Climate deterioration and land-use change in the first millennium BC: perspectives from the British palynological record

Climate deterioration at around the time of the Bronze Age/Iron Age transition has for long been argued to have resulted in upland abandonment in northern and western Britain, and recent research has provided evidence that a major climate downturn from 850 cal BC caused settlement abandonment in western Europe and potentially worldwide. It is, however, unclear to what extent only ‘marginal’ sites were affected, due to the lack of any systematic attempt to view the evidence for settlement and land-use change across a range of landscape types with differing sensitivities to environmental change. This paper addresses this issue by an evaluation of 75 pollen sequences spanning the late Bronze Age and early Iron Age in Britain to assess whether climatic deterioration was sufficient to cause widespread land abandonment. The results provide no evidence for wholesale land-use change at this time; the overall picture is one of continuity of land use or even increased agricultural activity. There are, however, hints of regional variability, with a greater tendency to abandonment of upland areas in Wales, and signs of woodland regeneration in agriculturally productive areas of lowland central southern England. The latter pattern may reflect a combination of rising ground-water levels affecting local land-use in the immediate vicinity of the mires which provide the source of the pollen data, against a backdrop of regional-scale social and economic changes at the Bronze Age-Iron Age transition.     

Cultivation History Beyond the Periphery: Early Agriculture in the North European Boreal Forest

We have investigated the environmental history of human occupation and the development of agriculture in the eastern interior Lake District of Finland. The material consists of archaeological data, which is reviewed in topographical and agrogeological context, and pollen analytical evidence of agricultural indices from eight precisely dated (varved) lake sediment sequences. Before the Viking Age, archaeological evidence, consisting of stray finds, dwelling sites, and graves, is very scarce. Iron Age finds are clearly confined to the lowland environs with silty and clayey soils. During the Viking Age, the number of stray finds multiplies and the first cemeteries are established. Comparison between Viking and Crusade Period finds reveals a topographic shift toward higher locations and morainic soils. Most of the cup-stones are located on upland sites—that is, not in connection with known Iron Age sites. These are interpreted as medieval indicators of slash-and-burn farming of the fertile but stony supraaquatic morainic soils. There is pollen analytical evidence of sporadic cultivation in the area from the Bronze Age onward. Afterca. AD 700, the occurrence of cereal pollen grains becomes regular but remains discontinuous at each site until after the turn of the millennium. There is then an exponential rise in the cereal pollen rain, indicating a fully agricultural population.     

Historical context and chronology of Bronze Age land enclosure on Dartmoor,UK

The upland of Dartmoor, southwest England, is one of the flagship prehistoric landscapes within Britain owing to the excellent survival of extensive prehistoric coaxial field systems. Archaeological surveys and rescue excavations during the 1970s and 1980s did much to further the understanding of this landscape; however, much remains to be explored, in particular the chronology of enclosure, the nature of the pre-enclosure landscape and the relationship between Bronze Age communities and their environment. Reconsideration of this landscape is important, given the place it holds in our understanding of subdivision of the landscape across northwest Europe during prehistory. This paper presents new palaeoecological data recovered as part of an integrated archaeological and palaeoecological project on northeast Dartmoor. The sequences detailed here include the first dated Neolithic period palaeoenvironmental data from within the prehistoric enclosed land on the moor, providing a longer-term context for enclosure. Neolithic groups are implicated in the first establishment of heathland in the study area at around 3630–3370 cal BC. During the early Bronze Age, reestablishment of hazel scrub in the study area implies reduced use of the upland, although it is not clear whether this is local or indicative of the wider landscape. A combination of pollen and fungal spore data indicates a substantial shift to species-rich grassland with grazing animals at c.1480 cal BC in a phase that lasted 400 years. The later Bronze Age and early Iron Age are characterised by low intensity use of the upland. These data provide new chronological data for land cover change on Dartmoor and whilst they broadly confirm existing models of upland land use in later prehistory, their proximity to the standing archaeology affords a more nuanced interpretation of local change.     

Palaeoenvironments, the archaeological record and cereal pollen detection at Clickimin, Shetland, Scotland

The Loch of Clickimin, Shetland, is well known for its broch and associated monuments supposedly of the Bronze and Iron Ages, although the former date is disputed. Pollen, diatom and sedimentological investigations permit fresh insights into the landscape and economic impacts of those who constructed the monuments, reveal that the environs of the site experienced environmental change from Neolithic times onward and provide the first Holocene radiocarbon dates from the immediate locality. The broch-building period witnessed a continuation of pre-existing pastoral husbandry for which heather burning may have exacerbated the natural spread of blanket peat. Initially, no evidence was adduced for local arable activity in the present investigation, and this was thought to be consistent possibly with the low numbers of excavated querns and the absence of cereal macrofossil finds when compared with other Shetland broch sites. The application of ‘rapid scanning’ techniques, however, led to the discovery of a consistent cereal-type pollen representation from Bronze Age times onwards. The discrepancies between the palaeoenvironmental evidence and the environmental and palaeoeconomic inferences made by the excavator of the site are explored. Evidence is presented that both supports and contradicts previous assumptions surrounding an important archaeological site.     

Prehistoric activity and environment on the North York Moors

A synoptic view and interpretation of archaeological material from the mesolithic to the end of the Iron Age is provided, and this is viewed in the context of available palaeoenvironmental information. The evidence of various settlement forms suggests that mesolithic folk occupied the region for a long period, but their environmental impact appears to have been low although not negligible. In neolithic times a probably higher population density was capable of more thorough changes of vegetation but the total permanent alteration of ecosystems is thought to be small. Evidence for settlement is entirely inferential. By contrast, the Bronze and Iron Ages were periods of considerable clearance of forest and subsequent ecological changes like the leaching of soils increased, and traces of settlement are plentiful. New data on Iron Age settlements shows a downward movement of settlement sites and some Celtic fields are noted, though they are sparse compared with other uplands in Great Britain. A number of unanswered questions are posed, mostly about the nature of the settlement pattern in mesolithic, Bronze Age and Iron Age times. No complete synthesis of archaeological and palaeoenvironmental data is yet possible at this scale but certain parts of the moors have a high potential for reconstructing prehistoric geography.     

Response to late Bronze Age climate change of farming communities in north east Scotland

Pollen analyses are presented spanning the Bronze and Iron Ages at two sites within one river catchment in north east Scotland, one upland and one lowland site, to test the hypothesis that subsistence agricultural communities relocated their activities in response to major climatic deterioration at the end of the Bronze Age. Such responses were identified, involving the probable cessation of arable farming around the upland site and increases in the intensity of anthropogenic impacts around the lowland site. These changes are consistent with a model that posits a restructuring of agricultural activities, but are not considered indicative of settlement abandonment in the face of climatic stress.     

Dynamics of pioneer colonisation in the Early Iron Age in the Duero basin (Central Iberia,Spain): Integrating archaeological and palynological records

Abstract

This study addresses the earliest strategies of permanent occupation in the mountainous regions bordering Northern Meseta in inland Iberia. This piece of work gathers together and discusses archaeological information about settlement in the Late Bronze Age and Early Iron Age and previously published high-resolution palynological cores from three study areas. Its major goal is to assess both archaeological and pollen records in order to gain a better understanding of the dynamics of occupation and transformation of these upland settings. Until cal 700 BC there are no clear signs of permanence in the highlands surrounding the Duero basin, but from that point onwards various initiatives of small-scale spontaneous colonisation have been identified. Colonisation in the Iron Age involved pastoralism, cereal agriculture and a significant use of forestry resources, causing a major anthropogenic impact with irreversible consequences. The outlined account constitutes the first synthetic overview at a macro-regional scale on the beginnings of the integrated and diversified strategies implemented in these upland regions.     

Characterising the late prehistoric, ‘Romano-British’ and medieval landscape, and dating the emergence of a regionally distinct agricultural system in South West Britain

Palaeoenvironmental evidence for the character of lowland cultural landscapes during the last 2500 years in Britain is poorly understood, owing to a combination of an over-reliance on data from upland sequences, and because lowland mires are typically located in positions marginal to areas of settlement and agriculture. This paper presents an attempt to derive environmental evidence for this time period from a lowland context in order to characterise the key periods of change and continuity in the lowlands. The study focuses on mid-Devon, in South West Britain, and uses small pollen sites which are embedded within the historic landscape. The South West is a particularly poor region for lowland environmental data, and has until now been reliant on upland sequences. The results show that continuity, rather than abrupt change, has characterised the landscape from the later Iron Age to the early medieval period (around cal AD 800). There is no palynologically distinct Roman period in the data, contrary to evidence from the high uplands of Exmoor that suggests a decline of the agricultural system during the immediate post-Roman period. Around cal AD 800 there is a change in the agricultural system from predominantly pastoral activities to one that led to relatively high proportions of cereal pollen appearing in the sequences, which is interpreted here as marking the onset of convertible husbandry, a regionally distinct agricultural system which is recorded from AD 1350, but whose origins are not documented. This agricultural system remained in place until the post-medieval period, when the predominant agricultural regime returned to pastoralism around AD 1750. The data clearly show discrepancies between the high uplands and the lowlands, demonstrating the potential hazards of extrapolating upland sequences to lowlands environments.     

Maritime Worlds Collide: Agents of Transference and the Metastasis of Seaborne Threats at the End of the Bronze Age

Primary sources from the end of the Bronze Age have long been read as suggesting a time of chaotic transition, particularly with regard to threats from the sea that the established powers had no means of combatting. While the scale and severity of seaborne attacks seems to have increased in the late 13th century, these were not in themselves new phenomena, as a state of maritime threat seems to have been a constant for coastal polities and mariners in the Late Bronze Age eastern Mediterranean. However, a combination of internal and external factors in the late 13th and early 12th centuries combined to make these attacks more effective than they had been in the past, and polities more vulnerable to them. These included the rapid spread of improvements in maritime technology, particularly from the Aegean and the Levant, via high–intensity ‘zones of transference’, as well as an increase in the scale of ship­–based combat operations, due in part to the displacement of people during the Late Bronze Age collapse. This paper addresses this in two parts, beginning with the ‘background’ evidence for a constant state of maritime threat in the centuries leading up to the end of the Bronze Age, and concluding with the ‘foreground’ evidence for zones of transference and the transmission of groundbreaking elements of naval technology in the years surrounding the Late Bronze–Early Iron Age transition.     

A late Holocene pollen record from Lake Almalou in NW Iran: evidence for changing land-use in relation to some historical events during the last 3700 years

A pollen diagram was prepared from Lake Almalou, a volcanic crater wetland located on the eastern flanks of the Sahand Volcanic Complex in NW Iran. The core provides a 3700-year record of human activity and environmental change in an upland region. We attempt to relate vegetation changes to both climatic change and historical events. Variations of anthropogenic pollen indicators suggest several phases of intensified human activities. Two strongly expressed agricultural phases are dated at about 2450–2220 cal BP (Achaemenid Empire) and 230–30 cal BP (collapse of Safavid Dynasty to the modern period). Historical rather than climatic events appear to be the main controlling factors for upland land-use dynamics. Fruticulture has been practiced in the region at least since the Iron Age, reaching its maximum importance 1500–1250 cal BP during the reign of Sassanid Empire; it declined by the time of Islamic conquest of Iran (651 AD). The Little Ice Age is tangibly recorded by higher lake water levels most probably due to both lower summer temperatures and higher annual precipitations. Low values of cereal-type and cultivated tree pollen during this period may indicate a change in the lifestyle from the cultivation of fields and orchards to a more nomadic life dominated by summer pasture. The modern period (1850 AD onwards) is characterized by expansion of agricultural activities to upland areas and intensified pastoralism.     

Adult fracture patterns in prehistoric Thailand: a biocultural interpretation

The prevalence and distribution patterns of trauma in samples of human skeletal remains can reflect the risks to which the community was exposed in daily activities or as a result of interpersonal violence. This paper describes the patterns of non‐vertebral fractures in skeletal samples from four prehistoric Thai sites in terms of long bone fracture rates and individual prevalence rates. The sites range in date from c. 2000 BC (Neolithic) to 400 BC (late Bronze Age), and in environment from coastal estuarine to seasonally dry upland plains. These differences in the natural and cultural environment provided a basis for comparison among the samples representing nearly 300 adult individuals. The types of fractures ranged from simple to severe, but most had healed successfully with few limiting complications. The small bones of the hands and feet as well as clavicle and forearm bones were most frequently fractured among all samples. Overall there was an increase in the major long bone fracture rates from the Neolithic (0.3%) to the Bronze Age (3.0%) that may reflect a change in subsistence activities such as land clearance for the intensification of rice agriculture. The prevalence of ulnar fractures is particularly high in the Bronze Age, and the analysis of their possible cause, combined with evidence for craniofacial fractures, is suggestive of the presence of interpersonal violence in a small number of individuals. Copyright © 2006 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

The Potential for Dating the Old Scatness Site,Shetland, By Optically Stimulated Luminescence

A series of deposits from the agricultural infield of the multiperiod settlement mound, Old Scatness, were investigated for their potential to yield optically stimulated luminescence dates. Luminescence properties of quartz grains were found to vary through the sequence, but dates were successfully obtained from five deposits, including anthropogenic soils, windblown sands and sands within midden deposits. Single‐aliquot equivalent dose measurement was found to be the most appropriate method for dating the deposits. The OSL dates obtained accorded well with the dates provided by archaeological evidence and included the post‐medieval, Iron Age, Bronze Age and Neolithic periods of Shetland, while a substantial midden was dated to the Bronze/Iron Age transition.     

Testing micro-regional variability in the Holocene shaping of high mountain cultural landscapes: a palaeoenvironmental case-study in the eastern Pyrenees

Previous research acknowledges the ancient and complex land-use history of European mountainous areas, which are characterised by a remarkable regional variability in terms of human practices and patterns of occupation during the Holocene. However, the combined palaeoenvironmental and archaeological study of highland human management at a micro-regional scale remains a largely unexplored research field, especially in the Pyrenees. A combined pollen, stomata, non-pollen palynomorphs (NPPs) and macrocharcoal study was carried out at three nearby alpine and subalpine peat basins from a relatively small territory (ca.1700 ha) at the Madriu valley (Andorra, eastern Pyrenees), following a fine spatial-resolution strategy. The purpose was to test the suitability of high altitudinal palaeoecological sequences when reconstructing past small-scale land-use variability. The palaeoecological results of those peat records are compared and further integrated with archaeological local data, and together underline the marked complexity of high mountain land-use system over the Holocene period. Main phases of micro-regional land-use and landscape variability can be distinguished from the middle Neolithic to the early Bronze Age and from the Roman Period to the Modern Era. Conversely, several phases of homogeneous landscape management are distinguishable during the early Neolithic, and from the late Bronze to the late Iron Age. Results drawn from this study show that landscape variability is not necessarily connected to topographic or climatic parameters, and underline the role of social, economical and cultural parameters in the land-use organisation and the landscape shaping of high mountain spaces since Prehistory.     

Towards a Definition of the pre-Classical Phoenician Temple

ABSTRACT

Though our knowledge of Iron Age Phoenician cultic architecture is quite limited, the available data suggests that pre-Classical Phoenician temples followed a similar plan which displayed several unique architectural features. This plan originated from a long held, Bronze Age, Canaanite tradition which became especially prominent along the northern Levantine coast from the Middle Bronze Age II, appearing alongside other temple plans. This article aims to demonstrate that during the Iron Age and most of the Persian period, this temple plan became the predominant temple type in Phoenicia and its dependencies. It was only during the late Persian period, that a drastic change occurred, and this millennia-old plan was abandoned in favor of other temple types. Nevertheless, it appears that despite this seemingly radical change, the most notable feature of the traditional plan was preserved.     

Sheep wool in Bronze Age and Iron Age Europe

This study presents the results of a series of wool measurements from Bronze Age and Iron Age skins and textiles from Hallstatt, and Bronze Age textiles from Scandinavia and the Balkans. A new method of classification that was set up and applied on mostly mineralised Iron Age material has now been applied to a large body of non-mineralised material from the Bronze and Iron Ages. Three types of microscopes were used and their advantages and disadvantages assessed. The results of the investigation cast new light on sheep breeding and fibre processing in prehistoric Europe, and suggest that different sheep breeds existed in Bronze Age Europe.     

When the Giant Falls: Endurance and Adaptation at Çadır Höyük in the Context of the Hittite Empire and Its Collapse

At the end of the Late Bronze Age, around 1200 b.c., the Hittite Empire of Anatolia collapsed. While that collapse has been well studied, the effects on Hittite-held lands are less so, with many archaeologists positing an abandonment in Hittite territories for a period of time early in the Iron Age. Recent excavations at Çad?r Höyük, 70 kilometers from the Hittite capital, have revealed both typical Hittite material culture belonging to the Late Bronze Age, including mass-produced ceramics and massive fortifications, as well as evidence suggesting that the site’s residents faced challenges, and adapted accordingly, in the wake of Hittite withdrawal and collapse, during the Early Iron Age. The architecture, ceramics, and zooarchaeological evidence from this rural settlement suggest ways in which residential continuity, cultural resilience, and technological and economic adjustments allowed inhabitants to survive and rebound in the face of political instability.     

Bronze Age Field Systems in the Thames Valley

In the last two decades excavation along the River Thames has shown the remarkable survival of Bronze Age field systems. A managed farming landscape emerged in this lowland area during the Middle Bronze Age and continued to develop until the end of the Late Bronze Age. In the latter period the field systems were divided into several regional groups in each of which there was a high status settlement and a concentration of river metalwork. They provide evidence for a predominantly pastoral economy in the Thames Valley on a scale which may have supported an increasingly hierarchical society. Settlements and field systems were abandoned during the Late Bronze Age, and by the Bronze Age–Iron Age transition new sites were largely confined to the extreme upper reaches of the Thames, an area which had been peripheral to the alliance and exchange system that had operated downstream.     

Fields,Ritual and Religion: Holistic Approaches to the Rural Landscape in Long‐Term Perspective (c.1500 BC–AD 1086)

This paper discusses the relationship between agricultural activity and ritualized/religious practices in England from the middle Bronze Age to the early medieval period (c.1500 BC–AD 1086). It is written in the context of the ERC‐funded, Oxford‐based ‘English Landscapes and Identities project’ (EngLaId), which involved the compilation of an extensive spatial database of archaeological ‘monuments’, finds and other related data to chart change and continuity during this period. Drawing on this database alongside documentary and onomastic evidence, we analyze the changing relationship between fields, ritual and religion in England. We identify four moments of change, around the start of the middle Bronze Age (c.1500 BC), in the late Bronze Age (c.1150 BC), the late Iron Age (c.150 BC) and the middle/late Anglo‐Saxon period (c.800 AD). However, despite changes in both agricultural and ritual/religious practices during this extensive timeframe, a clear link between them can be observed throughout.     

The Land of Morgan

A number of injuries were observed in a recent examination of 150 Thames ‘river skulls’. Eight of these, exhibiting both healed and unhealed blunt force trauma, were sampled for AMS ¹⁴C dating. The results span the Middle Bronze Age to the Late Iron Age/Romano-British period, with the majority falling within the Late Bronze Age/Early Iron Age. Given the potential time-span involved, this clustering is striking—particularly as it is consistent with the results of other dating programmes on Thames crania—and appears to confirm the likelihood of an association between human remains and weaponry entering the Thames over this period. In this regard, it is intriguing that the majority of the injuries are the result of blows with a blunt instrument, raising questions over the nature of conflict at this time. Other crania do show sharp force injuries, but have yet to be systematically dated. We discuss these results in the broader context of recent discoveries of human remains and weapons associated with watery places in later prehistory across northern Europe, reinforcing the idea that both are best seen within a context of ritual deposition, though the details vary across time and space.     

Original DocumentsExtracts from the Pipe Roll of the Exchequer, 21 Edw. III. (A.D. 1353), Relating to the Early use of Guns and Gunpowder in the English Army

This report is concerned with a sampling excavation of Bronze Age, Roman and late Saxon/early medieval settlement traces near the church at Wraysbury, Berkshire. The most extensive evidence is for an agricultural settlement of the late ninth to twelfth centuries A. D. based on a series of ditched enclosures and trackways. The settlement moved location during the eleventh century. The environmental evidence is particularly important. A large faunal assemblage including extensive fish remains exists for the late Saxon and medieval phases as well as an unusual collection of charred plant remains. There are important groups of Late Bronze Age and Saxon pottery.