A Bayesian C chronology of Early and Middle Bronze Age in Sicily. Towards an independent absolute dating

This paper proposes a Bayesian model for the ¹⁴C chronology of Sicilian Early and Middle Bronze Age, with a specific focus on the northeastern sector of the island. Building on the available ¹⁴C determinations, the model allows addressing a number of chronological questions left open in literature, making a first step towards an independent absolute chronology. The analysis put the start of the earlier part of Early Bronze Age (Capo Graziano 1-Casa Lopez phase) between 2400 and 2175 cal BC, and the end at about 1960 cal BC. The advanced stage of the same period (Capo Graziano 1-Filo Braccio phase) is likely to have started and ended around 1960 and 1730 cal BC respectively. The model indicates that the time slot with the highest posterior probability for the start of the Middle Bronze Age–Milazzese (Portella phase) is between 1490 and 1460 cal BC. This turns up to be earlier than held to date. Notably, the model enables for the first time to bracket the development of the later stage of Early Bronze (Capo Graziano 2-M. di Capo Graziano phase) between 1730 (end of Filo Braccio phase) and 1490/60 cal BC (start of Middle Bronze Age–Portella phase). The latter date is earlier than usually held for the end of Capo Graziano 2. The existence of a narrow gap between the end of the latter and the start of Middle Bronze Age-Portella phase is tentatively proposed only on stratigraphic grounds. Further, the analysis enables for the first time to pinpoint and quantify the lag that is likely to have existed between the start of those Sicilian prehistoric phases and the appearance of Late Helladic imports. The comparison with the Aegean ¹⁴C Bayesian chronology indicates that a time lag (about 45 yr) is likely to have occurred between the start of Capo Graziano 2 and of the Late Helladic period. A time lag between 20 and 70 yr is likely to have existed between the start of the Sicilian Middle Bronze Age and of the Late Helladic III. Arguments tentatively supporting the narrower interval are also discussed.     

Territorial Behaviour and Communication in a Ritual Landscape

Landscape research in the last decade, in human geography as well as in anthropology and archaeology, has often been polarized, either according to traditional geographical methods or following the principles of a new, symbolically orientated discipline. This cross–disciplinary study in prehistoric Östergötland, Sweden, demonstrates the importance of using methods and approaches from both orientations in order to gain reasonable comprehension of landscape history and territorial structure. Funeral monuments as cognitive nodes in a prehistoric cultural landscape are demonstrated as to contain significant elements of astronomy, not unlike what has been discussed for native and prehistoric American cultures, e.g. Ancestral Pueblo. A locational analysis with measurements of distances and directions was essential in approaching this structure. A nearest neighbour method was used as a starting–point for a territorial discussion, indicating that the North European hundreds division could have its roots in Bronze Age (1700–500 BC) tribal territories, linked to barrows geographically interrelated in cardinal alignments. In the European Bronze Age faith and science, the religious and the profane, were integrated within the framework of a solar cult, probably closely connected with astronomy in a ritual landscape, organized according to cosmological ideas, associated with power and territoriality. Cosmographic expression of a similar kind was apparently used even earlier, as gallery–graves (stone cists) from the Late Neolithic (2300–1700 BC) in Östergötland are also geographically interrelated in cardinal alignments.     

Fields,Ritual and Religion: Holistic Approaches to the Rural Landscape in Long‐Term Perspective (c.1500 BC–AD 1086)

This paper discusses the relationship between agricultural activity and ritualized/religious practices in England from the middle Bronze Age to the early medieval period (c.1500 BC–AD 1086). It is written in the context of the ERC‐funded, Oxford‐based ‘English Landscapes and Identities project’ (EngLaId), which involved the compilation of an extensive spatial database of archaeological ‘monuments’, finds and other related data to chart change and continuity during this period. Drawing on this database alongside documentary and onomastic evidence, we analyze the changing relationship between fields, ritual and religion in England. We identify four moments of change, around the start of the middle Bronze Age (c.1500 BC), in the late Bronze Age (c.1150 BC), the late Iron Age (c.150 BC) and the middle/late Anglo‐Saxon period (c.800 AD). However, despite changes in both agricultural and ritual/religious practices during this extensive timeframe, a clear link between them can be observed throughout.     

Genesis,age and archaeological significance of a pedosediment in the depression around Tell Mozan,Syria

A pedosedimentological profile from the ditch surrounding the lower town of the Bronze Age site of Mozan is investigated for its soil and sedimentological characteristics and has been dated in order to gain information on the use of the ditch and on the landscape development surrounding the settlement. The depression did not contain large amounts of water (flowing or stagnant) and probably was used for agricultural purposes. Accumulation – that in part includes anthropogenically-derived, redeposited, and bioturbated debris – started at around 2800 cal. BC or later, and was especially intensive at some time between 2800 and 1000 cal. BC. Deposition may have been caused by intensive agricultural use of the landscape during the urban explosion of the Early Bronze Age or in the early Middle Bronze Age.     

Two Traditions of Bronze Age Burial in the Stonehenge Landscape

A study of the size of round barrows in relation to their position in the Stonehenge landscape allows us to define two types of mound, here termed 'Conspicuous' and 'Inconspicuous'. Conspicuous barrows are large and prominently located, whilst inconspicuous barrows are smaller and less strikingly placed. Inconspicuous barrows were associated mainly with funerary urns and were constructed throughout the Early and Middle Bronze Ages. Conspicuous barrows contain a wider range of grave goods and were mainly built in the later part of the Early Bronze Age. The Conspicuous barrows were impressive features of the prehistoric landscape and may have been built there because of the long-established significance of some of the local monuments, including Stonehenge itself. They contain exotic grave goods and could have been the burial places of a wider population. By contrast, the Inconspicuous barrows appear to be associated with settlement areas. They contain a range of ceramic grave goods which extend throughout the Early and Middle Bronze Ages and may have been built by the people who were living in the area. The latter tradition is the longer lived and retained its importance into the Middle Bronze Age when more conspicuous mounds were no longer built.     

The Afterlife of Monuments in the English Peak District: The Evidence of Early Bronze Age Burials

This research is an investigation of the locations of Late Neolithic and Early Bronze Age round barrows in the Peak District. The work involved close examination of the barrows present around two earlier monuments: the Long Low bank barrow and the henge at Arbor Low. Using a Geographic Information System, it considered the densities of the barrows around these focal monuments, inter‐visibility between the sites, and the distribution of distinctive artefacts in the surrounding area. The results raise important questions about the role of memory in the past.     

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.     

Bronze Age Barrows: Factors Influencing Their Survival and Destruction

This paper analyses the influences on the survival of Bronze Age round barrows in two regions of southern Britain, the Upper Thames Valley and the Stonehenge Environs. It is clear that persistent arable farming in the medieval period had a highly destructive effect on these burial mounds. This can be seen despite later agricultural activity. Other factors such as the type of barrows can also be important factors in the survival and destruction of these burial mounds. Nevertheless, when analysing the distribution of these Bronze Age monuments, later historic land use must be considered as well as the contemporary prehistoric landscape.     

Correlating archaeological and palaeoenvironmental records using a Bayesian approach: a case study from Sutton Common,South Yorkshire,England

This paper presents a case study aimed at correlating archaeological ‘events’ (obtained from radiocarbon measurements and dendrochronology) from the site of Sutton Common with a radiocarbon-dated pollen sequence obtained from a palaeochannel deposit adjacent to the area of the main archaeological activity. It demonstrates the use of a Bayesian approach to quantifying whether the timing of palynological ‘events’ interpreted as reflecting anthropogenic impacts are likely to be associated with archaeological ‘events’. The results suggest that Bronze Age activity in the form of a mortuary enclosure and associated cremation burials are probably not contemporary with the palynological evidence for disturbance to the oak–hazel woodland in this period. Subsequent evidence for local woodland clearance and agriculture is estimated to precede the construction of the large Iron Age enclosure in 372 BC, with increases in ‘anthropogenic indicators’ following this ‘event’. The construction of the site does not appear to have had a pronounced impact on the local vegetation, with hazel the only woody taxon to show clear reductions. Despite the use of a substantial number of oak timbers in the enclosure palisade, percentages of oak remain remarkably stable. Later farming activity on the site probably post-dates the end of activity in the enclosures. The value of the methodology is discussed in relation to quantifiable and robust correlations of archaeological and palaeoenvironmental narratives of landscape and human activity.     

HEROIC TIME: MONUMENTS AND THE PAST IN MESSENIA, SOUTHWEST GREECE

The archaeological structure of a landscape in terms of the history of settlement and burial in a particular locale through time, together with the construction, development and importance of the monuments placed within it, has become a feature of recent landscape archaeology in the study of Neolithic and Bronze Age Britain. The present paper introduces some of these themes into the study of the Messenia, southwest Greece, approaching two main problems. First, how the location chosen for the Late Bronze Age Palace of Nestor related to earlier patterns of habitation of the Middle Helladic period (an issue hitherto ignored by previous 'period-specific'studies) and, secondly, the later relevance of the Bronze Age landscape in the Iron Age when issues such as the 'Past'and 'History'came to be of great significance in Messenia.     

The Bronze Age landscape of the Bjäre peninsula,southern Sweden,and its relationship to burial mounds

Palaeoecological analyses from a small fen deposit, combined with pollen analysis from buried soil profiles under prehistoric burial mounds, have been used to investigate the timing and vegetation change associated with the Holocene development of a cultural landscape in southern Sweden. Traditional pollen analysis is complemented with plant macrofossil analysis and soil pollen analysis from within and in close proximity to the burial mounds in the coastal Bjäre peninsula, well known for its high density of well-preserved Bronze Age monuments. The vegetation development is linked to the construction of the burial mounds. A marked increase of cultural impact on the landscape is recorded during the Neolithic–Bronze Age transition and estimates of landscape openness suggest that by the onset of the Bronze Age, forest cover was only 20–40%, falling to 10% in the immediate vicinity of the burial mounds themselves. The coastal strip appears to have been affected by human activity to a greater extent and at an earlier date than sites from further inland in southern Sweden and the Bronze Age burial mounds were most likely designed to be visible in a largely deforested landscape.     

Historical context and chronology of Bronze Age land enclosure on Dartmoor,UK

The upland of Dartmoor, southwest England, is one of the flagship prehistoric landscapes within Britain owing to the excellent survival of extensive prehistoric coaxial field systems. Archaeological surveys and rescue excavations during the 1970s and 1980s did much to further the understanding of this landscape; however, much remains to be explored, in particular the chronology of enclosure, the nature of the pre-enclosure landscape and the relationship between Bronze Age communities and their environment. Reconsideration of this landscape is important, given the place it holds in our understanding of subdivision of the landscape across northwest Europe during prehistory. This paper presents new palaeoecological data recovered as part of an integrated archaeological and palaeoecological project on northeast Dartmoor. The sequences detailed here include the first dated Neolithic period palaeoenvironmental data from within the prehistoric enclosed land on the moor, providing a longer-term context for enclosure. Neolithic groups are implicated in the first establishment of heathland in the study area at around 3630–3370 cal BC. During the early Bronze Age, reestablishment of hazel scrub in the study area implies reduced use of the upland, although it is not clear whether this is local or indicative of the wider landscape. A combination of pollen and fungal spore data indicates a substantial shift to species-rich grassland with grazing animals at c.1480 cal BC in a phase that lasted 400 years. The later Bronze Age and early Iron Age are characterised by low intensity use of the upland. These data provide new chronological data for land cover change on Dartmoor and whilst they broadly confirm existing models of upland land use in later prehistory, their proximity to the standing archaeology affords a more nuanced interpretation of local change.     

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.     

A Bronze Age Round Barrow Cemetery,Pit Alignments,Iron Age Burials,Iron Age Copper Working,and Later Activity at Four Crosses,Llandysilio, Powys

Excavation undertaken at the Upper Severn valley round barrow cemetery at Four Crosses, Llandysilio, Powys, between 2004 and 2006 has increased the known barrows and ring ditches to some twenty-seven monuments within this complex, and revealed additional burials. Based on limited dating evidence, and the data from earlier excavations, the majority of the barrows are thought to be constructed in the Bronze Age. The barrows are considered part of a larger linear cemetery. The landscape setting and wider significance of this linear barrow cemetery are explored within this report. Dating suggests two barrows were later, Iron Age additions. The excavation also investigated Iron Age and undated pit alignments, Middle Iron Age copper working and a small Romano-British inhumation cemetery and field systems. Much of this evidence reflects the continuing importance of the site for ritual and funerary activity.     

Mongolian Deer Stones,European Menhirs,and Canadian Arctic Inuksuit: Collective Memory and the Function of Northern Monument Traditions

Northern peoples and those living in the Arctic and environments with broad vistas created cultural landscapes with distinctive monument traditions that supported their cultural and political systems. This paper explores three societies in different geographic regions and time periods during the past 10,000 years that used stone monuments to humanize their landscapes and invoke or honor gods or spirits, mythological ancestors, or deceased leaders. Canadian and Greenland Inuit and their predecessors of the past thousand years marked their lands with abstract human figures known as Inuksuit; Neolithic and Bronze Age Europeans built megaliths, henges, and passage graves; and Mongolian Bronze Age nomadic pastoralists populated the central Asian steppe with burial mounds (khirigsuurs) and anthropomorphic deer stone monuments. Each tradition contributed in different ways to shape and perpetuate the society’s values by invoking spirits, ancestors, or heroic leaders. The enduring presence of these creations reinforced cultural or ethnic identity through ritual, group ceremonialism, landscape values, communal enterprise and labor, and collective memory. This paper identifies commonalities and differences between these traditions and how they functioned. We also see how successive societies perpetuate, change, reinterpret, or invent new uses and meanings for ancient monuments and their landscape settings to create new ethnicities and histories for their own times.     

Lambs to the Slaughter: A Zooarchaeological Investigation of Stone Circles in Mongolia

Stone circles are a common monumental feature of the Mongolian Bronze Age (c. 1500–800BC), frequently occurring in association with other monument types, especially khirigsuurs. Until now the content of the stone circles has not been identified, a fact which has hampered our understanding not only of khirigsuurs and their related cosmology but also of the contemporary economy, owing to a research paradigm that was monument‐focused until very recently. The identification of domestic bovids in these features thus has profound implications for our approach to studying the society of this period and region. These implications, including a well‐developed cosmology and economy which included the ritual sacrifice of at least three different kinds of livestock, are introduced here. Copyright © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Osteological and paleodietary investigation of burials from Cova de la Pastora,Alicante, Spain

We present results of osteological and isotopic analyses of human remains from Cova de la Pastora (Alcoi, Alicante, Spain) and discuss the implications in light of a new sequence of radiocarbon dates indicating that the cave was used as a burial site in the Late Neolithic (ca. 3800–3000 cal BC), Chalcolithic (ca. 3000–2500 cal BC), Bell Beaker Transition (Horizonte Campaniforme Transicional - HCT; ca. 2500–2200 cal BC) and the Bronze Age (ca. 2200–1500 cal BC). Similarities in stable isotopic values of C and N indicate little variation in subsistence between men and women, and a similar nutritional base from the Late Neolithic to the Bronze Age. This pattern of stability is augmented by evidence of trauma and disease found on numerous skulls in the collection. Since no clear associations of specific grave goods with certain individuals based on sex or age could be determined, the only suggestion of social inequality lies in the burial practice itself, where certain individuals were interred in caves while others were not.     

BRONZE AGE BARROWS ON THE HEATHLANDS OF SOUTHERN ENGLAND: CONSTRUCTION, FORMS AND INTERPRETATIONS

The Bronze Age barrows on the downs of southern England have been investigated and discussed for nearly 200 years, but much less attention has been paid to similar structures in the areas of heathland beyond the chalk and river gravels. They were built in a phase of expansion towards the end of the Early Bronze Age, and more were constructed during the Middle Bronze Age. They have a number of distinctive characteristics. This paper considers the interpretation of these monuments and their wider significance in relation to the pattern of settlement. It also discusses the origins of field systems in lowland England.     

Loose Howe; A North Yorkshire Log Coffin Boat Burial(s) Revisited

In 1937 a large barrow in north‐east Yorkshire was excavated by Mrs H. W. and Dr F. Elgee. A primary deposit comprising a ‘canoe’‐shaped log coffin and what were described as two ‘log boats’ or ‘canoes’ was uncovered beneath the mound. The burial did not survive; however, the ‘canoe’‐shaped coffin was found to contain an Early Bronze Age Merthyr Mawr‐type dagger, flints and some hazelnuts. Subsequently, a cremation was inserted into the top of the mound. This was accompanied by a Camerton‐Snowshill‐type dagger, a stone battle axe, a copper alloy pin, an accessory vessel and fragments from a Collared Urn. As part of a log coffin radiocarbon‐dating project, one of the hazelnuts was radiocarbon‐dated to 2008–1772 cal BC (95.4%) and a fragment of cremated bone from the secondary burial was dated to 1890–1741 cal BC (93.2%). This paper discusses the dating results and reconsiders the interpretation of the log coffin as a boat.     

Bigberry Camp,Harbledown, Kent

Despite containing one of the largest stone and timber circles in Britain, the Late Neolithic monument complex at Stanton Drew, Somerset, has seen surprisingly little archaeological work. This paper presents the results of new fieldwork, which included excavation around a recently discovered recumbent stone, test-pitting on the floodplain of the River Chew and fieldwalking close to the monuments. The excavations revealed that the recumbent stone had been deliberately buried in the medieval period and also uncovered other archaeology of this date. The test-pitting exposed thick deposits of alluvium and from this it is argued that the landscape has changed dramatically since the monuments were constructed. The fieldwalking revealed a relatively low density of lithics which may indicate that activities around the monuments were carefully controlled. Also considered is the siting of the Stanton Drew monuments and their intimate relationship with the River Chew.