Bronze Age: Technology, Trade, and Increasing Social Complexity

Author(s):  
Mick Atha ◽  
Kennis Yip

Chapter 5 examines one of Sha Po’s most fascinating and important periods of cultural development, the Bronze Age, a period during which the local community was making wider and more specialised use of the coastal landscape. On the plateau there was some form of stilt-house settlement associated with the specialised manufacture of fine quartz rings, while on the backbeach we have the region’s best evidence for non-ferrous metallurgy in the form of in situ bronze casting. The evidence for craft specialisation tells us that society was undergoing change and could perhaps support the work of artisans through some form of surplus production of food. Moreover, access to more advanced technology and exotic materials are both indications of a widening of external contacts, trade, and exchange, while a heightened interest in personal ornamentation and display points towards greater competition and the emergence of social hierarchies.

Author(s):  
Naif Adel Haddad ◽  
Leen Adeeb Fakhoury

Tal (mount) Irbid in Irbid city, Jordan, with its continuous human occupation from the Bronze Age until the present, demonstrates the main landmark that has guided the spread of the urban growth of the city. The outcome of studies carried out at Irbid’s historic core, in relation to assessing the loss and degradation of the core’s cultural heritage, shall be analyzed, investigated, and discussed, as also concerns, obstacles, and issues of sustainability to this urban heritage conservation and tourism planning. The paper starts by defining the urban heritage for the historic core, which tends to be set aside, in the city’s rapid development. Actually, the remaining historic buildings can also provide the necessary inter-relationships between the historic core areas and the wider urban context to achieve a sustainable and integrated tourism and conservation action plan for the three heritage neighborhoods around the Tal, while building on tourism opportunities and taking into consideration the needs and the vital role of the local community. The paper concludes that urban heritage conservation and protection of the integrity and identity of the historic core city fabric can assist in its branding, promotion, and management in ways that could enhance the local community belonging, quality of everyday lifestyle, and visitors' experience. 


2016 ◽  
Vol 2 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Sunil

Tourism sector has a significant role in the economic development of our country. Tourism sector has contributed 6.88 percent to the GDP and has 12.36 percent share in employment (direct and indirect) in the year 2014. It has also a significant share in foreign exchange earnings. The benefit of tourism mostly goes to the local community (Sonya & Jacqueline, Mansour E. Zaei & Mahin E. Zaei, 2013). In this paper, an attempt has been made to assess how the tourism industry has created an opportunity for the economic, political, social and cultural development of the local community at Manali in Himachal Pradesh (India) and also tried to study the problems that are associated with the tourism in the region. The study found that the tourism industry has been extending its contribution for the development of local community at Manali. It has been providing employment, business and investment opportunities, revenue generation for the government, encouraging the community to promote and preserve its art, culture and heritage, raising the demand of agriculture products, provided opportunities for local people to run and work in the transport business and by promoting MSMEs in the region. Besides the opportunities, the tourism industry has also added many problems to the local community. Traffic congestion, increase in water and air pollution, solid waste generation, degradation of the cultural heritage, ecological imbalances, rise in cost of living, increase in crime, noise and environment pollution, migration of people to the region, negative impact on local culture, and extra pressure on civic services during the tourists season, are the problems associated with the tourism. The study suggest that effective management of natural resources, dissemination of environment protection information, involvement of local community in decision making, professionalization in the working of local administration, extending the support of government in sponsoring the events, infrastructure development, tracking records of migrants with the help of local community to curb the crime rate, promotion and preservation of art, culture and heritage, involvement of NGOs, compliance of the rules can make tourism more beneficial in the development of local community.


2009 ◽  
Vol 31 (1-2) ◽  
pp. 1-31
Author(s):  
Leonora O'Brien ◽  
Victoria Clements ◽  
Mike Roy ◽  
Neil Macnab

Fieldwork at Newton Farm, Cambuslang (NGR NS 672 610) was undertaken in advance of housing development in 2005–6. A cluster of six shallow Neolithic pits were excavated, and a collection of 157 round-based, carinated bowl sherds and a quern fragment were recovered from them. The pits produced a date range of 3700 to 3360 cal BC. Most of the pits yielded burnt material, and one of the pits showed evidence of in situ burning. The pottery may form ‘structured deposits’. A Bronze Age adult cremation placed in a Food Vessel dated to 3610±30 BP (2040–1880 cal BC) was set in a wider landscape of single and multiple cremations and inhumations on the river terraces overlooking the Clyde. A possible unurned cremation was also identified. This was cut by the course of a small ring-ditch dated to the very late Bronze Age or early Iron Age 2520±30 BP (800–530cal BC).


2018 ◽  
Vol 2 (1) ◽  
pp. 19
Author(s):  
Iman Hilman ◽  
Nedi Sunaedi

Local wisdom that exist nowadays is facing challenge that threaten its preservation, so that it begins to eroded by the development of technology, which has adoption process of innovation and the diffusion of technology adoption. Understanding the local wisdom would be clear that local wisdom becomes important in managing natural resources and conserving environment. The purpose of this research is to revitalize and preserve the local wisdom of the indigenous community at Kampung Kuta, Ciamis Regency, West Java. The benefits of this research will be used for revitalization and preservation of local wisdom and revitalize the values and cultural norms contained in regulating the life of community.The research method and planning that would be applied in this revitalization and  preservation of cultural  is Participatory Planning and Research (PPR) which emphasize on excavate information through thorough inquiry toward local community. Share with the community, to talk about how to empower local community and furthermore to carry out the useful planning for local community.Design of revitalization and preservation of local wisdom; the establisment of local wisdom group with training and learning program; the management of indigenous group continuously; spread widely local wisdom to its supporter with instilling cultural values and local wisdom as a contain of local wisdom; plan regeneration agent and the supporter of local wisdom as a part of inheritance of culture.Revitalization and preservation of local wisdom in educational environment at Kampung Kuta custom produce : cultural tradition management; help and support for cultural development; promoting and introducing cultural tradition to the outside community. Keywords: Revitalization, Conservation, Preservation, Local Wisdom, Environmental Education


2017 ◽  
Vol 80 (4) ◽  
pp. 264-267
Author(s):  
Elizabeth Arnold ◽  
Jeremy Beller ◽  
Adi Behar ◽  
David Ben-Shlomo ◽  
Tina L. Greenfield ◽  
...  

1953 ◽  
Vol 9 ◽  
pp. 12-16 ◽  
Author(s):  
Bertram S. Kraus

Until quite recently the cultural prehistory of Japan has been, like many other areas of Asia, very inadequately known to most American and European students. There is now enough material available to enable me to present to you an outline of the prehistoric cultural development of Japan with a high degree of reliability in its essential validity. Much remains to be done, however, both in the sphere of “dirt archaeology” and in the field of analysis, synthesis, and foreign relationships.The term “Jomon” has become entrenched as the designation for the entire period of Japanese culture preceding the entrance of the Yayoi people with their bronze-age culture from Korea and the adjacent areas into Kyushu. This migration must have commenced at least as early as the second century B.C. since it is known that Yayoi centers were flourishing in Kyushu and southwest Honshu in the first century B.C. Absolute dates for the earliest cultural manifestations in Japan are lacking but my guess would be about 3000 B.C.


2013 ◽  
Vol 80 ◽  
pp. 159-206 ◽  
Author(s):  
Simon Timberlake

Major investigations were undertaken of the Ecton Copper Mines, Staffordshire, following the discovery of hammerstones and a red deer antler tool dating to the Early Bronze Age during surface and underground exploration in the 1990s. Ecton Hill was surveyed, the distribution of hammerstone tools examined, and two identified sites of potential prehistoric mining close to the summit of the hill excavated in 2008 & 2009. Excavations at Stone Quarry Mine revealed noin situprehistoric mining activity, but hammerstones and Early Bronze Age bone mining tools from upcast suggest that an historic mine shaft had intersected Bronze Age workings at around 10–25 m depth. On The Lumb one trench revealed evidence for medieval lead mining, while another examined the lowest of four primitive mines associated with cave-like mine entrances along the base of a small cliff. Evidence for prehistoric mining was recorded within a shallow opencut formed by during extraction of malachite from a layer of mineralised dolomite. Traces of the imprint of at least 18 bone and stone tools could be seen and seven different types of working were identified. Most prehistoric mining debris appears to have been cleared out during the course of later, medieval–post-medieval prospection; some bone and stone tools were recovered from this spoil. The tip of a worn and worked (cut) antler tine point was the only such mining tool foundin situat this site but nine tools were radiocarbon dated toc.1880–1640 calbc. Bayesian modelling of the dates from both sites probably indicates mining over a much briefer period (perhaps 20–50 years) at 1800–1700 calbc, with mining at Stone Quarry possibly beginning earlier and lasting longer than on The Lumb. A single date from The Lumb suggests possible renewed mining activity (or prospection?) during the Middle Bronze Age. The dating of this mining activity is consistent with the idea that mining and prospection moved eastwards from Ireland to Wales, then to central England, at the beginning of the 2nd millenniumbc. At Ecton the extraction of secondary ores may have produced only a very small tonnage of copper metal. The mine workers may have been Early Bronze Age farmers who occupied this part of the Peak District seasonally in a transhumant or sustained way


2019 ◽  
pp. 91-125
Author(s):  
Jaeho Ahn

Songgungni Culture, formed in the late Bronze Age of Korean peninsula, is characterized by the increased power of chieftains, uses of bronzeware, and constructions of huge burial mounds known as Guhoekmyo. The discussion on the difference of Songgungni Culture from previous cultural forms has been divided into the view to see it as foreign influences and that to see it derived from the previous local cultures. The author suggested the latter view first in 1992 but the findings accumulated since then lead us to rethink the origin of Songgungni Culture from a perspective that conjoins these two oft-conflicting views. The Zhou Dynasty and paddy field agrarian culture in the lower area of the Yangtze River influenced the formation of Songgungni Culture given the following findings. First, the Zhou Dynasty’s ceramic art called Beating Technique was discovered in Songgungni Culture with other artifacts such as weights made of stone, bottom parts of Chinese earthenware, and the jar coffins indicating the existence of ascribed status. Second, the excavations of paddy fields, Yunnan- style kilns, independent pillar structures, flask-shaped storage holes, and pestles suggest the propagation of the paddy field rice culture of the lower Yangtze along the coastline of the Shandong Peninsula. Under these foreign influences, Songguk-ri type potteries and other creative agricultural tools were produced. The differentiation of the previous joint family system into the nuclear produced lots of downsized dwelling areas which characterize Songguk-ri culture. And the innovation in the yielding capacity made possible by paddy fields also shows an aspect of Chiefdom settled into this area during the time. The surplus production of this period was not enough to advance towards the autonomous production of bronzeware. The increased size of chieftains’ tombs did not contain enough burial goods. Given the aforementioned findings, Songgungni Culture could be understood as an early stage of Chiefdom, just getting out of the state of fragmented society.


Antiquity ◽  
2011 ◽  
Vol 85 (330) ◽  
pp. 1298-1311 ◽  
Author(s):  
Viktoria Fischer

The famous lakeside sites of Switzerland have long been known for their pile dwellings and their massive quantities of Late Bronze Age metalwork. On the most recent excavations, the bronzes have been mapped in situ, allowing comparison with assemblages from dryland sites and rivers, as well as providing a context for the nineteenth-century collections. The pile dwellings emerge as special places where depositions of selected bronze objects in groups or as single discards, comparable to those usually found in dryland deposits or in rivers, accumulated in the shallow water during a unique 250-year spell of ritual practice.


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