scholarly journals The population genomics of archaeological transition in west Iberia: Investigation of ancient substructure using imputation and haplotype-based methods

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Rui Martiniano ◽  
Lara M Cassidy ◽  
Ros Ó’Maoldúin ◽  
Russell McLaughlin ◽  
Nuno M Silva ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Material Culture ◽  
Bronze Age ◽  
Population Genomics ◽  
Significant Degree ◽  
Cultural Transformation ◽  
Northern Europe ◽  
Genetic Impact ◽  
Transition To Agriculture ◽  
Local Hunter ◽  
The Bronze Age

AbstractWe analyse new genomic data (0.05-2.95x) from 14 ancient individuals from Portugal distributed from the Middle Neolithic (4200-3500 BC) to the Middle Bronze Age (1740-1430 BC) and impute genomewide diploid genotypes in these together with published ancient Eurasians. While discontinuity is evident in the transition to agriculture across the region, sensitive haplotype-based analyses suggest a significant degree of local hunter-gatherer contribution to later Iberian Neolithic populations. A more subtle genetic influx is also apparent in the Bronze Age, detectable from analyses including haplotype sharing with both ancient and modern genomes, D-statistics and Y-chromosome lineages. However, the limited nature of this introgression contrasts with the major Steppe migration turnovers within third Millennium northern Europe and echoes the survival of non-Indo-European language in Iberia. Changes in genomic estimates of individual height across Europe are also associated with these major cultural transitions, and ancestral components continue to correlate with modern differences in stature.Author SummaryRecent ancient DNA work has demonstrated the significant genetic impact of mass migrations from the Steppe into Central and Northern Europe during the transition from the Neolithic to the Bronze Age. In Iberia, archaeological change at the level of material culture and funerary rituals has been reported during this period, however, the genetic impact associated with this cultural transformation has not yet been estimated. In order to investigate this, we sequence Neolithic and Bronze Age samples from Portugal, which we compare to other ancient and present-day individuals. Genome-wide imputation of a large dataset of ancient samples enabled sensitive methods for detecting population structure and selection in ancient samples. We revealed subtle genetic differentiation between the Portuguese Neolithic and Bronze Age samples suggesting a markedly reduced influx in Iberia compared to other European regions. Furthermore, we predict individual height in ancients, suggesting that stature was reduced in the Neolithic and affected by subsequent admixtures. Lastly, we examine signatures of strong selection in important traits and the timing of their origins.

British Decorated Axes and their Diffusion during the Earlier Part of the Bronze Age

1938 ◽  
Vol 4 (2) ◽  
pp. 272-307 ◽  
Author(s):  
B. R. S. Megaw ◽  
E. M. Hardy
Keyword(s):  
Material Culture ◽  
Bronze Age ◽  
Special Consideration ◽  
Northern Europe ◽  
British Isles ◽  
Limited Extent ◽  
Exhaustive Study ◽  
The Bronze Age

It is intended in this paper to describe briefly the occurrence and, to a limited extent, the variety of ornamented metal axes belonging to the earlier part of the British and Irish Bronze Age, rather than to publish the results of an exhaustive study, such as the present writers have had no opportunity of making. The present aim is to indicate in a general way the importance of these axes in the material culture of our Bronze Age, and that of Western and Northern Europe. The objects themselves have been well discussed up to a point by Wilde (51) and Evans (23), but without special consideration of the significance of their distribution and associations.These ornamented axes, which are of the ‘flat’ or ‘flanged’ type, are apparently all of bronze. Some analyses have been made (3, 27, 42), but without spectrographic examination (48) it is difficult to draw any definite conclusions as to the source of the ores used or the place of manufacture. Open moulds for casting axes of the ‘flat’ form (e.g. pl. LIII, c, d) have been found in various parts of the British Isles, and their distribution is discussed on page 287.

The Political Machine

2015 ◽  
Author(s):  
Adam T. Smith
Keyword(s):  
Material Culture ◽  
Bronze Age ◽  
Small Scale ◽  
Mortuary Ritual ◽  
Contemporary World ◽  
Organized Violence ◽  
Political Sovereignty ◽  
Political Machine ◽  
Material Goods ◽  
The Bronze Age

This book investigates the essential role that material culture plays in the practices and maintenance of political sovereignty. Through an archaeological exploration of the Bronze Age Caucasus, the book demonstrates that beyond assemblies of people, polities are just as importantly assemblages of things—from ballots and bullets to crowns, regalia, and licenses. The book looks at the ways that these assemblages help to forge cohesive publics, separate sovereigns from a wider social mass, and formalize governance—and it considers how these developments continue to shape politics today. The book shows that the formation of polities is as much about the process of manufacturing assemblages as it is about disciplining subjects, and that these material objects or “machines” sustain communities, orders, and institutions. The sensibilities, senses, and sentiments connecting people to things enabled political authority during the Bronze Age and fortifies political power even in the contemporary world. The book provides a detailed account of the transformation of communities in the Caucasus, from small-scale early Bronze Age villages committed to egalitarianism, to Late Bronze Age polities predicated on radical inequality, organized violence, and a centralized apparatus of rule. From Bronze Age traditions of mortuary ritual and divination to current controversies over flag pins and Predator drones, this book sheds new light on how material goods authorize and defend political order.

Cultural change and population dynamics during the Bronze Age: Integrating archaeological and palaeoenvironmental evidence for Schleswig-Holstein, Northern Germany

The Holocene ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 29 (10) ◽  
pp. 1607-1621 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jutta Kneisel ◽  
Walter Dörfler ◽  
Stefan Dreibrodt ◽  
Stefanie Schaefer-Di Maida ◽  
Ingo Feeser
Keyword(s):  
Population Dynamics ◽  
Material Culture ◽  
Bronze Age ◽  
Cultural Change ◽  
Food Production ◽  
Quantitative Information ◽  
Northern Germany ◽  
Social Phenomena ◽  
Boom And Bust ◽  
The Bronze Age

In archaeology, change in material culture is viewed as indicating social or cultural transformation and is the basis of our typo-chronological classification of phases and periods. The material culture from northern Germany reveals both quantitative and qualitative changes during the Bronze Age. At the same time, there is also evidence for ‘boom and bust’ cycles in population density/size, as indicated by changing human impact on the environment in several Bronze Age palaeoenvironmental records. These demographic fluctuations may relate to the observed changes in social phenomena in aspects of ideology, technology, food production and habitation. For example, innovations in food production, such as the adoption of new crops and agricultural techniques, could have led to population growth. While usually viewed by archaeologists as a ‘negative’ development, population stress or collapse may have favoured the emergence of new cultural phenomena. In order to test the cause-and-effect relationship between population dynamics and sociocultural change, we synthesise the archaeological evidence – qualitative and quantitative information from settlements, deposition finds (hoards), burials, material culture and architectural remains – for the Bronze Age in northern Germany, mainly Schleswig-Holstein, and compare it with the boom and bust pattern seen in the palaeoenvironmental record. The synchronicity of changes at ca. 1500 BC and ca. 1100 BC reflects the relationship between phases of major sociocultural transformation in the archaeological datasets and booms and busts in the palaeoenvironmental record of the region seen as a proxies for palaeo-demography. This sets the stage for a better understanding of the transformation of practices and relationships in the Bronze Age communities of the region.

scholarly journals Non-discursive Knowledge and the Construction of Identity Potters, Potting and Performance at the Bronze Age Tell of Százhalombatta, Hungary

2009 ◽  
Vol 19 (2) ◽  
pp. 203-220 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sandy Budden ◽  
Joanna Sofaer
Keyword(s):  
Material Culture ◽  
Bronze Age ◽  
Social Categories ◽  
Social Sphere ◽  
Construction Of Identity ◽  
Differential Acquisition ◽  
The Social ◽  
And Performance ◽  
The Bronze Age

This article explores the relationship between the making of things and the making of people at the Bronze Age tell at Százhalombatta, Hungary. Focusing on potters and potting, we explore how the performance of non-discursive knowledge was critical to the construction of social categories. Potters literally came into being as potters through repeated bodily enactment of potting skills. Potters also gained their identity in the social sphere through the connection between their potting performance and their audience. We trace degrees of skill in the ceramic record to reveal the material articulation of non-discursive knowledge and consider the ramifications of the differential acquisition of non-discursive knowledge for the expression of different kinds of potter's identities. The creation of potters as a social category was essential to the ongoing creation of specific forms of material culture. We examine the implications of altered potters' performances and the role of non-discursive knowledge in the construction of social models of the Bronze Age.

scholarly journals Dogs accompanied humans during the Neolithic expansion into Europe

2018 ◽  
Vol 14 (10) ◽  
pp. 20180286 ◽  
Author(s):  
Morgane Ollivier ◽  
Anne Tresset ◽  
Laurent A. F. Frantz ◽  
Stéphanie Bréhard ◽  
Adrian Bălăşescu ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Bronze Age ◽  
Dna Sequences ◽  
Near East ◽  
Northern Europe ◽  
Southeastern Europe ◽  
Mitochondrial Lineage ◽  
Domestic Species ◽  
Near Eastern ◽  
Neolithic Expansion ◽  
The Bronze Age

Near Eastern Neolithic farmers introduced several species of domestic plants and animals as they dispersed into Europe. Dogs were the only domestic species present in both Europe and the Near East prior to the Neolithic. Here, we assessed whether early Near Eastern dogs possessed a unique mitochondrial lineage that differentiated them from Mesolithic European populations. We then analysed mitochondrial DNA sequences from 99 ancient European and Near Eastern dogs spanning the Upper Palaeolithic to the Bronze Age to assess if incoming farmers brought Near Eastern dogs with them, or instead primarily adopted indigenous European dogs after they arrived. Our results show that European pre-Neolithic dogs all possessed the mitochondrial haplogroup C, and that the Neolithic and Post-Neolithic dogs associated with farmers from Southeastern Europe mainly possessed haplogroup D. Thus, the appearance of haplogroup D most probably resulted from the dissemination of dogs from the Near East into Europe. In Western and Northern Europe, the turnover is incomplete and haplogroup C persists well into the Chalcolithic at least. These results suggest that dogs were an integral component of the Neolithic farming package and a mitochondrial lineage associated with the Near East was introduced into Europe alongside pigs, cows, sheep and goats. It got diluted into the native dog population when reaching the Western and Northern margins of Europe.

scholarly journals New evidence for prehistoric copper metallurgy in the vicinity of Bor

Starinar ◽  
2016 ◽  
pp. 173-191
Author(s):  
Aleksandar Kapuran ◽  
Dragana Zivkovic ◽  
Nada Strbac
Keyword(s):  
Material Culture ◽  
Bronze Age ◽  
Iron Age ◽  
Copper Ore ◽  
North Eastern ◽  
Metallurgical Furnaces ◽  
Copper Metallurgy ◽  
New Evidence ◽  
The Bronze Age

The last three years of archaeological investigations at the site Ru`ana in Banjsko Polje, in the immediate vicinity of Bor, have provided new evidence regarding the role of non-ferrous metallurgy in the economy of the prehistoric communities of north-eastern Serbia. The remains of metallurgical furnaces and a large amount of metallic slags at two neighbouring sites in the mentioned settlement reveal that locations with many installations for the thermal processing of copper ore existed in the Bronze Age. We believe, judging by the finds of material culture, that metallurgical activities in this area also continued into the Iron Age and, possibly, into the 4th century AD.

scholarly journals Aegean diffusions - Diffusions of power: Cultural connections between Minoan Crete and Pharaonic Egypt

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
◽  
Vinko Kerr-Harris
Keyword(s):  
Material Culture ◽  
Bronze Age ◽  
Eastern Mediterranean ◽  
Archaeological Record ◽  
The People ◽  
Minoan Crete ◽  
Cultural Connections ◽  
Economic Nature ◽  
The Bronze Age

<p>The development of Minoan society has traditionally been considered by scholars to have been an insular phenomenon unique to the southern Aegean. Such assumptions, however, fail to acknowledge the wider context of the Bronze Age in the Eastern Mediterranean. Contact between the people of Crete and their contemporaries in Egypt and the Levant is well attested in the archaeological record, with a plethora of artefacts – imported and imitation – appearing on both sides of the Libyan Sea. Whilst investigations into the economic nature of these exchanges have been undertaken, little thought has been given to the cultural consequences of inter-regional contacts. This thesis examines the evolution of palatial society upon Crete and considers the extent to which interactions with comparatively more mature civilisations may have influenced the increasingly hierarchal trajectory of Minoan society, by re-evaluating the corpus of material culture and interconnectivity.</p>

North European Rock Art

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Joakim Goldhahn
Keyword(s):  
Bronze Age ◽  
Iron Age ◽  
Rock Art ◽  
Northern Europe ◽  
Long Distance ◽  
Migration Period ◽  
Farming Communities ◽  
And Migration ◽  
The Bronze Age

This chapter offers a long-term perspective on rock art in northern Europe. It first provides an overview of research on the rock art traditions of northern Europe before discussing the societies and cultures that created such traditions. It then considers examples of rock art made by hunter-gatherer societies in northern Europe, focusing on the first rock art boom related to Neolithization. It also examines the second rock art boom, which was associated with social and religious changes within farming communities that took place around 1600–1400 bc. The chapter concludes by analysing the breakdown of long-distance networks in the transition from the Bronze Age to the Iron Age and its consequences for the making of rock art within the southern traditions, as well as the use of rock art sites during the Pre-Roman Iron Age, Roman Iron Age, and Migration Period.

SOME COMMENTS ABOUT THE INFLUENCE OXUS CIVILIZATION IN THEARABIAN GULF

2021 ◽  
Vol 4 (10) ◽  
pp. 97-103
Author(s):  
Khayitmurod Khurramov ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Material Culture ◽  
Bronze Age ◽  
Arabian Gulf ◽  
Cultural Relations ◽  
Unique Material ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Bronze Age ◽  
Shed Light ◽  
Written Sources ◽  
Marine Shell

It is known that the Oxus civilization in the Bronze Age, with its unique material culture, interacted with a number of cultural countries: the Indian Valley, Iran, Mesopotamia, Elam and other regions. As a result of these relationships, interactions and interactions are formed. Archaeologists turn to archaeological and written sources to shed light on the historiography of this period. This research is devoted to the history of cultural relations between the Oxus civilization and the countries of the Arabian Gulf in the Bronze Age. The article highlights cultural ties based on an analysis of stamp seals and unique artifacts.Key words: Dilmun, Magan, marine shell, Arabian Gulf, Bahrain, Mesopotamia, Harappa, Gonur, Afghanistan

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