Histories of deposition: creating chronologies for the Late Bronze Age–Early Iron Age transition in Southern Britain

The Late Bronze Age–Early Iron Age midden sites of Southern Britain are amongst the richest archaeological sites in the country. The organic accumulations contain substantial quantities of animal bone, decorated ceramics, metalwork and other objects; the often deep stratigraphy allows for changes in material culture and depositional practices, food production and consumption, and shifts in social identities, to be traced through time. The well-stratified assemblages also provide useful materials for dating the deposits. This has been problematic, however, as the majority of samples produce unhelpfully broad calibrated radiocarbon dates, due to the effects of the earlier Iron Age plateau in the calibration curve, which spans c. 800–400 BC. Interpretation has relied on current understandings of the associated pottery and metalwork, which placed most midden sites somewhere between the tenth and the seventh/mid-sixth centuries cal BC (c. 1000–600/550 cal BC), but the end-date of these traditions is particularly uncertain. This article addresses this issue by presenting the results of a new dating programme for East Chisenbury in Wiltshire, southern England. Twenty-eight radiocarbon determinations were obtained and combined with the site stratigraphy in a Bayesian chronological model. The results have transformed the chronology of the site, with the end of the occupation sequence being pulled forward some one-hundred years, to the mid-to-late fifth century cal BC. These new chronologies have significant implications for our understanding of the Late Bronze Age–Early Iron Age transition and require a revision of the currently accepted chronology of post-Deverel Rimbury decorated wares in south-central England.     

Dendrochronological and radiocarbon dating of the medieval stronghold in Ujście (Poland)

In 2008, the archaeological museum in Piła carried out excavations in the site No. 5 in Ujście upon the river Noteć (Poland), at the Rybacka Street and in the Old Market Square. In 12 archaeological excavations and 4 surveys abundant wooden structures were discovered, from which about 800 samples were taken, mainly of pine (Pinus sylvestris L.) and oakwood (Quercus sp.). The studies were aimed at absolute dating of wood with the dendrochronological method, the wiggle matching fitting curves method, as well as anatomical determination of wood. Absolute dating of the oakwood from the Rybacka Street allowed to distinguish the oldest fortifications of the stronghold from the ninth century, and also intensive introduction of wood in the years 980–1080 AD, whereas analysis of wood from the Old Market (survey IV) allowed to distinguish eight structural levels, from the 1530s until the 970s. On the basis of the pine wood 227-year-long local chronology 2U_02A was produced, dated with the wiggle-matching method for the period 860–1080 (±10) cal. AD. Most of the pine samples proved to represent wood introduced in the 990s and 1040s (±10) cal. AD, and also some repairs in the years 1000–1030 and 1050–1070 (±10) cal. AD.     

Establishing the Middle Sea: The Late Bronze Age of Mediterranean Europe (1700–900 BC)

Journal of Archaeological Research - The Late Bronze Age (1700–900 BC) represents an extremely dynamic period for Mediterranean Europe. Here, we provide a comparative survey of the...     

Early Iron Age and Late Mediaeval malt finds from Germany—attempts at reconstruction of early Celtic brewing and the taste of Celtic beer

In this paper, we discuss specialised ditch structure from the early Iron Age settlement of Eberdingen–Hochdorf (early La Tène Period, fifth–fourth century BC), that contained large numbers of evenly germinated hulled barley grains. This malt appears to be the result of deliberate germination, given the purity of the finds and the associated unusual archaeological structure, which may have been used for germination and/or as a drying kiln for roasting the malt. The Hochdorf malt most probably was produced for the purpose of beer brewing. To learn more about the morphology of malt and the effects of carbonisation on it, experiments on modern barley grains were undertaken. Their results are compared to the ancient Hochdorf malt. Based on the excavated findings and finds as well as theoretical reflections on the early Iron Age brewing process, attempts at reconstructing the possible taste of early Celtic beer are presented. Additionally, a malt find from late mediaeval Berlin in northeast Germany is presented. A mixture of deliberately sprouted hulled barley as well as rye and oat grains, which were not germinated, was found. The three different cereals could have been used for brewing a typical mediaeval/early modern beer since the use of mixed crops for producing beer has been quite common. Because of a lack of further evidence, it remains unclear whether or not the half-timbered house in the late mediaeval town was a trading place and storehouse for malt or the brewery itself, where the malt was processed to make beer.     

Society and Violence in the Early Bronze Age: An Analysis of Human Skeletons from Nord-Trøndelag,Norway

In 1968, a large collection of human bones was excavated at a site located at Sund, Inderøy, Nord-Trøndelag. Radiocarbon dating showed the find to be from the Early Bronze Age. Between 20 and 30 individuals could be isolated -- half of them children -- and evidence of violent trauma indicated that the find was unusual. The only artefact in the find was a simple bone pin. Close to Sund is the large burial site of Toldnes, which has produced some of the richest Bronze Age finds from Norway. The skeletal materials from Sund and Toldnes have been compared and additional analyses from other Early Bronze Age burials used in order to understand what happened at Sund and its relationship to the Toldnes burials. The osteological analyses indicate a community in distress, ridden by long-term starvation, malnutrition and parasites as well as repeated violent encounters. The osteological evidence, in addition to archaeological analyses of weapons and society from England, Denmark and Sweden, suggests a society with a segment of specialized warriors. The constant possibility of violence and war may have acted like moral glue -- structuring the society and ensuring the power and status of the governing forces.     

The feminization of governance in rural communities in Poland: the case of village representatives (sołtys)

The main aim of this article is to analyze the drivers behind the feminization of the position of village representative in Poland and to discuss the possible consequences of this process. This article is based on a qualitative empirical study conducted in 10 communes located in different regions of Poland and varied in terms of women's participation in local public life. The results of my research show that the most significant factors of the feminization of the function of village representatives are social and cultural changes, as well as weakening of this position in the current system of local administrative institutions. Research has shown no striking differences in terms of types of initiatives or modes of functioning by women and men. Of significance, on the other hand, is the diversity of views on gender equality and, in particular, the activities of women in local public life. In the communes characterized by a significant presence of female village representatives and commune councilors, the women's public activities are more accepted and appreciated than in the communes, where women in such positions were in a minority.     

Age and sedimentological features of fluvial series in the Toruń Basin and the Drwęca Valley (Poland)

The deposits of the Toruń Basin are dominated by a few-metre thick sand series which fill up buried valley-like depressions. In many cases they underlie the Weichselian till which builds up the ice marginal streamway (pradolina) terraces or they are exposed at the basin slopes. As the results of the geological and sedimentological studies, as well as of the dating of the deposits at the sites in the Toruń Basin indicate, the deposits include two fluvial series accumulated before the advancement of the Leszno Phase ice sheet, i.e. in Middle Weichselian and at the beginning of Late Weichselian. The oldest fluvial series connected with the Saalian Glaciation was found at the mouth section of the Drwęca Valley. The fluvial system of the Toruń Basin during Middle Weichselian and at the beginning of Late Weichselian developed in two phases of the sand-bed braided river. During the first one the river channel were dominated by large mid-riverbed sandbars, while during the second phase the water flow was smaller and, as a result, low transverse sandbars and two-dimensional dunes developed. Other active river channel also showed low-energy flows, more intensive meandering than in the case of the braided rivers, as well as sandy side-bars. Analysis of the rounding and frosting of the quartz grains indicate that the studied series of the Weichselian sandy deposits represent alluvia of a river which were fed from two diverse sources. The first one might have represented the alluvia of a warm river which transformed its load, while the other one might have mainly carried the underlying Quaternary deposits.     

Cultural,Demographic and Environmental Dynamics of the Copper and Early Bronze Age in Iberia (3300–1500 BC): Towards an Interregional Multiproxy Comparison at the Time of the 4.2 ky BP Event

This paper presents the first comprehensive pan-Iberian overview of one of the major episodes of cultural change in later prehistoric Iberia, the Copper to Bronze Age transition (c. 2400–1900 BC), and assesses its relationship to the 4.2 ky BP climatic event. It synthesizes available cultural, demographic and palaeoenvironmental evidence by region between 3300 and 1500 BC. Important variation can be discerned through this comparison. The demographic signatures of some regions, such as the Meseta and the southwest, diminished in the Early Bronze Age, while other regions, such as the southeast, display clear growth in human activities; the Atlantic areas in northern Iberia barely experienced any changes. This paper opens the door to climatic fluctuations and inter-regional demic movements within the Peninsula as plausible contributing drivers of particular historical dynamics.     

Man and woolly mammoth at the Kraków Spadzista Street (B) – taphonomy of the site

Excavations at the Kraków Spadzista Street (B) site, Poland were conducted over 16 years in which approximately 150 m² of the site was studied. The radiocarbon dates clustered around 23–24 ky BP, placing the site in the Gravettian cultural complex. In this paper, results from a detailed taphonomic study of faunal remains are discussed in conjunction with previous analyses of stone artefacts and site structure in order to address questions regarding site formation and Gravettian occupation. Up to 1994, ∼9000 bone remains were recovered and it was possible to identify the species and skeletal element for 5860 remains. The site contained bones of seven animal species associated with Pleistocene steppe–tundra habitats. At Kraków Spadzista Street (B), 99% of the faunal remains belong to the woolly mammoth, with other large mammal taxa represented by only isolated bones and teeth. This site yielded the largest number of mammoth bones and most individuals (MNI = 86) ever found in one place in Poland. Kraków Spadzista Street (B) represents a mammoth butchering locality and probably a mammoth hunting site as well. However, it is not yet possible to distinguish the mammoths killed by Gravettian hunters from those that died naturally and then were scavenged by people.     

Interdisciplinary studies of spring mire deposits from Radzików (South Podlasie Lowland,East Poland) and their significance for palaeoenvironmental reconstructions

The paper presents the results of interdisciplinary (multiproxy) palaeoenvironmental studies of peat — calcareous tufa depositional sequences of spring mire from Radzików site (east Poland). Analyses of three biotic proxies (plant macrofossils, pollen, molluscs) were supplemented with sedimentological, geochemical, oxygen and carbon stable isotopes analyses and radiocarbon dating and used for reconstruction of environmental changes in Late Glacial and Holocene. The obtained results enable us to (1) reconstruct main phases of mire development and (2) determine environmental factors influencing changes of water supply.     

Can the Raman spectrum of anatase in artwork and archaeology be used for dating purposes? Identification by Raman microscopy of anatase in decorative coatings on Neolithic (Yangshao) pottery from Henan,China

Scanning electron microscopy/energy dispersive X-ray analysis has earlier shown that the white background layer (slip) on painted pottery sherds (Yangshao culture, Henan, China, 4200 BC) is composed of kaolinitic clay containing titanium in the assumed form of TiO₂ at just 1 wt%. The same samples of white slip have now been studied by Raman microscopy, revealing bands characteristic of anatase, but none from the majority species, the matrix of kaolinitic clay. These results highlight the extraordinarily intense Raman scattering from even trace amounts of anatase and thus the need to recognise that, although the colours of archaeological artefacts are almost always determined by the nature of the matrix, the Raman spectrum may be determined by a highly scattering trace component such as anatase. The significance of anatase as a potential date-marker pigment on works of art and archaeological artefacts is discussed.     

Beeswax remnants,phase and major element chemical composition of the bronze age mould from Gaj Oławski (SW Poland)

The recently found metal casting mould from Gaj O?awski (SW Poland) was designed for the production of socketed axes typical for later stages of the Bronze Age in Poland (ca. 1100–900 bc). This unique artefact is a half of a durable, two-piece wedge-shaped mould and measures 17.5?×?7.2?×?4.0 cm. The surface of the mould is covered copper oxides and carbonates, and the remnant of beeswax was found on its inner surface. The metal forming mould consists of cored dendrites of Cu-dominated (Cu >96.5 wt%, up to 2.2 wt% Sn) and Cu impoverished (Cu ~86.0 wt%, Sn ~9.4 wt%, some Sb, As and Ag) end compositions and volumetrically subordinate α?+?δ eutectoid. The “as cast” structure of the metal shows that the mould was never used for molten metal casting. Since this kind of moulds was used for mass casting of metal, the Gaj O?awski one was probably never used, and the beeswax is the remain of its coating. This is the first remain of the Bronze Age beeswax described in metallurgical context in Europe.     

Familiar Kinship? Palaeogenetic and Isotopic Evidence from a Triple Burial of the Cogotas I Archaeological Culture (Bronze Age,Iberian Peninsula)

This paper examines the identification of kinship relations in archaeological multiple burials and advocates the application of different methods and lines of research to clarify such issues in relation to funerary practices. Recognizing family relationships – an important task in research on prehistoric societies – is especially complicated and interpretations have often been made without an adequate empirical basis. Bioarchaeological, isotopic and DNA analyses applied to the triple burial of Los Tolmos (Cogotas I archaeological culture, Iberian Bronze Age) have provided direct information on this issue. In this respect, the new results also imply the need to consider gender constructs in greater depth and to be more open‐minded towards other forms of relationship in the past beyond the traditional heteronormative nuclear family.     

The Experiments of Ramón M. Termeyer SJ on the Electric Eel in the River Plate Region (c. 1760) and other Early Accounts of Electrophorus electricus

Dr. Haakon Sæthre was a leader of Norwegian neurology and psychiatry. He was resourceful, compassionate and had immense pride in his independent homeland. He described Sæthre-Chotzen syndrome (acrocephalosyndactyly type III). When Nazi Germany occupied Norway during World War II, Sæthre fearlessly and actively resisted, from revoking his medical association membership, to hiding persecuted Jews as patients in his psychiatric ward and aiding in their escape to Sweden, to managing the largest “illegal” food warehouse in Oslo with Danish humanitarian aid. As a prominent and noticeable citizen, he was arrested and executed by the Nazis in reprisal for the resistance's assassination of a hated Norwegian Nazi. His legacy lives on in Norway, where he was honored by a scholarship fund, a portrait and multiple plaques at Ullevål Hospital, and a street and memorial statue in his hometown. He was a hero and should be remembered by all who practice neurology.     

Persian Studies and the Military in Late Imperial Russia (1863–1917): State Power in the Service of Knowledge?

This article pursues the goal of going beyond Saidian notions of Orientalism and Said's assumption of the “complicity of knowledge with power” to reach back to Foucault's initial postulations on the role of institutions and the intellectual in the interplay of power/knowledge relations. The article concentrates on the role of Russian military Oriental studies institutions and Orientologists in the context of discourses (the promotion of Russkoe Delo, the juxtaposition of Russia with the West and the Orient, etc.) that existed in late Imperial Russia and influenced the accumulation and development of scholarly knowledge on the Orient. Therefore, the significant contribution of the military domain to Russian Oriental studies on both the institutional and individual levels are examined from the angle of intra-Russian discourses in the period from the establishment of the Asiatic Section of the General Staff in 1863 up to 1917.     

The Location of the Boundary Between the Tropical and Subtropical Landscapes in Eastern Asia (Based on material from a field study of yünnan)

The author, another opponent of large reservoirs in Western Siberia, analyzes the effect of such large inland water areas on the moisture and heat supply of the region. He predicts that the construction of a reservoir would result in a southward shift of the optimal moisture and heat conditions for agriculture and would have an adverse cooling effect on climate, especially In summer.     

Farming and/or foraging? New environmental data to the life and economic transformation of Late Neolithic tell communities (Tisza Culture) in SE Hungary

The turn of the 6th and 5th millennia BC witnessed probably the largest economic and cultural transformation of SE Europe giving rise to a new techno-complex occupying the alluvial plains of the Tisza River and its tributaries in the southern parts of the Carpathian Basin. Representatives of the Tisza Culture were engaged in intensive farming complemented with foraging creating a complex system of hierarchical multi-layered settlements (tells). The favorable endowments of the sites with a large variety of multiple ecotones ideal for multifocal subsistence, as well as the introduction of new farming techniques ensured the establishment of long-term sedentary lifeways. However, according to the archeology, a major shift in subsistence happened toward the end of the Late Neolithic marking the terminal part of the evolution of the culture. Traditional crop cultivation was increasingly complemented with hunting, animal husbandry gaining importance. Other second-line resources like fish and shellfish followed the same pattern. Finally, tells were disintegrated and a new cultural group of the Copper Age emerged. The exact background of these transformations is still unknown. In order to see whether or not potential transformations in the local riparian environment had some role in shaping human behavior, a multiproxy paleoecological analysis was implemented on mollusk material of one of the largest tell sites of SE Hungary. Freshwater mollusks collected by humans in themselves characterize the quality of the water body from which they derive. They are also an excellent marker of socioeconomic response to environmental stress. According to our findings the emergence of new settlement phases and the intensified foraging could have been correlated with alteration of stream properties yielding successively higher floods. This was initially beneficial creating lush pasturelands for large bodied prey infiltrating the area during the referred period like aurochs, red-deer. But ultimately it might have reduced areas suitable for agriculture and living most likely leading to social disruption besides other cultural, social processes.     

Colonialism,Dining, and Changing Strategies of Power: the Example of Iron Age and Roman Mediterranean France at Lattara (ca 150 bc–ad 50)

The establishment of colonial rule by one society over another, both in ancient and modern examples, often has dramatic consequences for the establishment and maintenance of political relationships within the context of everyday life in colonial society. In this article, I examine the ways in which the performative acts of dining can play an integral role in this reconstruction of political relationships that is so often implicit in colonial encounters and state expansion. In particular, I suggest that an analysis of the ceramic evidence of vessels used in dining and the frequency of specific forms in the overall assemblages can help to reveal the ways in which the politics of commensality play an active role in transforming political relationships and strategies of power in colonial societies. This article uses the example of ancient Mediterranean France after the Roman conquest in the late second century bc at the Celtic-speaking settlement of Lattara (modern Lattes). I argue that by the end of the first century bc, coinciding with a time period when the political structure of the region was being significantly reorganized, there was a notable change in dining practices, with a move away from a more communal ethos in dining to one emphasizing the individual. These new practices served the strategic interests of individuals in local society at Lattara seeking to break with earlier political systems and integrate themselves into larger colonial society.