Reassessment and new data on the diachronic relationship of Thassos Island with its indigenous metal resources: a review

The extraction of mineral ores and its associated metal production has been a persistent element of the economy on Thassos Island since prehistoric times. As early as the Upper Palaeolithic, around 20,000 years ago, ochre had been mined and used for painting, while early silver extraction is attested during the Final Neolithic (early fourth millennium BC). Copper production and alloying becomes an important activity in the coastal settlements of the island during the third and second millennia. The inception of iron metallurgy has been seen in association with copper smelting as confirmed by analyses on slag found in Early Iron Age upland cemeteries. With the arrival of the Greek colonists around 650 BC, intensification in silver and gold extraction became paramount for further economic expansion. This deep history in the use of Thassian metals is being reviewed based on archaeological findings and archaeometallurgical research of the last three decades, while new analytical data on Early Bronze Age copper smelting at Aghios Antonios are being presented.     

Multiproxy environmental archaeology of Neolithic settlements at Osłonki,Poland, 5500–4000 BC

Abstract

Archaeological research on Neolithic settlements (ca. 5500–4000 cal BC) at and near Os?onki, Poland, is complemented by palaeoenvironmental investigations in three basins with biogenic sediments adjacent to the archaeological sites. Research included sedimentology, palynology, malacology and cladoceran analysis. Complementary lines of evidence indicate that Linear Pottery pioneer farmers of the late 6th millennium BC caused minimal environmental impact, but intensive settlement and land use by the Brze?? Kujawski Group during the 5th millennium BC triggered pronounced human-induced effects on the local landscape. Of particular significance is the evidence for erosion and aeolian ablation of exposed soil in the vicinity of the Neolithic settlements, presumably reflecting widespread land clearance, agricultural activity and settlement construction.     

EGYPTIAN TASKMASTERS AND HEAVY BURDENS: HIGHLAND EXPLOITATION AND THE COLLARED-RIM PITHOS OF THE BRONZE/IRON AGE LEVANT

Summary. In considering the most controversial ceramic artefact of the Levant in the late 2nd millennium BC, the collared-rim pithos, this paper breaks down the artificial chronological and cultural boundary that in many studies isolates the central highlands of modern Israel-Palestine from the rest of the region. A large transport vessel, the collared-rim pithos has been inappropriately used as an 'ethnic marker' for the settlement and expansion of the Ancient Israelites and as a chronological indicator of the Iron I Period (1200–1000 BC). Here a new socio-economic model is proposed which accounts for the spatio-temporal distribution of the collared-rim pithos and integrates highland settlements into a regional system of exploitation which characterises the last phase of Ramesside hegemony in the Levant.     

The smelting quarter of Valencina de la Concepción (Seville,Spain): the specialised copper industry in a political centre of the Guadalquivir Valley during the Third millennium BC (2750–2500 BC)

The first specialized copper industry of the Iberian Peninsula was developed at the start of the Third millennium BC with the appearance of mining-metallurgical settlements in its main mining district (the Pyrite Belt of the south-western). Between 2750 and 2500 BC, however, and right at the centre of the Guadalquivir Valley, the great farming settlements that ranked the territory developed a new level of metallurgic intensification with the creation of the first industrial quarters. As a way of explaining this new situation, we present the results of the systematic research (microspatial analysis; radiocarbon dating; petrologic, geochemical, metallographic and isotopic study of minerals, slag and products, …) carried out in one of them, the one developed in the main and largest political centre of the Guadalquivir Valley during the first half of the Third millennium BC: Valencina de la Concepción (Seville, Spain).     

The adoption of cattle pastoralism in the Arabian Peninsula: A reappraisal

The translocation of livestock into the Arabian Peninsula was underway by the sixth millennium BC. It remains unclear, however, whether nascent pastoralism in Arabia focused on specialised cattle herding, intensive caprine husbandry, or more extensive forms of sheep, goat and cattle management. Here, the role of Bos in Neolithic animal exploitation systems in the Arabian Peninsula is re-examined in the context of fisher-hunter-gatherer groups inhabiting the coasts of the Arabian Gulf, agro-pastoralist settlements located in the Jordanian highlands, and hunter-herder communities in adjacent Jordanian steppe (badia). By the late sixth millennium BC, cattle from southern Mesopotamia were imported to the Arabian littoral via Ubaid exchange networks but remained a relatively unimportant part of local hunter-gatherer-herder subsistence for at least a millennium. New zooarchaeological evidence indicating cattle herding in the Jordanian highlands by the late eighth millennium BC suggests a southern transmission route originating out of Late Pre-Pottery Neolithic B settlements and the subsequent spread of cattle along the Sarawat mountains into the interior or down the relatively arid Red Sea coast via land or boat. Cattle eventually played a central role in the symbolic and ritual lives of herders in southern Arabia, but the use of the term ‘cattle pastoralism’ to describe early Neolithic subsistence systems in the region is premature.     

Landscapes for Neolithic People in Mainland,Orkney

Journal of World Prehistory - Neolithic occupation of the Orkney Islands, in the north of Scotland, probably began in the mid fourth millennium cal BC, culminating in a range of settlements,...     

Establishing the Prehistoric Cultural Sequence for the Lopburi Region, Central Thailand

This study comprises the first archaeologically-defined chronological and cultural sequence for central Thailand. Based on collaborative research between the Thai–Italian Lopburi Regional Archaeological Project and the Thai–American Thailand Archaeometallurgy Project, the results of excavations at seven pre- and protohistoric sites that witnessed three millennia of local cultural development, from the early second millennium BC onward, are synthesized herein. This study fills a significant gap in Thailand’s prehistory, also identifying important cultural interactions ranging into southern China and Vietnam that led to the formation during the second millennium BC of a ‘Southeast Asian Interaction Sphere’. This interaction sphere, at the close of the second millennium BC, facilitated the transmission of the knowledge of copper-base metallurgy from southern China into Thailand, where it reached the communities of the Lopburi Region who took advantage of their ore-rich environment. At the end of the first millennium BC, strong South Asian contacts emerge in Southeast Asia. Among this study’s salient contributions is the characterization of these critical prehistoric antecedents, which culminated in a process of localization of exogenous elements, usually termed ‘Indianization’. The impact of this dynamic process was initially felt in central Thailand in the late first millennium BC, leading over time to the rise there, by the mid first millennium AD, of one of Southeast Asia’s first ‘state-like’ entities.     

The Wadi al‐Hijr (Sultanate of Oman) in the third millennium BC

In 2010–11 a pedestrian survey of the western end of Wadi al‐Hijr in northern Oman identified 1507 archaeological features in a 124 km² area. Data were collected on each feature's architectural characteristics, associated artefact assemblages, topographic and environmental locations, condition of remains, and relations to other archaeological features. The majority of datable features belong to the third millennium BC and divide unequally between the Hafit and Umm an‐Nar periods. While the majority of these third‐millennium BC features were tombs, other feature types were identified, including towers, settlements, quarries, dams, enclosures, and possible platforms. Third‐millennium BC features were organised into clusters and ranged considerably in size, from a few features to several hundred. All of the clusters established during the Hafit period were maintained in the Umm an‐Nar period, suggesting a continuity throughout the third millennium. Some preliminary hypotheses regarding settlement patterns are suggested.     

Seashore Settlement Patterns in the Koné and Naïa Periods: Case Studies from Southwestern New Caledonia

As part of a geological survey in southwest mainland New Caledonia, potsherds were recorded in the profiles at four coastal sites. Subsequent archaeological investigations at two of these sites have allowed us to diversify the ceramic data and show them to be local variants of Podtanean, Puen, and Plum ceramic types. These are characteristic of production in the southern part of the archipelago during the first millennium BC and first millennium AD. The presence of fishing sites showing no indication of permanent settlements on these seashores, and the clear absence of second millennium AD occupations related to the “Traditional Kanak Cultural Complex”, characterized by large sedentary hamlets, illustrate a significant shift in settlement patterns between the first and second millennium AD.     

Keeping an eye on your pots: the provenance of Neolithic ceramics from the Cave of the Cyclops,Youra, Greece

Combined petrographic and chemical analysis of MN and LN ceramics from the Cave of the Cyclops on the island of Youra, Greece, has revealed a compositionally diverse assemblage with a range of different local and off-island sources. Ceramics deposited in Neolithic times on this barren, rocky outpost of the Sporades chain may have originated from a surprising number of possible origins, including from the Plain of Thessaly, Euboea and the volcanic northeast Aegean islands. This picture challenges traditional assumptions about Neolithic pottery production and indicates that significant movement of ceramics was already taking place within the northern Aegean as early as the beginning of the sixth millennium BC. The discovery of a persistent local pottery tradition, that is also found on the neighbouring island of Kyra-Panagia, indicates significant continuity in ceramic technology over some 1500 years.     

The Cultural Project: Formal Chronological Modelling of the Early and Middle Neolithic Sequence in Lower Alsace

Starting from questions about the nature of cultural diversity, this paper examines the pace and tempo of change and the relative importance of continuity and discontinuity. To unravel the cultural project of the past, we apply chronological modelling of radiocarbon dates within a Bayesian statistical framework, to interrogate the Neolithic cultural sequence in Lower Alsace, in the upper Rhine valley, in broad terms from the later sixth to the end of the fifth millennium cal BC. Detailed formal estimates are provided for the long succession of cultural groups, from the early Neolithic Linear Pottery culture (LBK) to the Bischheim Occidental du Rhin Supérieur (BORS) groups at the end of the Middle Neolithic, using seriation and typology of pottery as the starting point in modelling. The rate of ceramic change, as well as frequent shifts in the nature, location and density of settlements, are documented in detail, down to lifetime and generational timescales. This reveals a Neolithic world in Lower Alsace busy with comings and goings, tinkerings and adjustments, and relocations and realignments. A significant hiatus is identified between the end of the LBK and the start of the Hinkelstein group, in the early part of the fifth millennium cal BC. On the basis of modelling of existing dates for other parts of the Rhineland, this appears to be a wider phenomenon, and possible explanations are discussed; full reoccupation of the landscape is only seen in the Grossgartach phase. Radical shifts are also proposed at the end of the Middle Neolithic.     

Polished Stone Axes in Caput Adriae from the Neolithic to the Copper Age

This paper reports the results of a long-term project on the stone axes from Caput Adriae. Available data show that jade axes originating in the western Alps reached the Neolithic groups of Friuli Venezia Giulia and coastal Istria as early as the second half of the 6th millennium BC, during the Danilo/Vla?ka culture. The exchange of this and other classes of lithic artefacts testifies that in this period this area was fully integrated into long-distance exchange systems that used mainly coastal routes. These systems would have continued in the 5th millennium BC, as indicated by a few oversized jade axe blades and other materials. Far from the coast, jade axes entered central Slovenia, probably reaching sites of the Sava Group of the Lengyel culture in the first half of the 5th millennium BC. In roughly the same period, shaft-hole axes made of Bohemian metabasites (BM) spread over central and southeastern Europe, crossed the Alps and reached Italy. According to different Neolithic traditions, during the 5th millennium BC Europe appears to be divided into a jade-using western area and a central-eastern BM-using one. During the 4th millennium BC, the exchange networks of Caput Adriae are increasingly influenced by the eastern Alpine and Balkan world, where the raw material sources of the main groups of shaft-hole axes are located. The association of the rocks used for axe production and copper ore suggests that the changes in raw material exploitation strategies during the Copper Age were probably related to the development of the first metallurgy.     

Asimah: Neue 14C-Datierungen zum späten 3. vorchristlichen Jahrtausend auf der Halbinsel Oman

The third millennium BC domestic sites of Asimah (Emirate of Ras al-Khaimah, U. A. E.), excavated in 1988 and published in 1994, produced a common Umm an-Nar inventory, but with a high percentage of imported Indus Valley pottery. A comparison of finds with the well-stratified Hili-8 sequence is contrasted with five new radiocarbon dates which, together with the artefacts recovered, place Asimah in the late third millennium BC chronological and cultural context of Tell Abraq.     

Harvesting molluscs in the Eneolithic: a study of freshwater bivalve accumulations from the tell settlements of Borduşani-Popină and Hârşova (Romania, 5th millennium BC)

Freshwater bivalve shells are frequently identified in faunal assemblages from Neo-Eneolithic tell settlements along the Danube River valley in South-East Romania (5th millennium BC). Up until now, significant accumulations of freshwater bivalve shells have been identified only in household refuse areas of the settlements, where they form consistent shell layers. The origin and formation of such shell accumulations and, more generally, the role of bivalves in the animal economy of the prehistoric populations that inhabited the settlements, are poorly understood. Two freshwater bivalve shell accumulations were studied in household refuse areas of Eneolithic tell settlements, one at Bordu?ani-Popin? and the other at Hâr?ova tell. The occurrence of similar accumulations in the two settlements indicates generalized practices between the two communities. This first study of such accumulations addresses the relationship between bivalves and other animal species used in alimentation by the two Eneolithic communities, as well as the relationships between these communities, their environment, and the evolution of the settlements. Bivalves were harvested in the close vicinity of the settlements and large quantities were obtained only towards the end of the summer season. During this season there is an inverse relationship between high water levels in the river and the availability of bivalves for harvesting. Bivalves played an important role in the alimentation of the prehistoric populations – at Hâr?ova tell their contribution to alimentation in terms of energetic yield surpasses that of fish, at least for the short period of time represented by the stratigraphic sequence analysed. Bivalve shells were used, along with other types of household refuse, in construction techniques aimed at limiting soil humidity in the settlements and inside the dwellings.     

Excavations at MR11 on Marawah Island (Abu Dhabi,UAE): new insight into the architecture and planning of Arabian Neolithic settlements and early evidence for pearling

In 1992, an archaeological survey of Marawah Island conducted by the Abu Dhabi Islands Archaeological Survey identified two significant Neolithic settlements known as MR1 and MR11. Both sites are constructed on prominent rocky platforms located towards the western end of the island. In 2000 and 2003, small-scale excavations took place at MR11, with the first full excavation taking place in 2004. Excavations continued at MR11 between 2014 up to 2019. Radiocarbon dating demonstrates that the site was occupied between the earliest part of the sixth millennium to the mid-fifth millennium BC. Three areas have been so far examined. Area A—a tripartite house (2004 and 2014–2017 excavation seasons); Area B—a partial structure (in 2003 and 2017–2018); and Area C—a series of at least five rooms (in 2017–2019). The results provide a valuable new insight into the architecture and planning of Arabian Neolithic settlements in the region, as well as the earliest known evidence for pearling.     

The iron age in Mediterranean France: Colonial encounters, entanglements, and transformations

During the last seven centuries of the first millennium BC, the indigenous societies of Mediterranean France underwent a series of gradual social and cultural transformations that are linked in complex ways to their encounter and increasing entanglement with the broader Mediterranean world. This article presents a synthesis of current knowledge of this issue and explores some of the main themes guiding research. New evidence concerning the alien colonial agents (Etruscan, Greek, Punic/Iberian, and Roman), and the contrasting nature of their presence and power in the region, is discussed, as is evidence concerning forms of indigenous engagement with colonial states and paths of social and cultural change. The consumption of alien goods (wine, ceramics) and the adoption of foreign techniques and practices (ceramic production methods, coinage, writing) are examined in terms of the locally situated logic of demand and the ramifications for entanglement and change. Transformations in settlements, ritual spaces, funerary practices, and the agrarian landscape are discussed.     

The Development of Ancient States in the Northern Horn of Africa,c. 3000 BC–AD 1000: An Archaeological Outline

Beginning in the 3rd millennium BC, complex societies and states arose in the northern Horn of Africa. This process culminated with the development of the Kingdom of Aksum in northern Ethiopia and Eritrea in the 1st millennium AD. The development of these polities can be outlined in principle on the basis of the archaeological evidence. The process consisted of at least two distinct trajectories to social complexity, indirectly related to each other in the Eritrean–Sudanese lowlands and the Eritrean–Ethiopian highlands, respectively, with a shift in the location of complex societies from the lowlands to the highlands in the early 1st millennium BC. This shift was due to changes in the general pattern of interregional contacts between the regions facing the Mediterranean Sea and Indian Ocean along the Nile Valley, Red Sea and western Arabia from the 4th millennium BC to the 1st millennium AD.     

Direct chronometry (14C AMS) of the earliest copper metallurgy in the Guadalquivir Basin (Spain) during the Third millennium BC: first regional database

The characterisation of copper metallurgy in the Third millennium BC in the Southeast of the Iberian Peninsula as a simple and technological process on a domestic scale was the central axis that sustained a belated, underdeveloped appreciation for the Prehistory of the Iberian Peninsula and Western Europe dependent on the origin of social complexities. Nevertheless, this characterisation was incomplete since it was based more on the contexts of consumption than those of production and in territories used for agricultural rather than for mining purposes. Above all, however, it was incomplete because it lacked a precise spatial and temporal framework that evaluated the variability of the behaviours it articulated.To overcome these deficiencies, we have developed a systematic programme of interdisciplinary research aimed at documenting and dating, through the use of ¹⁴C AMS, the direct contexts of copper production of eight settlements that cover the populational variability (from 300 to 0.25 ha of surface area), chronology (between c. 3000 BC and c. 2000 BC), economic (settlements dedicated to mining, agriculture, etc.) and territorial along the axis of the backbone of the most fertile soils and primary (main) supplies of copper in the Iberian Peninsula: the Guadalquivir Basin.Results consist of the first systematic database, with sixty-six precise, direct radiocarbon dating of the metallurgical production of copper during the Third millennium BC, in the Iberian Peninsula and Western Europe. At the same time, it presents a variability of contexts (e.g. household, workshop, partial-time, full-time, factory, smelting quarter, etc.), in both time and space, affording a precise evaluation of social and territorial variability of behaviours that the production of copper shows us, a new historical explanation and the link between this and the development of social complexity.     

Gazetteer of small‐scale monuments in prehistoric Hadramawt,Yemen: a radiocarbon chronology from the RASA‐AHSD Project research 1996–2008

This paper provides a new, interpretive gazetteer and chronology of Hadramawt’s highland monuments based on results from archaeological survey and test excavations by the RASA‐AHSD (Roots of Agriculture in southern Arabia‐Arabian Human Social Dynamics) Project. With the exception of a few incidental sightings and an unpublished pipeline survey, the prehistoric record of southern Yemen’s highland plateau has been largely unknown. There are few settlements, so that understanding human landscape history must begin with the numerous small‐scale stone monuments left by mobile people. With examples representing monuments from the fifth, fourth, third and first millennia BC, the corpus of small excavations and radiocarbon dates reported here provides the first guide to the monument types of South Arabian highlands. Monument building began under more moist conditions and appears to have commemorated animal sacrifices long before commemorating mortuary rites and interment. There appears to be a temporal break of 1000 years before the widespread and varied practices of Bronze Age tomb construction, which lasted through the third millennium BC. After another break in monument construction, tombs were reused in the first millennium BC, sometimes with successive ritual visits. The data presented offer new material for the interpretation of the lives and activities of prehistoric pastoralists throughout the Holocene.     

The Abandonment of the ZH-Mozartstrasse Early Bronze Age Lake-settlement. GIS Computer Simulation of the Lake-level Fluctuation Hypothesis

Although 'lake-dwellings' existed from the middle of the fifth millennium to the eighth century BC, the entire phenomenon was not a continuous one. There are several periods when the lake shores were abandoned and subsequently reoccupied. The pattern of occupation depends on cultural as well as environmental factors, amongst them the topography and the climate.
Unlike the southern part of the Alps, which seems to have had a more regular occupational pattern throughout the Neolithic and the Bronze Age, the northern Alpine region shows a marked discontinuity along most of the lake shores. Two relevant breaks in lake-shore occupation are known within the northern Alpine region Bronze Age. The first occurred between the 24th and the 20th centuries BC, and the second from the 15th to the middle of the 12th century BC.
The Early Bronze Age site of ZH-Mozartstrasse, situated on the western extreme of Lake Zurich (Switzerland), was abandoned immediately before the beginning of the second major occupational gap in 1503 BC. Two other Early Bronze Age sites namely Bodman-Schachen 1 on Lake Constance, and Arbon-Bleiche 2 on the Swiss part (the southern shore) of the same lake, follow a similar chronology in occupation; and they were both abandoned in the last decade of the 16th century BC.
A possible cause of abandonment is discussed in this paper using an environmental approach related to an abrupt change of climatic conditions which resulted in an increase of the lake levels which forced those prehistoric populations to leave the proximity of the lake shores. Following the implications of pollen and sedimental analyses, the transformation of the Bronze Age landscape caused by the lake water invasion will be simulated with the help of CAD and GIS computer programs.