Bronze Age (Other Keyword)
151-175 (333 Records)
This is an abstract from the "The South Caucasus Region: Crossroads of Societies & Polities. An Assessment of Research Perspectives in Post-Soviet Times" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Stable isotope analyses contributing to archaeological research in Anatolia was a relatively late bloomer, beginning in the early 2000s and only gathering pace in the last 5-10 years. Currently research into dietary habits, subsistence practices, and mobility has...
Human-Environment Interactions: The Role of Foragers in the Development of Mobile Pastoralism in Mongolia's Desert-Steppe (2019)
This is an abstract from the "Fifty Years of Fretwell and Lucas: Archaeological Applications of Ideal Distribution Models" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. This paper presents a research design to investigate the role of foragers in the evolution of pastoralism in Mongolia’s desert-steppe. Past efforts to understand the origins of herding have been stymied by the "steppe and sown" dichotomy that perpetuates long held stereotypes of farmers and...
Hunter-Gatherer Violence in the Middle Holocene Baikal Region: A Probable Massacre at Shamanka II (2023)
This is an abstract from the "Northeast Asian Prehistoric Hunter-Gather Lifeways: Multidisciplinary, Individual Life History Approach" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Violence was uncommon among the Middle Holocene hunter-gatherers of Siberia’s Baikal region (<5%), and lethal violence even less so (~1%). At the site of Shamanka II, however, 11 (or 85%) of 13 interred Early Bronze Age (EBA; 4970⎼3470 cal. BP) individuals exhibit evidence of...
Hunting the Helmet: Social and Practical Aspects of Building a Boar’s Tusk Helmet (2018)
From the earliest occurrence of the boar's tusk helmet from Grave Circle B at Mycenae (ca. 1650BCE) to the latest from a sub-Minoan tomb from the North Cemetery at Knossos (ca. 1000BCE) presents a span of 650 years of reverence for this important accessory of Bronze Age warriorhood. Depictions and copies of this helmet in other cultures, including in the Hittite, Egyptian, and even later Roman cultures, demonstrate its pervasive and deeply respected meaning. Helmets of this kind were known to...
Identification of Turquoises from Different Mining Areas using Lead and Strontium Isotope Composition (2019)
This is an abstract from the "From Tangible Things to Intangible Ideas: The Context of Pan-Eurasian Exchange of Crops and Objects" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The Hekou Turquoise Mining Site in Shaanxi Province can provide significant clues to the provenance of turquoise in early China. In this study, we analyzed turquoise ore samples from other turquoise mines near Hekou Mining Site in eastern Qinling Mountains and established an origin...
Identifying pre-incineration state from heat-induced fracture and warping patterns found on human cremains in a Hungarian Bronze Age cemetery (2017)
Attempts to determine the status of human remains prior to their final deposition are complicated in the analysis of cremains. Forensic and archaeological studies, however, have advocated for the interpretation of heat-induced fracture and warping patterns as indicators of the pre-incineration state of the body and of the characteristics of the funeral fire. The purpose of this research is to examine the possible internal social structures of a Bronze Age population in the Körös region of...
Identifying the "Why" Of Ancient Engineering Choices: Materials Performance and the Production of Ceramic Bronze-Casting Molds in Zhou-Period China (2018)
Bronze ritual vessels from Shang- and Zhou-period China display a combination of features—complex, three-dimensional forms; exquisitely fine surface detail; and monumental size—that was achieved by casting in multi-part ceramic molds. The ceramic material used to form these casting molds is soft, powdery, and silica rich, making it altogether different from pottery clays in both its physical qualities and its production sequence. Why was such a material chosen? Which specific materials...
Improved Representation of Paddled Propulsion in a Deterministic Ocean Voyaging Model: Bronze Age Scandinavian Example (2023)
This is an abstract from the "Negotiating Watery Worlds: Impacts and Implications of the Use of Watercraft in Small-Scale Societies" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Here we describe the implementation of a realistic representation of paddling propulsion on a deterministic ocean voyaging computer model. Due to lack of quantified information on the impact of environmental parameters such as winds and currents on paddling, in a previous version of the...
In-Visible Periphery of Old World "Collapse": Recognizing choice and circumstance in the archaeological record of mobile pastoralists (2015)
As in many regions of the Old World, the end of the Bronze Age in southern Central Asia is marked by a prolonged period of social "collapse" toward the end of the 2nd millennium BC, during which the size, arrangement, and apparent sphere of influence of agriculturally-based population centers changed. Discussions of this period focus primarily on the loss of visible markers of social hierarchy and inter-regional trade networks, but as our collective knowledge of mobile pastoralists in Eurasian...
The Influence of Pastoral Cultivation Strategies and Novel Cuisines on Newly Introduced Crops in Central Asia during the Bronze and Iron Ages (2023)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2023: Individual Abstracts" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. When crops are spread into new landscapes, communities, and their associated subsistence practices and culinary preferences, the crops undergo substantial selective pressure. This pressure can come in the form of new environmental constraints, such as a different growing season, or cultural pressure from differences in preferred taste, productivity, or...
Inscribing Behaviors on Oracle Turtle Plastrons: A New Method to Analyze Tributary Networks of Late Shang China (c. 1250 BCE–1046 BCE) (2018)
Processed from turtle shells and bovid scapulae, oracle bones were massively exploited by the ruling house of the late Shang Dynasty for divination. As opposed to traditional scholarship that holds primary interest in inscriptions engraved on these bones, I consider late Shang divination in entirety as a technological process that proceeds from the preparation and delivery of bone material via tributary networks all the way to bones’ after-use discard into pits. By switching the attention to the...
Integrating Grapevine Palaeogenomics with Archaeobotanical Methods to Explore the History of Winemaking (2021)
This is an abstract from the "Increasing the Accessibility of Ancient DNA within Archaeology" session, at the 86th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Genomic analyses of archaeological seeds and other plant remains are playing an increasingly important role in unravelling domestication histories. In some cases, these findings are revising longstanding interpretations developed from archaeobotanical methods, and questions remain on how archaeological and genomic methods...
The Interaction of Aesthetics and Technology between East and West, from the Perspective of Glass Beads from Xinjiang, China (2019)
This is an abstract from the "From Tangible Things to Intangible Ideas: The Context of Pan-Eurasian Exchange of Crops and Objects" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Xinjiang is located in the crossroads of the Silk Road and connected the Central Asia, South Asia and central China. During the 2nd to 1st millennia BC, glass beads were transferred from the West Asia and South Asia to central China through the Tianshan corridor and southern edge oasis...
Interpreting the Diffusion of Bronze Mirrors in Ancient China across Time Using the S-Shaped Curve (2023)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2023: Individual Abstracts" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The s-shaped curve in the social network context is a model proposed to reveal dynamic changes over time among members in a network when accepting a new idea/product. The s-shaped curve has been mainly used in social sciences to model the diffusion of objects or ideas using current empirical data. However, it is rarely applied to archaeology because such...
The introduction of metallurgy in Sicily: preliminary data using a pXRF (2016)
Several artifacts representing the oldest metals known in Sicily (Copper to Middle Bronze Age) together with many from the Late Bronze Age have been analyzed using a portable XRF to determine their composition. These are nearly all of the early metal artifacts existing in Sicilian museums. Multiple spot analyses have been performed and averages obtained to alleviate potential heterogeneities on the surface of metals, ensuring consistency and validity of the data. Among the materials, there were...
Investigating Copper Ingot Production in the Bronze Age Mediterranean Using 3D Technologies (2019)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2019: General Sessions" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The 1960 excavation of the Late Bronze Age (ca. 1200 BC) shipwreck at Cape Gelidonya, on the southwestern coast of Turkey, revealed a ca. 1.2 ton cargo of copper ingots and tools. The metal cargo is defined by its great diversity, yet the ingot assemblage is predominantly Cypriot in origin while the tool metal derives from sources across the Mediterranean...
Investigating the Dietary Economy of Ancient Margiana: Ongoing Archaeobotanical Research at Togolok 1 (2300–1700 BC) (2023)
This is an abstract from the "Advances and New Perspectives in Central Asian Archaeology" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Archaeobotanical research in Central Asia has expanded greatly in the last two decades, changing much about our understanding of past subsistence strategies and lifeways throughout the broader region. Archaeobotany is a crucial tool for gaining insight into the way that human/plant relationships shape and structure society. The...
Investigating the Methods and Practice of Ritual Horse Sacrifice and Butchery in Late Bronze Age Mongolia. (2017)
Although archaeological data link late Bronze Age cultures with the emergence of mobile herding in eastern Eurasia, the practices and social function of domestic horse sacrifice remain poorly understood. We investigated slaughter and butchery evidence from 18 sacrificial horse burials from the Deer Stone-Khirigsuur (DSK) Complex, a late Bronze Age Mongolian culture linked with the first emergence of horse herding and transport in the eastern Steppe. Using digital microscopy, we analyzed each...
Investigating Wood Acquisition Strategies from Archaeological Charcoal: Implications for the Bronze Age Site of Pecica Şanţul Mare (2015)
The Bronze Age site Pecica Şanţul Mare is an important fortified tell settlement in Arad County, Romania. Situated along the river Mureş, Pecica lies within a unique resource zone between the ore rich region of the Western Carpathian Mountains and Carpathian Basin. While metal production and regional connectivity are associated with the site, it is poorly known how wood fuel for metal work was acquired. Archaeological charcoal remains are often used to reconstruct local woodland compositions of...
The Invisibility of Experience: Accessing Ancient Sensory Frameworks (2018)
While archaeological analyses that focus on the experiential and sensorial past are becoming more common, scholars continue to discuss and dispute what knowledge of the past is accessible. Without moving beyond the material remains and into the realm of the self-reflexive researcher (Hamilakis 2013: 119), this paper will demonstrate that archaeologists do not need to stray too far from their traditional methods to uncover rich evidence of past sensory lives. By drawing from the field of art...
Is the fortification always about fortress? The case of Middle Bronze Age fortified settlements in Northern Eurasia (2015)
There are 22 fortified settlements of the Middle Bronze Age discovered in Russia for last 40 years through the methods of aerial photography analysis and field excavations. All together they are known as Sintashta archeological culture of Southern Urals. The typical Sintashta settlement is usually enclosure consists of 1-4 meters deep ditch and the wall built of dirt and clay. However, the current analysis of the settlement patterning using GIS suggests that people chose the place of living...
Isotopic Analyses of Diet in Late Prehistoric Southwestern Transylvania (2023)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2023: Individual Abstracts" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Southwestern Transylvania houses a rich prehistoric archaeological record, as well as abundant natural resources, including salt, tin, and some of the richest copper and gold deposits in Europe. The Mureș River, which connected prehistoric communities in Eastern and Central Europe, also flows through the region. Despite its status as an economic and...
An Israeli (real COOL) Dolmen (2018)
Excavation in the Shamir Dolmen Field (comprising over 400 dolmens), on the northern Israeli basaltic terrains, was carried out following the discovery of enigmatic rock art engravings on the ceiling of one of the largest dolmens ever recorded in the Levant. Excavation of this dolmen, covered by a basalt capstone weighing some 50 tons, revealed a secondary multi-burial (of both adults and children) rarely described in a dolmen context in Israel. Engraved into the rock ceiling above the...
Kinship and Cattle in Harappan Gujarat (2018)
Pastoralism, the production and management of livestock, was integral to the lifeways practiced by the peoples of the Indus Civilization (2600-1900 BC), South Asia’s first experiment with urban society. The integration of Gujarat (India) into the interregional flows of people, goods, and ideas that knit together the Indus Civilization, for example, is associated with the widespread adoption of pastoralism in a region that was formerly characterized by small-scale horticulturalist-hunting...
Lamenting the Dead: The Acoustic Element in Bronze Age Funerary Rituals in Syro-Mesopotamia (2021)
This is an abstract from the "Archaeoacoustics: Sound, Hearing, and Experience in Archaeology" session, at the 86th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. This paper will employ GIS in exploring the experiential aspects of the burial process in Early Bronze Age North Mesopotamia, with a particular attention to funerary soundscapes. To investigate the potential impact of vocal and musical sound, a 10 m resolution digital elevation model (DEM) was developed, and the "System for...