Lydenburg Revisited: Another Look at the Mpumalanga Early Iron Age Sequence

1996 ◽  
Vol 51 (164) ◽  
pp. 75 ◽  
Author(s):  
Gavin Whitelaw
Keyword(s):  
Iron Age ◽  
Early Iron Age ◽  
Age Sequence

The Prehistoric Sequence at Nakapapula Rockshelter, Zambia

1970 ◽  
Vol 35 ◽  
pp. 172-202 ◽  
Author(s):  
D. W. Phillipson
Keyword(s):  
Iron Age ◽  
Central Africa ◽  
Archaeological Sites ◽  
Early Iron Age ◽  
Stone Age ◽  
Hunter Gatherers ◽  
Late Stone Age ◽  
Age Sequence ◽  
Relationship Of ◽  
The Relationship

Considerable attention has recently been paid to the start of the Iron Age in East and Central Africa. One of the most interesting problems concerning this period is that of the relationship of the Early Iron Age farming people to the hunter-gatherers of the Late Stone Age whom they eventually displaced. Very few archaeological sites are known, and none have yet been published, which illustrate the Late Stone Age/Iron Age transition in Central Africa, and discussions of this and related problems have so far been largely based on conjecture. Evidence concerning this important transition was recently unearthed at Nakapapula rockshelter in the Serenje District of central Zambia. Here a long and relatively homogeneous Late Stone Age sequence of Nachikufan type was seen to continue into the 2nd millennium A.D., that is, well after the first appearance of Early Iron Age pottery at this site and elsewhere in Zambia. Nakapapula has also yielded the first archaeological evidence for the date of schematic rock art in Central Africa and confirmed its contemporaneity with the Early Iron Age.

The Iron Age Sequence South of the Vaal and Pongola Rivers: some Historical Implications

1980 ◽  
Vol 21 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-15 ◽  
Author(s):  
Tim Maggs
Keyword(s):  
Iron Age ◽  
Coastal Plain ◽  
Ecological Factors ◽  
Early Iron Age ◽  
Site Location ◽  
Dense Population ◽  
Economic Changes ◽  
Age Sequence ◽  
Insight Into ◽  
Selective Pattern

The region south of the Vaal and Pongola rivers, being the southernmost on the continent to be settled by Bantu-speaking, Iron Age communities, is important in understanding the spread of these societies. Until recently, archaeological discussion has mostly been based on Schofield's work of the 1930s and 1940s, which is here shown to be substantially incorrect, and an outline of the new sequence is given.New work on the Early Iron Age in Natal is sufficiently advanced to demonstrate a highly selective pattern of site location which, together with what we know of the economy, gives us some insight into the ecology of these communities. This enables us to estimate the limits of distribution in areas where there has been less archaeological exploration. It also indicates that ecological factors are significant in the rapid initial spread of the Early Iron Age.The beginning of the Later Iron Age in this region is characterized not only by an abrupt change in ceramic styles but by other cultural and perhaps economic changes involving site location, architecture and aspects of technology. The most striking single factor is the expansion, beyond the coastal plain and wooded valleys of the Early Iron Age, into much of the interior grasslands. By at least the seventeenth century a dense population was established in many of these areas and their settlements can often be correlated with historically known groups on the basis of oral and ethnological links.

Archaeological Investigations at Mavis Grind, Shetland

1983 ◽  
Vol 10 (1) ◽  
pp. 13-39 ◽  
Author(s):  
Stephen Cracknell ◽  
Beverley Smith
Keyword(s):  
Iron Age ◽  
Early Iron Age ◽  
Second Phase ◽  
Field System ◽  
M 10 ◽  
Settlement Site

Summary The excavations revealed a stone house and showed that it was oval, 13 m × 10 m, with an interior about 7 m in diameter. In the first occupation phase the entrance was on the SE side. During the second phase this entrance was replaced with one to the NE and the interior was partitioned. The roof was supported on wooden posts. After the building was abandoned it was covered with peat-ash which was subsequently ploughed. There were numerous finds of steatite-tempered pottery and stone implements, which dated the site to late Bronze/early Iron Age. The second settlement, Site B, lay by the shore of the voe and consisted of two possible stone-built houses and a field system. Two trenches were dug across the structures and the results are reported in Appendix I. Although damaged in recent years it was in no further danger.

Trees and shrubs in the sanctuary. Wood charcoal analysis at the Sanctuary of Poseidon at Kalaureia, Poros

2019 ◽  
pp. 255-269 ◽  
Author(s):  
Maria Ntinou
Keyword(s):  
Iron Age ◽  
Economic Activity ◽  
Wood Charcoal ◽  
Early Iron Age ◽  
Hellenistic Period ◽  
Charcoal Analysis ◽  
Additional Source ◽  
Olive Cultivation ◽  
Trees And Shrubs ◽  
By Products

Wood charcoal analysis at the Sanctuary of Poseidon at Kalaureia, Poros aims to provide information on the vegetation of the area and its management and on the range of plants used in the activities taking place at the sanctuary. During the excavations of 2003–2005 in Areas D and C, systematic samples from fills and features from all the excavated strata were recovered and water flotation was used for the separation of wood charcoal from the sediment. Wood charcoal was found in two pits dated to the Early Iron Age, near the supposed altar of the Archaic period (Feature 05), in a deposit of the Hellenistic period (the “dining deposit”), in floor deposits (Early Iron Age and Late Classical/Early Hellenistic periods), and fills of different chrono-cultural periods (Archaic–Early Roman). All the taxa identified in the wood charcoal assemblages are thermophilous Mediterranean elements, most of them evergreen broad-leaved. The assemblages show that the most frequent taxon is the olive, followed by the prickly oak, the Fabaceae, and the heather. In most assemblages mock privet/buckthorn, strawberry tree, the pear and Prunus family species are present, while Aleppo pine, lentisc, the fig, and the carob trees are less frequent. Olive cultivation was an important economic activity during the whole life of the sanctuary and probably olive pruning constantly provided the sanctuary with fuel. The woodland would be the additional source of firewood for the sanctuary’s needs for fuel for mundane activities such as heating and cooking, for more formal ones, such as sacrifice, but also for industrial activities such as tile firing. Activities related to the reorganization of space and the expansion of the sanctuary may be reflected in charcoal of carpentry by-products as the fir, cypress, and maybe pine remains.

The bronze headbands of Prehistoric Lofkënd and their Aegean and Balkan connections

2010 ◽  
Vol 3 ◽  
pp. 33-54 ◽  
Author(s):  
John K. Papadopoulos
Keyword(s):  
Bronze Age ◽  
Iron Age ◽  
Early Period ◽  
Early Bronze Age ◽  
Early Iron Age ◽  
Southeast Europe ◽  
Young Females ◽  
The Many ◽  
Votive Offerings

This paper begins with an overview of the bronze headbands from the prehistoric (Late Bronze to Early Iron Age) burial tumulus of Lofkënd in Albania, which were found among the richest tombs of the cemetery, all of them of young females or children. It is argued that these individuals represent a class of the special dead, those who have not attained a critical rite de passage: marriage. In their funerary attire these individuals go to the grave as brides, married to death. The significance of the Lofkënd headbands is reviewed, as is their shape and decoration, but it is their context that contributes to a better understanding of Aegean examples, including the many bronze, gold, and silver headbands found in tombs from the Early Bronze Age through the Early Iron Age, as well as those dedicated as votive offerings in sanctuaries. In addition to discussing the evidence for headbands in the Aegean and much of southeast Europe, this paper also attempts to uncover the word used in this early period in Greece for these distinctive items of personal ornament. In memory of Berit Wells.

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