Late Iron Age Ballast-Quarries at Hengistbury Head, Dorset

During excavations at Hengistbury Head between 1979 and 1984 certain Late Iron Age features, described as 'quarry hollows' and 'scoops', were discovered along the shoreline. They are the result of gravel extraction, which, it is argued, was carried out in order to supply ballast for ships plying their trade across the English Channel during the first half of the first century BC. Accordingly, these features represent the first on-shore archaeological evidence for the provision of ballast in antiquity.     

The Early Bronze Age at Tel Nagila

The excavations of R. Amiran and A. Eitan at the site of Tel Nagila are best known for the Middle Bronze Age remains exposed at the site. Yet Early Bronze remains were sporadically excavated in restricted locations where the excavators deepened their investigations below Middle Bronze strata. As such, a study of the albeit limited EB remains furnishes us with an opportunity to provide a more complete settlement history of the site, as well as a limited view of ceramic tradition that was common at the site. The following paper will present the stratigraphic and ceramic information available, and suggests a rather early date within Early Bronze III of the remains, as well as evidence for Early Bronze Age I occupation of the site.     

辽宁本溪县新城子青铜时代墓地

2006年,在本溪县新城子村发掘了16座盖石石棺墓。墓室均以石块或石板垒砌,墓顶盖石为整块大石板。墓中未见人骨,仅1座出有人牙。各墓随葬品均较少,种类有陶壶、罐及石斧、铲、纺轮等。这类墓葬属于广义的石棚类遗存,年代大体为西周晚期至春秋时期。同类遗存广泛分布于辽东北部地区。     

A Bronze Age gold torc from Sudbrook, Lincs.

An important find of a Bronze Age gold bar-torc from Sudbrook, Lincs. is described. Study of its closer parallels suggests that it belongs to a sub-group of the much larger family of bar-torcs known from Britain, Ireland and France during the Middle to later Bronze Age.     

Household and community behavior at Bronze Age Politiko-Troullia,Cyprus

Abstract

We investigate intrasite patterns of artifacts and floral and faunal data to interpret household and community behavior at the Middle Cypriot (Bronze Age) village of Politiko-Troullia in the foothills of the Troodos Mountains, Cyprus. Floral evidence indicates cultivation of orchard crops (e.g., olive and grape), as well as the persistence of woodlands that provided wood for fuel. Animal management combined herding of domesticated sheep, goat, pig, and cattle with the hunting of Mesopotamian fallow deer. Metallurgical evidence points to the production of utilitarian copper tools in household workshops. Group activities are reflected by the deposition of anthropomorphic figurines, spinning and weaving equipment, and deer bones in an open courtyard setting. In sum, Politiko-Troullia exemplifies a diversified agrarian economy on a distinctly anthropogenic landscape that fostered the development of household and supra-household social differentiation in pre-urban Bronze Age Cyprus.     

A palynological and geoarchaeological investigation into Bronze Age farming at Belderg Beg,Co. Mayo,Ireland

This contribution describes the results and interpretations of geoarchaeological and palynological analyses of a soil profile near to a ¹⁴C dated Bronze Age roundhouse in a sub-peat field system at Belderg Beg, north Mayo in western Ireland, which displayed field-scale evidence of tillage in the form of cultivation ridges. This evidence of arable cultivation was supported by the presence of quernstones in the roundhouse, but there was no supporting evidence from other forms of socio-economic analysis. Soil micromorphological analysis was employed to define how the ridges were created and with what tools; pollen analysis was used to characterise the surface vegetation and test the purpose of the ridges. The results unequivocally showed that a phase of ard cultivation was followed after a brief hiatus by ridge-and-furrow tillage. There were tentative indications of possible amendment of the earlier, ard-worked soil, and more definitive evidence of midden material addition to the ridged soil. An AMS radiocarbon assay on the base of peat overlying the ridges indicated that tillage occurred in the Mid to Late Bronze Age.     

From the Ground Up: Agency,Practice, and Community in the Southwestern British Bronze Age

Embodied, sensual, engagements between people, earthly elements, and celestial bodies during focused, periodic acts of ritual construction and artifact deposition in the southwestern British Bronze Age resulted in the remaking of identities, local communities, symbolic/mythical knowledge, and the landscape itself. To appreciate how material culture, time, and space were employed to define the criteria by which people understood themselves and their world necessitates an archaeological focus upon shared practices in particular settings that served to define rules of engagement with the environment based upon shared human perceptions. Agency appears in this encounter as central in the construction and perpetuation of symbolic perception, shared social memory, and community identity.