scholarly journals Within small things. Reflections on techno-social boundaries between prehistory and recent past during a Lebanese fieldwork

2020 ◽  
pp. 7-20
Author(s):  
Johnny Samuele Baldi
Keyword(s):  
Material Culture ◽  
Bronze Age ◽  
Food Storage ◽  
Social Boundaries ◽  
Late Prehistoric ◽  
Recent Past ◽  
Lebanese Civil War ◽  
Recent Case Study ◽  
Small Things ◽  
The Village

The village of Qleiaat, in the Mount Lebanon, has recently been the centre of archaeological activities aimed at studying late prehistoric and Early Bronze Age vestiges. But from the very beginning this research has also tried to investigate with purely archaeological means the remains of the recent past of the village, especially the pithoi used in the 19th-20th centuries for food storage, and the ruins left by violent clashes that took place in Qleiaat at the end of the Lebanese civil war. Through a reflection on the possibility of reconstructing physical frontiers starting from the archaeology of fossil techniques, this paper applies to a recent case-study an approach used until now only for prehistoric material culture. The aim is to recognize the frontier between the militias having clashed in Qleiaat in 1988-1990 on the basis of the chaînes opératoires of the pithoi.

scholarly journals A Quarried Excavation Site : Late Bronze Age Relics Unearthed in a Gravel Pit near Muhi

2021 ◽  
Vol 10 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-10
Author(s):  
Norbert Berta ◽  
Zoltán Farkas
Keyword(s):  
Material Culture ◽  
Bronze Age ◽  
Iron Age ◽  
Late Bronze Age ◽  
Long Distance ◽  
Gravel Pit ◽  
New Information ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Village ◽  
Excavation Site

East of the village of Muhi, in the direction of Nyékládháza, there are huge gravel pits, many of which have already been abandoned, flooded, and transformed into popular modern resorts. Recently, new gravel extraction sites have also been opened, and so a rescue excavation of the Muhi-III kavicsbánya (gravel pit) site took place in 2019. After months of excavation, the artifacts are still in the process of being cleaned and restored, and so until this work is complete, it is only possible to outline a brief overview of the important and remarkable finds. Features have been excavated from several periods (Middle Neolithic, Late Bronze Age, and Early Iron Age), but the most significant ones are those from the Late Bronze Age. These finds reveal information about a place of intensive human activity, a settlement on the border of different European cultural zones that participated in long-distance trade. These influences are reflected in varied elements of material culture. The large quantities of metal and ceramic finds brought to light in various conditions can be dated to the so-called pre-Gava period based on finds from the major features (urn graves, vessel hoards), and thus provide new information on the Late Bronze Age history of the Sajó-Hernád plain.

BMH2 and the Iron Age Northern Coastal Oman in Light of 2014–2015 Excavation Seasons

2016 ◽  
Vol 76 (1-2) ◽  
pp. 201-245
Author(s):  
Romolo Loreto
Keyword(s):  
Material Culture ◽  
Bronze Age ◽  
Iron Age ◽  
Early Iron Age ◽  
Local Society ◽  
Late Iron Age ◽  
Long Time ◽  
Field Season ◽  
Coastal Exploitation ◽  
The Village

After 2014–2015 field season BMH2 is going to assume a more defined profile within the Iron Age of Southeast Arabia. According to the material culture the village was at its best during the Early Iron Age ii, between 1100–600 bce. During this long time span a complex local society took place thanks to coastal exploitation, agricultural activities and trade. Nonetheless, the transitional periods between the Bronze Age and the Early Iron Age i as well as the end of the Early Iron Age and the beginning of the Late Iron Age should be the objects of future excavations.

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.

The Story of Storyboards from East Sepik, Papua New Guinea

2019 ◽  
Vol 40 (1) ◽  
pp. 59-74
Author(s):  
Martin Soukup ◽  
Dušan Lužný
Keyword(s):  
Material Culture ◽  
Daily Life ◽  
Field Research ◽  
New Guinea ◽  
Colonial Period ◽  
Cultural Continuity ◽  
Cultural Changes ◽  
Post Colonial ◽  
Global Tourism ◽  
The Village

This study analyzes and interprets East Sepik storyboards, which the authors regard as a form of cultural continuity and instrument of cultural memory in the post-colonial period. The study draws on field research conducted by the authors in the village of Kambot in East Sepik. The authors divide the storyboards into two groups based on content. The first includes storyboards describing daily life in the community, while the other links the daily life to pre-Christian religious beliefs and views. The aim of the study is to analyze one of the forms of contemporary material culture in East Sepik in the context of cultural changes triggered by Christianization, colonial administration in the former Territory of New Guinea and global tourism.

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.

Are Catalans ignoring archaeology?

Antiquity ◽  
2009 ◽  
Vol 83 (321) ◽  
pp. 844-848 ◽  
Author(s):  
N. James
Keyword(s):  
Bronze Age ◽  
Balearic Islands ◽  
Northern Europe ◽  
Late Prehistoric ◽  
Culture Area ◽  
Iberian Culture

So declares the new introduction to the Museum of Archaeology of Catalonia (MAC), in Barcelona. It is too modest. The collection is big. It concentrates on Catalonia and its culture area but there are finds from further afield, notably Bronze Age Argaric material. Extensive space is devoted to the late prehistory of the Balearic Islands, a magnificent collection from the Greek and Roman site of Empúries (Ampurias, ancient Emporium, Emporiae), and to the late prehistoric 'Iberian' culture, including the Tivissa treasure. There is also a good collection of Visigothic material. To the visitor from northern Europe, the museum is a reminder of how much there is to find in a country for so long heavily populated.

From Texts and Iconography to Use-Wear Analysis of Ceramic Vessels

2021 ◽  
Vol 33 (2) ◽  
pp. 185-210
Author(s):  
Bartłomiej Lis ◽  
Trevor Van Damme
Keyword(s):  
Material Culture ◽  
Bronze Age ◽  
Iron Age ◽  
Eastern Mediterranean ◽  
Wear Analysis ◽  
Use Wear ◽  
Long Time ◽  
Ceramic Vessels ◽  
Repeated Use ◽  
Funerary Rites

While handwashing is attested in the Bronze Age cultures of the eastern Mediterranean and appears in both Linear B records and Homeric epics, the custom has not been discussed with regard to the material culture of Mycenaean Greece. On analogy with Egyptian handwashing equipment, we explore the possibility that a conical bowl made of bronze and copied in clay was introduced in Greece early in the Late Bronze Age for this specific use. We integrate epigraphic, iconographic and formal analyses to support this claim, but in order to interrogate the quotidian function of ceramic lekanes, we present the results of use-wear analysis performed on 130 examples. As use-wear develops from repeated use over a long time, it is a good indicator of normative behaviour, particularly when large datasets are amassed and contrasted with other shapes. While not conclusive, our results allow us to rule out a function as tableware for food consumption, and in combination with all other analyses support the interpretation of lekanes as handwashing basins. We then trace the development of this custom from its initial adoption by elite groups to its spread among new social classes and venues after the collapse of the palace system: at home, as part of communal feasting and sacrifice or as an element of funerary rites. The widespread distribution of handwashing equipment after 1200 bc closely mirrors the situation in our earliest surviving Greek Iron Age texts and joins a growing body of evidence pointing to strong continuity in social practices between the Postpalatial period and the early Iron Age in Greece.

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>

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