs with them, or instead primarily adopted indigenous European dogs after they arrived. Our results show that European pre-Neolithic dogs all possessed the mitochondrial haplogroup C, and that the Neolithic and Post-Neolithic dogs associated with farmers from Southeastern Europe mainly possessed haplogroup D. Thus, the appearance of haplogroup D most probably resulted from the dissemination of dogs from the Near East into Europe. In Western and Northern Europe, the turnover is incomplete and haplogroup C persists well into the Chalcolithic at least. These results suggest that dogs were an integral component of the Neolithic farming package and a mitochondrial lineage associated with the Near East was introduced into Europe alongside pigs, cows, sheep and goats. It got diluted into the native dog population when reaching the Western and Northern margins of Europe.


Author(s):  
Joakim Goldhahn

This chapter offers a long-term perspective on rock art in northern Europe. It first provides an overview of research on the rock art traditions of northern Europe before discussing the societies and cultures that created such traditions. It then considers examples of rock art made by hunter-gatherer societies in northern Europe, focusing on the first rock art boom related to Neolithization. It also examines the second rock art boom, which was associated with social and religious changes within farming communities that took place around 1600–1400 bc. The chapter concludes by analysing the breakdown of long-distance networks in the transition from the Bronze Age to the Iron Age and its consequences for the making of rock art within the southern traditions, as well as the use of rock art sites during the Pre-Roman Iron Age, Roman Iron Age, and Migration Period.


1963 ◽  
Vol 29 ◽  
pp. 326-356 ◽  
Author(s):  
John M. Coles

One of the features of the Irish Late Bronze Age is the appearance of wind instruments, commonly called ‘Trumpets’, often found in groups and only rarely in association with other material. Being conical and curved, these are therefore members of the horn family, to which the other large musical group of the Bronze Age, the north Europeanlurer, also belong.The Irish horns have attracted the attention of antiquarians for over 100 years, with the principal collection and listing of these beginning in 1860. Evans devoted a section of his 1881 book to the ‘trumpets’, and was followed by Day, Allen and Coffey. The latest treatment, which brought together most of the previous lists of horns, was by MacWhite in 1945. All of these later works were primarily concerned with the typology of the horns, and attention was paid neither to their actual production nor to their music. In the present study, all previously published horns have been examined where possible, as well as a number of unpublished finds, and an attempt will be made not only (i) to describe the typological variations and dating of the horns, but also (ii) to discuss their production as objects from Late Bronze Age workshops and (iii) to consider for the first time their musical potential.


2018 ◽  
Vol 45 ◽  
pp. 154-165
Author(s):  
Javier Rodriguez-Corral

During the Late Iron Age, monumental stone statues of warriors were established in the northwest of Iberia, ‘arming’ landscapes that ultimately encouraged specific types of semiotic ideologies in the region. This paper deals with how these statues on rocks not only worked in the production of liminality in the landscape – creating transitional zones on it –, but also how they functioned as liminal gateways to the past, absorbing ideas from the Bronze Age visual culture up to the Late Iron Age one, in order to create emotional responses to a new socio-political context.


2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Rui Martiniano ◽  
Lara M Cassidy ◽  
Ros Ó’Maoldúin ◽  
Russell McLaughlin ◽  
Nuno M Silva ◽  
...  

AbstractWe analyse new genomic data (0.05-2.95x) from 14 ancient individuals from Portugal distributed from the Middle Neolithic (4200-3500 BC) to the Middle Bronze Age (1740-1430 BC) and impute genomewide diploid genotypes in these together with published ancient Eurasians. While discontinuity is evident in the transition to agriculture across the region, sensitive haplotype-based analyses suggest a significant degree of local hunter-gatherer contribution to later Iberian Neolithic populations. A more subtle genetic influx is also apparent in the Bronze Age, detectable from analyses including haplotype sharing with both ancient and modern genomes, D-statistics and Y-chromosome lineages. However, the limited nature of this introgression contrasts with the major Steppe migration turnovers within third Millennium northern Europe and echoes the survival of non-Indo-European language in Iberia. Changes in genomic estimates of individual height across Europe are also associated with these major cultural transitions, and ancestral components continue to correlate with modern differences in stature.Author SummaryRecent ancient DNA work has demonstrated the significant genetic impact of mass migrations from the Steppe into Central and Northern Europe during the transition from the Neolithic to the Bronze Age. In Iberia, archaeological change at the level of material culture and funerary rituals has been reported during this period, however, the genetic impact associated with this cultural transformation has not yet been estimated. In order to investigate this, we sequence Neolithic and Bronze Age samples from Portugal, which we compare to other ancient and present-day individuals. Genome-wide imputation of a large dataset of ancient samples enabled sensitive methods for detecting population structure and selection in ancient samples. We revealed subtle genetic differentiation between the Portuguese Neolithic and Bronze Age samples suggesting a markedly reduced influx in Iberia compared to other European regions. Furthermore, we predict individual height in ancients, suggesting that stature was reduced in the Neolithic and affected by subsequent admixtures. Lastly, we examine signatures of strong selection in important traits and the timing of their origins.


1994 ◽  
Vol 60 (1) ◽  
pp. 15-26 ◽  
Author(s):  
Bo Gräslund

Prehistoric burial rites and burial finds ought to be studied also in the light of primitive soul beliefs. It is argued that the customs of submitting prestige grave goods in northern Europe during the Neolithic, the Bronze Age, and the Iron Age consistently reflect a pluralistic soul idea with a free soul aimed for the next existence.


2009 ◽  
Vol 4 (1) ◽  
pp. 84-144 ◽  
Author(s):  
Haydon Cherry

This essay argues that prehistory in Vietnam has been powerfully shaped by the contemporary social and political circumstances in which it has been produced, both during the French colonial period and in the Democratic Republic of Vietnam. It argues that in both periods the degree of professionalism in the field and the prevailing political ideology shaped the kind of prehistory produced. The discussion focuses particularly on the Bronze Age culture of Đông Sỏn and its link to the Hùng kings and their kingdom of Văn Lang.


2018 ◽  
Vol 26 (1) ◽  
pp. 101-146
Author(s):  
S. V. Ivanova ◽  
A. G. Nikitin ◽  
D. V. Kiosak

This article is dedicated to the problem of the origin and spread of the Yamna cultural-historical community (YCHC) in the context of the hypothesis recently expressed by geneticists about the massive migration of population groups genetically related to YCHC and carrying the genetic determinants of the Iranian Neolithic agrarians and hunters and fishers of the North Caucasus from the Ponto- Caspian steppe to central and northern Europe at the beginning of the Bronze Age. Based on an in-depth archeological and genetic analysis, we propose that the genetic «invasion» of the Iranian-Caucasian genetic element into Europe at the beginning of the Bronze Age, recently proposed by paleogenetisits on the basis of a large-scale study of ancient DNA, was not the result of a large-scale migration of representatives of YCHC from the Ponto-Caspian steppes to central and northern Europe, but the result of global population and cultural changes in Eurasia at the end of the Atlantic climatic optimum. We further suggest that before the steppe genetics appeared in Europe at the beginning of the Bronze Age, central European genetic determinants appeared in the steppe in the Eneolithic, and that the movement of the steppe genetic element to Europe was at least in part the second phase of the «pendular» migration of European expatriates, returning to the historical zone of habitation. We also come to the conclusion that the very concept of distinguishing YCHC as a monolithic entity is inappropriate, and that the groups of nomadic tribes of the Ponto-Caspian steppe most likely existed as discrete communities, although united by a common ideology and a genetic relationship that included both the Iranian-Caucasian (throughout the entire range), and European / Anatolian agricultural (locally) genetic elements.


2018 ◽  
Vol 45 ◽  
pp. 108-119
Author(s):  
Alenka Tomaž

“Pottery depot”, as a buried group of vessels, is well known term within the Bronze Age archaeology however in Neolithic and Eneolithic archaeologies the term comes into attention only rarely. In article we are discussing the case-study of Pit PO 118, discovered at site Turnišče. In the past, Pit PO 118 has been interpreted as potential storage pit or as remnants of past economic activities. In article we are considering the possibilities of its different interpretation.


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