Trepanations from Oman: A case of diffusion?

Trepanations have been described from various locations around the world leading to a suggestion that this is a cultural practice that has widely diffused from one or two centres ( 1 ). In the UAE the earliest trepanations date to the Neolithic, significantly earlier than trepanations in surrounding areas. The discovery of at least two crania in Oman, dating apparently to the early third millennium and resembling in technique and placement trepanations from north India may be evidence of the diffusion of a therapeutic practice from the Gulf to the subcontinent. However, the lack of any trepanation among the numerous contemporary skeletons from Bahrain suggests that any diffusion has distinct limits and that, as anthropological work from the South Pacific ( 2 ) indicates, practices like trepanation are often heavily embedded in broader, culturally located explanatory models.     

Dental Affinities of The Irmen People,Western Siberia

Dental features of the Late Bronze Age Irmen population of Western Siberia (14th–10th centuries BC) were studied on the basis of cranio-dental remains from 23 cemeteries in the Kuznetsk Basin, Baraba forest-steppe, the forest-steppe zone of the Altai, Tomsk and Novosibirsk areas of the Ob basin. The results suggest that the Irmen people originated in the Novosibirsk and Baraba areas from a mixture of Andronovo (Fedorovka) and autochthonous groups. Dental data are inconsistent with the idea that the Karasuk tribes might have taken part in this process. The Karasuk people clearly descended from the Okunevo people, as evidenced by the elevated frequencies of the Carabelli cusp and deflecting wrinkle. None of these traits is present in the Irmen people, who display dental gracility evidently introduced by Andronovo (Fedorovka) tribes.     

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.     

Landscape and Settlement in Late Bronze Age Cyprus: Investigations at Pyla-Kokkinokremos, 2007–2009

Pyla-Kokkinokremos is a fortified hilltop settlement in Cyprus founded towards the end of the Late Bronze Age. It has played a prominent role in discussions concerning the c. 1200 BC ‘collapse’ in the wider eastern Mediterranean. Results from survey and soundings (2007–09) provide significant new information about the site and its relationship to the surrounding landscape. This includes the discovery of a large intramural feature in the form of a shallow bedrock terrace with associated architecture running through the centre of the settlement. Consideration is also given to broader regional patterns of settlement in the surrounding Pyla littoral and south-east Cyprus.     

Exchange patterns,boundary formation,and sociopolitical change in Late Bronze Age Southern Caucasia: preliminary results from a pottery provenance study in northwestern Armenia

In the South Caucasus—roughly the territory of today's Armenia, Georgia, and Azerbaijan—the transition from the Middle Bronze Age (MBA) to the Late Bronze Age (LBA) is equated with fundamental shifts in settlement patterns, subsistence economy, and political strategies. During the mid-2nd millennium BC, nomadic pastoral societies that had dominated the region began to settle down and construct stone fortresses along the foothills of the Lesser Caucasus; these fortifications largely replaced the expansive and often opulently adorned kurgan burials as the most prominent expression of political dominance on the landscape. After a decade of intensive archaeological study at various fortifications, very little remains known about the political and economic relationships among fortresses on a regional scale that might improve our understanding of the roots of these sociopolitical transformations. In this paper, we highlight the results of a recent neutron activation analysis (NAA) of ceramics from elite and non-elite contexts at a selection of LBA fortresses on the Tsaghkahovit Plain in northwestern Armenia, and offer some preliminary interpretations about political and economic organization and boundary formation. Most strikingly, the NAA data suggest that the fortresses on the Tsaghkahovit Plain appear to have isolated themselves economically from surrounding valleys, perhaps in an attempt to forge boundaries and legitimating ideologies attendant to new political formations that were quite distinct from their nomadic predecessors in the MBA.     

XRF analysis of glass beads from the Mycenaean palace of Nestor at Pylos,Peloponnesus, Greece: new insight into the LBA glass trade

In recent years there has been a growing interest in Mycenaean glass among archaeologists and scientists. Scholars have traditionally thought that all Mycenaean glass was imported either in finished form or as ingots and simply shaped or worked at the Mycenaean sites. Chemical studies of other Mycenaean glass (50 and 43) support the hypothesis that glass was imported into Mycenaean Greece, but there is also indication for glass production in mainland Greece at the palace of Thebes (Nikita and Henderson, 2006). There is no evidence for glass making or working at the Palace of Pylos, yet there is an abundance of glass beads there. The aim of this paper is to identify the technology and source for the glass of these beads and thus to ascertain how Pylos was connected to the broader Mycenaean and Mediterranean economies. The composition of the glasses was determined by means of portable XRF analysis and compared to that of other Late Bronze Age glasses from Egypt, Mesopotamia and mainland Greece. Four blue beads coloured with cobalt and one blue bead coloured with copper have Ti and Zr compositions consistent with an Egyptian origin of manufacture while five other beads show Ti and Zr concentrations consistent with a Mesopotamian origin (Shortland et al., 2007). Based on the dearth of Egyptian and Mesopotamian imports in Pylos, the presented data support the hypothesis that Pylos was receiving via internal Greek trade routes foreign-produced glass, which may have been worked abroad or in Greece.     

Mobility in Central European Late Eneolithic and Early Bronze Age: tibial cross-sectional geometry

An absence of settlement features during the Central European Corded Ware period (Late Eneolithic, 2900–2300 BC) has been interpreted as a reflection of mobile pastoral subsistence. Recent analyses of the Late Eneolithic archeological context reveal that the Late Eneolithic exhibit evidence of sedentary agricultural activities similar to the Early Bronze Age. Since the archeological analyses are not clear cut, we tested mobility pattern differences between the Late Eneolithic and Early Bronze Age using biomechanical analysis of the tibial midshaft cross-sections. The total sample of the 130 tibiae representing five archaeological cultures was used. The results of the tibial midshaft geometry do not support the hypothesis about different mobility in the Late Eneolithic and Early Bronze Age. This conclusion is supported by nonsignificant differences between the Corded Ware females and the Early Bronze Age females. Higher absolute values for the Corded Ware males should be explained either by stochastic variation or by differing amounts of physical demands despite a generally similar pattern of subsistence of the Late Eneolithic and Early Bronze Age. One of the Early Bronze Age samples, the Wieselburger group, is an exception because the individuals show both reduced overall size and bending resistance of the tibial parameters not only in comparison with the Late Eneolithic but also to the rest of the Early Bronze Age. The results suggest that the behavioral processes which affected the tibial midshaft biology operated during the Late Eneolithic and Early Bronze Age as a mosaic across time and between/within cultures.     

Bronze production in Southwestern Iberian Peninsula: the Late Bronze Age metallurgical workshop from Entre Águas 5 (Portugal)

Archaeological works at Entre Águas 5 (Portugal) uncovered a seasonal LBA settlement with significant metallurgical remains (crucibles, moulds, prills and a tuyere) related to bronze production. Radiocarbon dating ascribes an occupation period (10th–9th century BC) previous to Phoenician establishment in Southwestern Iberia. In spite of the proliferation of metal artefacts during LBA, the production of bronze alloys is still poorly understood. An integrated analytical approach (EDXRF, optical microscopy, SEM–EDS, micro-EDXRF and Vickers microhardness) was used to characterise this metallurgy. Crucibles show immature slags with copious copper nodules, displaying variable tin content (c. 0–26 wt.%), low iron amount (<0.05 wt.%) and different cooling rates. Certain evidences point to direct reduction of oxide copper ores with cassiterite. Scorched moulds with residues of copper and tin indicate local casting of artefacts. Finished artefacts also recovered at the site have an analogous composition (bronze with ∼10 wt.% Sn and low amounts of Pb, As and Fe) typical of coeval metallurgy in SW Iberia. Some artefacts reveal a relationship between typology and composition or manufacture: a higher tin content for a golden coloured ring or absence of the final hammering for a bracelet. An uncommon gilded nail (gold foil c. 140 μm thick; 11.6 wt.% Ag; ∼1 wt.% Cu) attests the existence of evolved prestige typologies. This LBA settlement discloses a domestic metallurgy whose main features are typical in Iberian Peninsula. Finally, it should be emphasized that a collection as comprehensive and representative of a single workshop has rarely been studied, enabling a deeper understanding of the various operations involving the bronze production and manufacture of artefacts.