Beyond the stereotypes: Mary Lavin's Irish women

This paper discusses Mary Lavin's place within the Irish literary tradition by means of an analysis of her representations of female characters. It argues, first, that Lavin's short stories depart from the short story tradition in general and the Irish short story tradition in particular by failing to subscribe to the cultivation of the romantic outsider and focusing instead on family relations and social responsibilities. Second, Mary Lavin's marginal position in a feminist or female literary tradition is explained through her unwillingness to portray women as victims and through the absence of a clear critique of patriarchy in her work. The paper then tries to characterise the relationship between individual and society in Lavin's short fiction in a more positive way, by focusing on the notions of individual fate and personal responsibility, which turn out to be crucial to Mary Lavin's philosophy. This philosophy is first discussed explicitly in a reading of the story ‘Happiness’ and ‘The Widow's Son’ and subsequently shown to lie behind the oppositions and dilemmas in several other stories. Finally, the article demonstrates how Lavin manages to realise her Nietzschean belief in an Amor Fati in some of her most positive female characters through a clever use of imagery and point of view, without thereby succumbing to sentimentality or cliché.     

Beyond the Brotherhood: Reassessing US Army Combat Relationships in the Second World War

Abstract

The conventional wisdom that portrays US combat soldiers in World War II as a 'band of brothers' owes much to Hollywood and popular history, and distorts serious understanding of the relationships within combat units of the US Army. This article examines this idea in the context of theories of unit cohesion and combat motivation and suggests a more complex understanding of these issues.     

Beyond the Anthropocene: Defining the Age of Destruction

The question of the Anthropocene has gained increased notoriety among archaeologists recently. Precisely because of that, it is in need of thorough critique. The aim of this article is not to rule out the concept of Anthropocene, but to point out some of its problems: the relationship of Anthropocenic discourses with the emergence of an all-embracing biopolitical science; the inadequacies of the term, which blames all humans equally for a specific effect of modernity and capitalism; its failure to accept a diversity of origins (but also the problem of accepting overly deep origins), and the shortcomings of adopting a geological framework for archaeology. I thus suggest that the discipline has to define its own eras – also for the contemporary period – and that the Age of Destruction could be an apt archaeological counterpart for the Anthropocene. One of the benefits of outlining an archaeological era is that it brings modernity and capitalism back to the fore, and with them issues of power and conflict that have been largely lost in recent post-anthropocentric debates.     

Beyond Iron Age ‘towns’: Examining oppida as examples of low‐density urbanism

The question of whether Late Iron Age oppida in Europe were truly ‘urban’ has dominated debate over these sites since the nineteenth century. Oppida have been surprisingly absent from comparative urban studies, however, despite increasingly nuanced perspectives on the nature and diversity of the urban phenomenon. In particular, Roland Fletcher's implication that oppida might represent part of a broader alternative form of low‐density urbanism has been largely overlooked, by Iron Age scholars and urbanism specialists alike. With the complex nature of many oppida now becoming increasingly apparent, I suggest it is a pertinent time to assess Fletcher's claim and examine whether oppida can be convincingly compared to low‐density urbanism elsewhere in the world and, if so, what implications this might have for understanding Iron Age societies. This paper argues that oppida do indeed display aspects of low‐density urbanism and that this is likely to be due to the negotiated nature of power in Iron Age societies.     

Iron Age people of Norway

‘Iron Age People in Norway’ is an interdisciplinary research project. The source material consists of archaeological finds of graves containing human skeletal remains. Archaeological and physical anthropological methods and data will be combined in analyses of the people, their living conditions, aspects of social organization and questions about ethnic groups, using a specially developed computer registration system and database structure. The in‐depth analyses concentrate on the five northernmost counties in Norway, while the catalogue covers the whole country.     

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.     

Iron Age temperate Europe: Some current research issues

The Iron Age designates the 800 years preceding the Roman conquest of Europe. This period represents the latest social and cultural development of indigenous European societies before the annexation of much of temperate Europe into the Roman Empire and the final phase of cultural change before the beginning of local traditions of written history north of the Alps. Our understanding of the Iron Age has changed substantially over the past 30 years, as a result both of recent discoveries and of new perspectives. Much recent research has focused on specific themes such as changing social structure and patterns of ritual behavior. I attempt here to provide an overview of current understanding and debate on some of these topics in Iron Age archaeology. The subject and its literature are vast, and my treatment is selective. The references will guide the interested reader to the wider literature.     

The Isle of Portland: An Iron Age Port-of-trade

The Isle of Portland (Dorset, England) was part of a trading system that involved the circulation of goods in and across the English Channel during the first century BC. This paper assesses the suitability of Portland as an Iron Age port-of-trade, focuses on the exotics found there and discusses evidence for its hill-fort, which was destroyed in the middle of the nineteenth century     

Iron Age Ferrous Hammerheads from Britain

There are more than thirty iron hammerheads known from the pre-Roman Iron Age in Britain, the majority of which are assigned to the first centuries BC and AD. They include specialised tools, such as set hammers and a swage sledge-hammer which are blacksmiths' tools. The hand-hammers are more numerous and many of these are probably also metalworkers' tools. Fourteen have been examined by metallography showing that at least ten are quench hardened at one or both faces and some may have been tempered.     

Iron Age iron files from England

There are more than 40 iron files known from the pre-Roman Iron Age in England, of which 26 come from settlements with evidence of manufacturing activities. The files vary considerably in size and form. The coarse-cut files were probably intended for working soft or fibrous materials such as wood or horn, whereas the finer-cut files were probably for working more compact or harder materials, including metals. This corresponds to the metallographic evidence from a sample of 17 files, of which only seven finer-cut ones have been found to be quench-hardened. The discovery of metal particles in five files provides further evidence of use.     

Valorising the Samad Late Iron Age

The Late Iron Age (LIA) in Central Oman is known from the eponymous site of Samad al‐Shān as well as al‐Moyassar (formerly al‐Maysar), which teams from Bochum and Heidelberg investigated from 1977 to 1996 in twelve campaigns. The chronology of this little known period has evoked much controversy but although this contribution contains critical comments, these regard mostly smaller issues or details and there is a general unspoken agreement about the basic chronological issues. The present study adds both new and old unpublished documentation to the discussion. What follows includes a re‐examination of the original documentation of M42 and M43 sites which confirms the excavators' chronology. New LIA sites are added. M. Mouton's attempted deconstruction of the existing chronology and his new combined definition of the PIR and Samad LIA assemblages rest on slight inconsistencies in the original al‐Moyassar site report of 1981. Despite the spotty nature of our sources, Oman's latest prehistoric facies shows a distinctive character separate from that known principally in the United Arab Emirates (UAE).     

Plated Iron Age Coins: Official Issues or Contemporary Forgeries

This paper discusses different explanations that have been proposed to account for the existence of plated Iron Age coins, some of which appear to have been struck from the dies used to produce solid metal coins. Evidence occasionally preserved on plated coins proves that at least some of them were struck from dies which had been hubbed from solid metal coins, and it is these solid metal coins that were struck from the dies which the plated coins appear to have been produced from. It is argued that this evidence demonstrates that plated Iron Age coins are merely contemporary forgeries.     

Transport Amphorae in the West Hallstatt Zone: Reassessing Socio‐Economic Dynamics and Long‐Distance Mediterranean Exchange in Western Central Europe in the Early Iron Age

Trade and cultural relations between western Central Europe and the Mediterranean world in the Early Iron Age remain a major topic of discussion. The products exchanged were mainly connected with the ritual preparation and social consumption of Mediterranean wine. This article examines the question through a comparative study of transport amphorae from the entire West Hallstatt zone. The systematic analysis is based on a specialized study carried out on the material itself. Typological analyses allow us to identify where amphorae originated; previously this was thought to have been just Massalia but this now needs to be expanded to the whole Mediterranean Basin. An analysis of the distribution of amphorae enables us to identify the trajectory these products followed. A comparison with amphora types attested in potential ports in southern France and northern Italy suggests possible trade routes for specific types. Finally, a new chronological scheme for amphorae provides insights into the economic reasons behind these imports and the social impact these products had, enabling us to identify broader socio‐economic trends and long‐distance exchange patterns in western Central Europe.     

The Early Iron Age at Troy Reconsidered

Neutron Activation Analysis (NAA) of Protogeometric ceramics at Troy supports a revision of our understanding of the site in the Protogeometric period. Previous interpretations of this period at Troy emphasized the importance of either Greek migration or Greek trade networks. A category of amphoras previously thought to be imports appears to have been made locally. NAA also indicates local production of a new class of handmade cooking pots, as well as more traditional Gray ware vessels. Analysis reveals a high degree of cultural continuity at Iron Age Troy, with inhabitants adopting and adapting a wider vocabulary of Protogeometric vessel types in the Aegean while integrating them with established local pottery traditions and resource use. The combinations of local and non‐local components seen at Troy are more consistent with long‐term dynamic Aegean interaction spheres than with more tenuous models of Aeolian migration or Euboian expansion.     

New Early Iron Age Statue From Sary-Arka

The article introduces a statue of the Saka period from Sary-Arka (Central Kazakhstan) and shows the similarities between its attributes and the weaponry of the Early Iron Age cultures of the Eurasian steppes. Specific features of the Sary-Arka statues and their iconographic similarities with Eastern European Scythian sculpture are described.