Early Bronze Age (Other Keyword)
1-10 (10 Records)
Excavated in 1975, the cemetery at the Qijia Culture type-site of Qijiaping in southern Gansu province, China, provides a wealth of data on life and death in Qijia society. Up to this point however, the production and use of the most common type of burial good, ceramic vessels, has never been fully researched. This paper will explore production organization and methods likely used to produce several classes of vessels though statistical analysis of vessel standardization. Ideas of what...
Complex but Equal: Developing an Archaeological Inequality Index to Investigate Social Inequality at the Bronze Age III site of Numayra, Jordan (2016)
The origins, evolution, and variation of inequality comprise a central overarching theme within anthropological archaeology. Various ideas, including hierarchy and heterarchy and their material correlates, have been proffered to explain the origins and impact of inequality on past social, economic, and political organization. Within Economics and Development Studies, various indices and measures, e.g., Gini coefficient, Theil Index, HDI and GDP, and the Consumption Approach have been offered as...
Contacts between Chinese Regional Cultures and Northern Grasslands during the Early Bronze Age: a case study of turquoise-inlaid ornaments (2017)
The turquoise-inlaid bronze plaques with animal motifs excavated from the Erlitou sites are among the most conspicuous artifacts ever discovered in the Culture. This work explores issues regarding the function and origin of these items, which were worn as ornamental objects at the wrists of the deceased at the time of excavation. Through an analysis of the deposition and placement of these artifacts in the graves, it is speculated that this unique artifact type could be traced all the way back...
Evidence of Destruction at the end of the Early Bronze Age III Period at Khirbet Iskander, Jordan:an archaeobotanical perspective (2017)
The Early Bronze Age site of Khirbet Iskander is located on the central plateau, south of Madaba, Jordan. Excavations at the site have focused primarily on the fortified Early Bronze Age III (EBIII) city remains and the transition to the Early Bronze Age IV (EBIV) agricultural settlement. The well-known and much debated collapse or abandonment of the early cities at the end of the EBIII has been documented at many sites in the Levant and is evident at Khirbet Iskander as well. Excavations of...
An Examination of Economic Specialization in the Early Bronze Age City of Tell es-Safi Using Isotopic Analysis of Ovicaprines (2016)
Early urban economies during the Early Bronze Age of the southern Levant are often treated as if they relied upon locally-available food resources that were largely produced at the household level, such as the herding of domestic livestock around the periphery or territory of the city-state. In this paper, we investigate whether the pastoral component of economies was a small-scale local affair or was conducted remotely, which would have involved productive specialists such as nomadic...
Feasting, shared drinking, and social complexity in Early Bronze Age Anatolia (2015)
The Early Bronze Age II-III in Anatolia (2700-2000 BC) is a period of intensifying personal distinction. New tin-bronze metallurgy yields exquisitely crafted jewelry, ceremonial weapons, and drinking vessels, sumptuary activities appropriate to an emerging elite class. Yet it is difficult to characterize the structure of EBA settlements; a lack of writing and sealing practices suggest that there was no central administration. This contrasts with contemporaneous sites in southeastern Turkey and...
Motif and Milieu: Deconstructing the (Re)production of the Kura-Araxes Culture (3500-2400 BC) (2017)
How do material remains – and the imagery that adorns them – inform our understanding of past landscapes? How does knowledge of landscapes enrich our understanding of the objects produced within them? This paper explores the relationship between iconography and environment in the Early Bronze Age Kura-Araxes (3500-2400 BC) culture. The Kura-Araxes was arguably the most widespread archaeological horizon in the ancient Near East, extending from the Caucasus to the Levant to the Zagros Mountains....
Residential Segregation at Köhne Shahar, an Early Bronze Age Settlement in Iranian Azerbaijan (2016)
There are some important differences between modern and ancient urban centers in terms of contextual variables and some social dynamics, however, theoretical frameworks derived from studies on social composition of modern urban centers can provide useful insights into the organizational dynamics of complex societies in the past. Hence, current understanding of the dynamics of residential segregations may enable us to address anthropological and archaeological questions. Our surveys and...
Study on the subsistence of Neolithic and Early Bronze Age China using published mammal records (2017)
This research is based on all published zooarchaeological study on Chinese Neolithic and Early Neolithic sites and mainly focuses on the animal subsistence economy in the same period. With the advent of quantitative analysis, refined models can now be built and analyzed from all the published data. The application of big data studies on animal remains provided information of range and relative importance of taxa and their possible change through time-scale and region which may reflect an ancient...
The Transformation from Complex Village Society to Local Urbanism in the Southern Levant:new observations in light of evidence from the Central Jordan Valley in the Early Bronze Age I-II (2017)
The EBA Southern Levant experienced a dramatic pathway to complexity, creating a small-scale urban society. The transition from EBI to EBII periods was characterized by urbanization processes, in which sweeping changes in social structure, political landscape, and economic networks occurred. While the majority of research centered on the nature of the fully urban society in the region, there is no consensus for the specific mechanics and causes of the emergence of these early towns, and the...