Bronze Age (Other Keyword)
301-325 (333 Records)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2019: General Sessions" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Tales of Bronze Age People is a three-year (2018-2021) interdisciplinary research project supported by a Carlsberg Foundation Semper Ardens grant (CF18-0005) led by Karin Margarita Frei, Research Professor in Archaeometry at the National Museum of Denmark. The project investigates the dynamic ways in which people navigated social lives in the Early Nordic...
Techniques, senses and emotions: polishing in the Bronze Age Eastern Mediterranean (2015)
An archaeological object: raw material, volume, form, but also texture, temperature, sensation. It is the intention of the craftsman that we tried to attend, by studying Bronze Age polished objects of the Eastern Mediterranean (Crete, Egypt, Near East; 3000-1000 BC). By applying an interdisciplinary approach that combines ethnography, archaeology and tribology (science of wear, friction and lubrication), we studied traditional stone polishing at Mahabalipuram (India, Tamil Nadu) and Tenos...
Technology on the Move: The Influence of Mobility on Pottery Production on the Ancient Russian Steppe (2019)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2019: General Sessions" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. On the desert-steppe zone of southwestern Russia, mobile pastoralism served as the dominant mode of subsistence for much of its history. However, mobile pastoralism as a term refers to a diversity of practices, distinguished across multiple axes, the least of which is the mobile strategy itself. Pottery, as both an everyday object and a form of technology...
Temporal and Spatial Liminality in Early Bronze Age Central Europe: A Bioarchaeological Analysis of a Mierzanowice Culture Cemetery (2016)
The cemetery at Szarbia in southeastern Poland is a Mierzanowice culture cemetery, from which 45 individuals have been excavated. The skeletal remains from this site had yet to be examined or published prior to this study. The Mierzanowice culture conforms to the “Borderlands” theme well in terms of its many modes of liminality. It is temporally liminal in that it is an Early Bronze Age culture, transitional between Late Neolithic and Bronze Age paradigms. It is culturally liminal in that modes...
Textile Production in the Uruk Period: New Insights from Glyptic Imagery (2018)
Production of textiles rose to an industrial level in the late Uruk period of southern Mesopotamia. Iconographic sources found in glyptic art provide a detailed visual description of aspects of this industry. Gender differentiation is clearly institutionalize, with women preparing the thread and skeins while males are engaged in the actual weaving. This paper presents a close analysis of a single motif in the glyptic iconography, offering an explanation of what has previously been identified...
A Three-Dimensional Geometric Morphometric Analysis of Iron Oxhide Ingots from the Cape Gelidonya Shipwreck (2021)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2021: General Sessions" session, at the 86th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Geometric morphometric-based landmark analyses have long been used as a method for quantifying the shape of biological data sets, but their utility for non-biological samples is often overlooked. The Cape Gelidonya shipwreck, dated to 1200 BCE, contained cargo consisting of over one ton of fragmentary and complete copper oxhide ingots originally classified by...
Towards an Archaeology of Prows - An Ontological Approach to Geoglyphs and Petroglyphs in the North European Bronze Age (2018)
This paper will explore the relationship between animated boat prows in different stone media - petroglyphs and geoglyphs - from an ontological perspective. It explores chronological changes in these media and argues for both similarities and differences in how stones participated in unfolding peoples' life-worlds or worldings during the north European Bronze Age.
Trees and Tree Cultivation in the Prehistoric Aegean: A Synthesis of Archaeobotanical Data (2018)
Our presentation, based on an overview of archaeobotanical data from the Aegean from the Neolithic to the Late Bronze Age, attempts a synthetic approach to the cultivation of trees. This work is part of the PLANTCULT research project funded by the European Council Research (ERC Consolidator Grant, GA 682529). As archaeobotanical data we consider the macro-remains of fruits/seeds and burnt wood from archaeological sites. In addition, we use palynological information when available. Our goals are:...
Two Mould Types for All the Vessels: Correlating Casting Mould Forms to the Vessel Forms Produced during the Shang Dynasty (2018)
Through the previous research on the Royal Ontario Museum’s mould fragments, three main types of moulds were identified. In order to extend our knowledge beyond the moulds themselves and associate the moulds to the bronze vessels this paper brings both the moulds and bronze vessels into the same discussion by looking at the correlation between the mould types and the bronze vessel forms they were made to produce. The correlation can further our comprehension into the reason of produce the mould...
Typological and Archaeometrical (pXRF) Study of Final Bronze Age Ceramics of Cuccuruzzu, Corsica (2017)
The construction of large stone fortresses, the casteddi, is a defining phenomenon of the Bronze Age period of the Mediterranean island of Corsica (France). However, the function and the precise chronological setting of these structures are still debated. The summer 2015 preventive intervention at the fortress of Cuccuruzzu has revealed some new information on the socio-economic context of ceramic production during the Final Bronze Age (1200-850 BC). The typological study of the material...
Understanding Early Societies and Investigating Early Interactions: Origin, Significance and Transmission of the Bronze Plaques from the Tianshan Beilu cemetery, Eastern Xinjiang (2019)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2019: General Sessions" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The Tianshan Beilu cemetery – the largest and earliest Bronze Age funerary context in Eastern Xinjiang, including 705 graves dating to ca. 2000-1300 BCE – has been widely recognized as a key-point in the early interactions system throughout Eurasia – the ‘Prehistoric Silk Road’. However, due to the failure to publish the excavation report, research has been...
Unexpected Expertise: Archaeological Science and the Creative Skills of Indus Craftspeople (2018)
Wright’s doctoral and subsequent work brilliantly employed archaeological science to show how relatively simple technological tools (single-chamber kilns) were used by skilled craftspeople in clever ways to create surprisingly technologically complex objects (black-on-grey pottery, resulting from several different cycles of atmospheric conditions during firing), objects which also provided information about patterns of social boundaries and technological style. In homage to this work, we will...
Urban Ideologies and Demographic Revolutions in Ancient Mesopotamia (2021)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2021: General Sessions" session, at the 86th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Dramatic demographic growth is a hallmark of the urban process, yet reasons for population growth in emerging urban systems are not well understood. This paper draws on archaeological and textual evidence pertaining to ideology of the house and cultural values to explore why populations increased so dramatically in third millennium Mesopotamia. Additional...
An Urban Micromorphological Perspective on Neopalatial Environmental Changes at Bronze Age Palaikastro, Crete (2018)
Transitional phases between settlement periods on Bronze Age Crete are often associated with ‘natural’ destructive events. However, it is unclear whether these ‘natural’ destructive events and subsequent shifts in material practices were influenced by anthropogenic or environmental processes. For example, the end of the Neopalatial period on Crete occurred in the LM IB period; some researchers view LM IB destructive fires as indicative of human action during a phase of social and political...
Urns, Mounds, Pyres, and Pits: The Many Pathways of Middle Bronze Age Bodies in Transylvania (2016)
Communities of the Wietenberg Culture in Middle Bronze Age Transylvania (2000-1500 BC) participated in diverse and dynamic social, economic, political, and ideological institutions. Traditional approaches to the mortuary practices of this period, however, have obscured diversity in the archaeological record in favor of a more homogeneous characterization of burial practices as cremation and burial in urn cemeteries. This paper traces the many different pathways that Middle Bronze Age...
Use and Reuse of Burial Space during the Late Bronze Age and Early Iron Age in Mongolia: A Case Study from Zaraa Uul (2021)
This is an abstract from the "New Directions in Mongolian Archaeology" session, at the 86th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. During the late second millennium BC, communities in the Gobi-steppe of Mongolia began to build unique burial structures made of stone. The Late Bronze Age builders of these mortuary features employed new forms of surface demarcation and for the first time in this region, individuals were interred in a prone position. At the turn of the...
Using cremain weight from a Bronze Age cemetery in Eastern Hungary as an indicator of sex (2016)
In well-preserved osteoarchaeological samples, traditional anthropological methods are employed to determine age at death, biological sex, differences in diet, activity level, pathologies, and genetics. Determining sex based on classical anthropological methods such as examining morphological and metric traits is often difficult or impossible with cremains due to fragmentation and post-depositional damage. A previous study conducted by Van Deest et al. in 2013 showed a correlation between...
Using Multiple Time Scales to Understand the Divergence of Prehistoric Social Trajectories in the Carpathian Basin (2018)
A variety of new groups emerged during the Bronze Age in the Carpathian Basin —some had powerful rulers holding feasts and controlling the trade in commodities, and some were egalitarian peoples leaving little evidence for social differentiation outside of age and gender. This paper uses a comparative and multi-scalar perspective to study two different social trajectories in the Carpathian Basin during the second millennium BC: the Lower Körös Basin in Eastern Hungary, and the Danube and its...
The Value of all that Glitters: Beads in the Tombs around Pylos, Greece (2016)
This paper aims to explore the value of faience and glass in Bronze Age Pylos with a view to reconstructing the wealth and status of the people with whom they were buried. These beads must have been imported to Pylos as finished objects since none of the raw materials are found locally and we have no evidence for their manufacture or production at Pylos. Indeed our analysis of a sample of the vitreous beads shows that some of these beads, or at least their substance, originated in Egypt and...
Warfare and the Polity in Early China (2023)
This is an abstract from the "Warfare and the Origins of Political Control " session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Intercommunity conflict and sociopolitical complexity are both complicated topics, not only because of their large literatures and diverse approaches, but because of the multifaceted nature of the phenomena involved. For my talk I would like to focus on what I see as two key variables relevant to both warfare and political community. These...
Watercraft: The Earliest Temples in Egypt (2018)
Shared iconography and similar functionality associated with dated depictions of Predynastic watercraft and terrestrial shrines identify watercraft as the earliest manifestation of manufactured sacred space in Egypt. The resulting Mobile Sacred Space Paradigm describes watercraft as ritual objects (liminal negotiators) empowered to move through and, thereby, connect three ecologically distinctive landscapes as early as the Naqada IIB Period (and possibly Naqada IC). Results indicate that...
Wealth Building in Early Urban Mesopotamia: Strategies and Ideologies (2018)
Stratified occupational remains at mounded sites of third millennium Mesopotamia afford a temporal perspective on houses and institutions, as well as fluctuations in their resources. This paper draws on such data to evaluate the ways that houses and institutions accrued wealth and enhanced inequalities. Evidence for the production, circulation and storage of food and craft goods in early Mesopotamia informs about the kinds of resources used for wealth building, the processes through which goods...
What’s Cooking? A Proteomic Approach to Analyse Ceramic Residues from Tell Khaiber 1 (2021)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2021: General Sessions" session, at the 86th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Analysis of biomolecules absorbed in unglazed ceramics can provide valuable information about pottery use in antiquity, including detailed information on ancient diet. Such investigation has mostly focused on the analysis of lipids, but recently the more labile proteins have seen increased attention as they are capable of providing more specific information....
What’s in the Menu? Harappan Culinary Practices during the Urban Phase of the Indus Age (2019)
This is an abstract from the "Farm to Table Archaeology: The Operational Chain of Food Production" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The study of ancient food residues does not only provide information on the ancient diet but also sheds light on the nature of food selection, processing, storage and finally the discard of food wastes. The presence of large quantities of animal bones, primarily from cattle/buffalo and sheep/goat in all Harappan...
When It Rains Now, It Is a Disaster: Heritage Landscapes during Climate Change (2023)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2023: Individual Abstracts" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Archaeological landscapes are not heritage landscapes similar to the picturesque; they are the living heritage of the contemporary inhabitants and stakeholders who live with the past, ecological destruction, and climate change. Our paper is informed by the Yalburt Yaylası Archaeological Landscape Research Project (2010–2021) in western central Turkey. At...