The Tagus Middle Basin (Iberian Peninsula) from the Neolithic to the Iron Age (V-I Millennium Cal. BC): The Long Way to Social Complexity

This study is the result of surveys and excavations carried out in a selected area of the middle basin of the Tagus river (Southern Meseta, Iberian Peninsula). The analysis of palaeoecological data, material assemblages, settlement patterns, domestic structures, funerary evidence and socio-economic context in the regional archaeological record from the Neolithic (5000 BC) to the beginning of the Iron Age (500 BC) allows us to identify several long-term historic processes; particularly, two habitational, demographic and socio-economic cycles, which contradict the traditional idea that the prehistory of inner Iberia presents almost no apparent change during these four millennia.     

论虢国墓地的层次结构

在对春秋早期虢国墓地资料进行系统梳理的基础上,结合统计学方法,对该墓地的层次结构进行分析。结果表明,虢国墓地包含有铜礼器墓和非礼器墓两大层次,前者可进一步分为高、中、低三个层次,后者可分为高、低两个层次,各个层次之间的等级差别明显。这种特点与西周时期以血缘亲疏划分等级的社会结构相对应,说明春秋早期虢国社会大致继承了西周社会的宗法结构。但非礼器墓中有少数墓葬的等级与铜礼器墓接近,反映出当时虢国的社会结构中可能已经暗含一些不稳定因素。     

Settlement Dynamics and Social Organization in Eastern Iberia during the Iron Age (Eighth–Second Centuries BC)

Summary.   This paper explores the formation of urban societies in the eastern Iberian Peninsula. From the Early Iberian Iron Age onwards it is possible to trace the emergence of a hierarchical settlement pattern in which larger settlements carried out the most important functions of control and exploitation of the resources in this territory, extending their authority over several small farming villages. This settlement pattern is associated with the complex socio-economic structures and political organization of Iberian aristocracies. In this paper we will focus on the development of the Iberians' active role in exchanging goods with oriental traders; it is this contact which subsequently produces social change in the Iron Age period.     

The Iron Age in Western Spain (800 BC–AD 50): An Overview

Vettonia was one of the most important Celtic regions in Iberia which emerged in the Iron Age. It corresponds largely to western Spain, between the Duero and Tagus valleys. The archaeological evidence indicates that the formation of this ethnic group lay in an historical process whose roots went back to the Late Bronze Age-Early Iron Age, when we begin to find a regular association between the first fortified sites and stable populations. These groups did not consolidate before the second half of the first millennium BC, in parallel with the development of other peoples of the interior of the Iberian Peninsula. This period can be recognized in particular through the spread of the ritual of cremation, ironworking, the adoption of the potter's wheel and the expansion of some settlements oppida which were ultimately to disappear with the Roman conquest. This paper sets out to examine the evolution of the area from an indigenous perspective, examining the process of change before and after the evidence referred to by Greek and Roman writers.     

The Pre-Roman Iron Age in Britain and Ireland (ca. 800 B.C. to A.D. 100): An overview

Those communities that lived in Britain and Ireland ca. 800 B.C. to A.D. 100 represent particularly well-researched examples of the complex agrarian, nonurban, societies with high population densities that characterize the Pre-Roman Iron Age across temperate Europe. This paper provides a critical introduction to the extensive recent literature on the Pre-Roman Iron Age in Britain and Ireland. Evidence from the large number of salvage excavations and surveys, the application of a wide range of analytical techniques, and important changes in interpretative frameworks are transforming understandings of this period. After reviewing these developments, a chronological account of the period is outlined which attempts to integrate these new results. This suggests that current interpretations of social processes across Iron Age Europe in terms of state formation, urbanization, and core-periphery relations with Mediterranean civilization need revision.     

The Organization of Later Stone Age Lithic Technology in the Caledon Valley, Southern Africa

Paleoclimatic data indicate that the Pleistocene/Holocene transition was a period of considerable ecological change in the Caledon Valley of the southern African interior. Stone artefact assemblages from sites in one part of this region, the Phutiatsana ea Thaba Bosiu (PTB) Basin of western Lesotho, were analyzed in order to investigate whether changes in settlement and subsistence strategies during this period are also reflected in the organization of lithic technologies. It appears that although technological solutions to the problems of subsistence risk may have been emphasized during the late Pleistocene, social means, such as exchange, dominated at the Pleistocene/Holocene boundary. Subsequent innovation or adoption of new formal tool types suggests that both strategies were important from the middle Holocene onwards.Dans la vallée de Caledon à l'intérieur sud-africain les données paléoclimatiques indiquent que la transition du pléistocène à l'holocène était une période de changement écologique considérable. Les résultats des analyses des outils lithiques découverts aux gisements dans une partie de cette région, le Bassin de la Phuthiatsana ea Thaba Bosiu (PTB) du Lesotho occidentale, sont présentées pour examiner si des changements aux stratégies de subsistance et de l'occupation des sites se réfletent à l'organisation des technologies lithiques. Il semble que on a employé les solutions technologiques pour éviter les risques de subsistance pendant le pléistocène tardif, mais que des solutions sociales, comme l'échange, prédominaient à la frontière pléistocène-holocène. L'innovation ou l'adoption plus tard des nouvelles outils lithiques suggère que tous les deux stratégies étaient importantes depuis le début du moyen Holocène.     

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.     

Doubts about How the Middle Horizon Collapsed (ca. A.D. 1000) and Other Insights from the Looted Cemeteries of the Lower Ica Valley,South Coast of Peru

This paper presents new information from funerary contexts in the lower Ica Valley, on the south coast of Peru, spanning two millennia from the end of the Early Horizon to the Late Intermediate Period. Although severely looted, these sites can still yield valuable information. We discuss their architecture and material culture in the context of radiocarbon dates. Among other findings, these cast new light on the poorly understood transition from the Middle Horizon to the Late Intermediate Period, for which a paucity of archaeological data from ca. a.d. 1000–1250 has long been taken as evidence of an environmentally- or socially-induced demographic collapse. Yet the data we present here suggest that the basins of the lower Ica Valley were likely occupied continuously over this period, and that the echoes of Wari influence here may have lasted longer than previously thought.     

Settlement, Landscape and Social Identity: The Early-Middle Bronze Age Transition in Wessex, Sussex and the Thames Valley

In southern England, the end of the Early Bronze Age is marked by the appearance of archaeologically visible farmsteads and field systems. This paper explores and critiques the widespread idea that these changes are the direct result of a need to intensify agricultural production. Such discussions have implicitly drawn on evolutionist images of economic maximization and environmental exploitation that do not sit easily with our knowledge of other aspects of Bronze Age society. In this paper, I shall consider economic change as a consequence rather than the cause of wider changes to the social fabric at this time. A review of the Early and Middle Bronze Age settlement evidence provides insights into how society became transformed over the period and begins to hint at some of the reasons why subsistence practices changed so visibly.     

Technological change in the Earlier and Middle Stone Age of Kalambo Falls (Zambia)

This paper reviews data on technological change in the manufacture of stone tools from the Earlier Stone Age (ESA) to Middle Stone Age (MSA including Sangoan) deposits at Site A, Kalambo Falls, Zambia. Data on flake and tool morphology, dimensions, and raw material are discussed It is concluded that there is little change, at this site, in the basic techniques of blank production or the attributes of the blanks produced from the ESA to the MSA. The only marked change to occur is the loss of large cutting tools (hand axes, cleavers) and their replacement by heavy-duty forms (core axes, picks). It is hypothesized that this change marks a decline in portability as a factor in the design of large edge tools.

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Résumé Cet article donne un compte rendu des donnés sur la change technologique dans la fabrication des outils lithiques en les dépôts du Earlier Stone Age (ESA) jusqu'a la Middle Stone Age (MSA, qui comprit la Sangoan) au gisement A, Kalambo Falls, Zambia. Des donnés sur la morphologie, les dimensions et les matériaux des éclats et des outils sont examinées. Il est inféré qu'il y a peu de changement, à ce gisement, dans le techniques élémentaires de la fabrication des supports ou dans les attributs des supports taillés du ESA jusqu'a MSA. Le seule change qui se présent ç'est la perte des gros outils pour couper (bifaces, hachereaux) et leur remplacement par des formes plus substantiels (core axes, pics). On fait l'hypothèse que ce changement indique une déclin de portabilité comme facteur dans le dessein des outils avec des grands tranchants.

     

Massive storage in As Laias/O Castelo (Ourense,NW Spain) from the Late Bronze Age/Iron Age transition to the Roman period: a palaeoethnobotanical approach

The highest platforms of As Laias, a settlement located in northwest Iberia, were used for storage during the Iron Age and until the turn of the Era. In this time-span, the whole hilltop – the croa – was a walled enclosure mostly used for storage and due to recurrent fires affecting the settlement's terraces, abundant plant remains were preserved in overlying wattle and daub storage structures.     

新疆塔城地区白杨河墓地发掘简报

2010年,新疆文物考古研究所发掘了塔城白杨河墓地的51座墓葬。墓葬的形制分为竖穴土坑墓、竖穴偏室墓、竖穴石棺墓等。多不见随葬品或仅有铁刀和羊骨,个别出土陶器、铜镜、木器等。年代大约相当于战国到汉代。其文化内涵与阿尔泰山南麓的同类墓葬有关,同天山东部和天山北麓乃至伊犁河谷的文化也有联系。     

Ancient standards of volume: negevite Iron Age pottery (Israel) as a case study in 3D modeling

Hand-made cylindrical vessels unearthed in excavations of Iron Age IIA sites in the Negev Highlands constitute the largest and most dominant ceramic assemblage of simple-shaped vessels found in Israel. The volumes and linear dimensions of these vessels were analyzed based on computer 3D models reconstructed according to their drawn profiles. This analysis revealed the rules that could have been employed by the ancient potters in order to produce vessels of given volumes. These rules demonstrate the human ability to reveal approximate (but inherent) geometric relationships between form and volume and deploy them in everyday life.     

商末黄河中游气候环境的变化与社会变迁

新石器时代到商代黄河流域的气候属于温暖湿润期;商代后期气候出现厂干旱化,导致了古公亶父迁岐,文王迁程迁丰,帝乙帝辛时不断向南方发展;而商末的旱灾和饥荒是周武王克商的直接导火索,导致商周之际的改朝换代。商末气候环境的变迁对其时社会政治的影响极大。     

Some types of vertebral pathologies in the Argar Culture (Bronze Age,SE Spain)

A collection of 1825 vertebrae belonging to 105 individuals from several Argaric Culture sites (Bronze Age, SE of Spain) were studied. Several pathologies that could provide information about activity patterns were analysed, including spondylolysis, compression fractures and Schmorl's nodes. Spondylolysis appears exclusively in men. Compression fractures seem to be more related to age (osteoporosis) and are more frequent in women, but without statistical significance. Schmorl's nodes affect a large number of the individuals studied, with a slight predominance in men; there are no differences by age. The results obtained were compared with the available archaeological and anthropological information, which shows a clear division of activities by sex in the Argaric population. The validity of studying these pathologies as activity patterns is discussed. Copyright © 2008 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

The Regional History of the Guan River Valley,China: Cultural Periphery,Ecological Diversity,and the Development of Social Complexity before A.D. 220

Regional settlement pattern studies in China have overlooked interregional interaction in the development of social complexity. This study examines settlement patterns, land use practices, sociopolitical structure, and interregional interaction from 4000 b.c. to the early Imperial period (before a.d. 221) in the Guan River valley, China. The Guan valley is located at the inter-montane corridor to three cultural core zones in China. An international collaborative team used regional full-coverage survey to locate 96 sites in 135?km² in the Middle Guan valley, the earliest of which dated to the middle Yangshao period (4000–3500 b.c.). In the late Yangshao period (3500–2900 b.c.), occupation increased rapidly and expanded to the upper reach and tributaries of the river. After an occupational collapse during the Early States period (1900–771 b.c.), the population recovered rapidly and reached a new level of organizational complexity in the Eastern Zhou period (770–221 b.c.). This pattern continued into the Qin-Han period (220 b.c.–a.d. 220), when hamlets increased in number and expanded into hilly areas.