The paper presents six samples originating from archaeologically investigated contexts in the Early Iron Age site of Saharna–Țiglău. Three samples were collected, after anthropological analysis, from ...funerary features excavated in 2022, and the remaining samples were taken from pits within the settlement. Calibration of the six AMS radiocarbon data places the chronological sequence with a 95.4% probability in the range calBC 1284-797. From the association of the data, it is almost obvious to conclude that one of the earliest known dates for an Early Iron Age context with stamped pottery in the Carpathian-Balkan area has been recorded at Saharna–Țiglău.
Unique ceremonial vessels such as rhyta, kernoi and pseudokernoi were discovered in a cemetery from the Early Iron Age in Domasław (Poland). The appearance of such vessels proves that the societies ...of the Hallstatt culture adopted cultural ideas, feasting and drinking practises and offerings from the Mediterranean world. GC-MS analyses were carried out on five vessels and compared with pottery from the Domasław cemetery (74 samples) and the nearby settlement of Milejowice (46 samples). The investigations show that the examined vessels probably contained ceremonial drinks and liquids used for offerings and libations during funeral ceremonies.
The excavation of the settlement of Punta de Muros was a breakthrough in our knowledge of the Early Iron Age of the Iberian Peninsula. The development of new multidisciplinary research has broadened ...our understanding of the site and clarified several facts about the emergence of fortified landscapes. This paper synthesizes these advances and focuses on the development of social inequality trends within a non-hierarchical society between the 6th and the 4th centuries BC. The reflection of these changes in the archaeological record will be addressed, focusing on what forces triggered these internal transformations and to what extent we can define the emergence of social inequality.
Horseback riding was a transformative force in the ancient world, prompting radical shifts in human mobility, warfare, trade, and interaction. In China, domestic horses laid the foundation for trade, ...communication, and state infrastructure along the ancient Silk Road, while also stimulating key military, social, and political changes in Chinese society. Nonetheless, the emergence and adoption of mounted horseback riding in China is still poorly understood, particularly due to a lack of direct archaeological data. Here we present a detailed osteological study of eight horse skeletons dated to ca. 350 BCE from the sites of Shirenzigou and Xigou in Xinjiang, northwest China, prior to the formalization of Silk Road trade across this key region. Our analyses reveal characteristic osteological changes associated with equestrian practices on all specimens. Alongside other relevant archaeological evidence, these data provide direct evidence for mounted horseback riding, horse equipment, and mounted archery in northwest China by the late first millennium BCE. Most importantly, our results suggest that this region may have played a crucial role in the spread of equestrian technologies from the Eurasian interior to the settled civilizations of early China, where horses facilitated the rise of the first united Chinese empires and the emergence of transcontinental trade networks.
At the end of the Late Bronze Age, there were events taking place in the history of the Eurasian steppes that manifested the beginning of the formation of cultures of the Scythian type. These ...processes, in many aspects triggered by the climate changes, spread into both southern taiga and forest-steppe territories of Western Siberia. In understanding the processes of the transitional period from the Bronze to Early Iron Age and beginning of the Early Iron Age in the southern taiga and forest-steppe Ishim River Basin, a major role pertains to the materials of the multi-layered hillfort of Borki 1, in the study of which, as well as of the cultures of the concerned period in ge-neral, a significant contribution was made by E.M. Danchenko (1991, 1996). The site is located nearby the village of Borki of Vikulovo District, Tyumen Oblast. This paper aims at the analysis and introduction into the scientific discourse of the materials of the Zhuravlevo type from the excavation trench of 2014 with the clean archaeological layer of the beginning of the Early Iron Age. During this period, the fortified platform of the hillfort was overbuilt with dwellings of the above-ground type, probably timber crib. The Zhuravlevo ware of the settlement finds its closest similarities in the materials of the sites of the Lower Ishim Basin: the settlement of Borovlyanka 2, hillfort of Lastochkino Gnezdo 1, fortified settlement of Maray 4, as well as the sites of Yamsysa 7, Kip 3, Novonikolskoe 3 and others in the southern-taiga Ishim-Irtysh area. Differences in the pottery and material culture assemblages even within a range of the Zhuravlevo complexes, not to mention the later ones of the Bogochanovo type, which have certain continuity with the aforementioned complexes, help to reveal evolutionary development of the culture of the transitional period in the Lower Ishim Basin and to raise the issue of the revision of its chronology and peri-odization. Giving the studies of E.M. Danchenko credit for unification of the Zhuravlevo and Bogochanovo types within the framework of the Bogochanovo Culture of the Early Iron Age, we believe that it would be more logical to consider earlier, Zhuravlevo, materials as a stage in the development of the Krasnoozerka Culture. The existence of the latter we tend to define from the mergence of the Suzgun and Atlym complexes to the formation of the steady Sargatka Culture. In spite of certain dissimilarities in the ware originating from the forest-steppe territories of the Lower Tobol River Basin, Ishim-Irtysh interfluve, Baraba and the Ob River Basin, it still seems that the pro-cesses of the development of the cultures of the concerned period in these regions have similarity in many as-pects. There is a notable uniformity in the bronze assemblages of the sites of these and much wider territories. Products, similar to those found at the hillfort of Borki 1, are present in the complexes of the steppe belt of Eurasia from Tuva to the Circumpontic area and date to, most likely, the period within the 8th–6th cc. BC.
The site has been located on a gritty hill in a forested area. Archaeological works were conducted in 1997–1999 with the aim of securing parts of the site destroyed by sand abrasion. In total, a ...four-acre area has been identified where sixteen facilities with cultural layer were registered acquiring in this way 1592 movable heritage objects. After the analysis of heritage materials two prehistory horizons have been defined. With the first (the older) settlement horizon a trace of the stone age establishments is linked. The second (the younger) settlement horizon represents the presence of Lusatian culture settlement from HaD period. The majority of acquired heritage materials excavated during the works comes from that time. Residential buildings, dug into the ground, suggest a longer, possibly stable occupation of łużycka culture population in this area. However, today doubts have arisen whether the registered objects in the excavation sites comprise the remnants of a small settlement or perhaps, which seems to be more plausible, they were a part of a bigger community unit. Questions may be also asked about the characteristic layout of habitations. It is almost impossible to establish with such a little amount of data what influenced this arrangement – internal factors (for example cultural or social ones) or the land configuration. Also the view that both aspects played the role cannot be ignored. The authors are fully aware of the fact that the image of the settlement structure presented here is not complete due to the considerable damage to the site.
В последнее десятилетие всё чаще поднимаются вопросы возникновения и развития колесничества и верховой езды в Евразии. Этому способствует активизация археозоологических исследований, позволяющих по ...следам на зубах, изменениям и деформации костей лошадей определить степень и формы их использования. В статье анализируются особенности захоронения лошадей в могильниках Вандаху (V—III вв. до н. э.) и Мацзяюань (III—II вв. до н. э.) скифоидной культуры янлан с привлечением результатов детального археозоологического изучения конских черепов из Вандаху. Все имеющиеся данные однозначно указывают, что некоторые умершие в Вандаху погребались как воины-колесничие с оружием и черепами четвёрок лошадей со следами воздействия удил на зубах, колесничными псалиями и деталями колесниц. Материалы элитных захоронений в Мацзяюань с реальными колесницами и костяками лошадей подтвердили заключение о принадлежности черепов из Вандаху колесничным лошадям и показали чрезвычайное конструктивное и функциональное разнообразие колесниц, представленных образцами от боевых и парадных квадриг до больших одноосных повозок, влекомых четвёркой быков. Полученные данные из оставленных западными жунами могильников Вандаху и Мацзяюань демонстрируют только использование колесниц. Свидетельств верховой езды нет. Однако, согласно имеющимся письменным древнекитайским источникам, западные жуны были хорошими всадниками, которых привлекали в кавалерию армии Цинь. Косвенным подтверждением тому является наличие в терракотовой армии Цинь того же времени (вторая половина III в. до н. э.) верховых лошадей с сёдлами степного типа.
In the last decade, the issues of the emergence and further development of chariot racing have been increasingly raised. It is due to the activation of archeozoological research that the determining the degree and forms of horse exploitation by traces on teeth as well as by changes and deformations of horse bones became possible. The article analyzes the features of horse burials in Wangdahu (5th — 3rd century BCE) and Majiayuan (3rd — 2nd century BCE) burial grounds of the Yanglang Scythoid Culture with the involvment of the results of the detailed archeozoological study of horse skulls from Wangdahu. All available data clearly indicate that some of the deceased in Wangdahu were buried as warriors-charioteers with weapons and chariot horse cheek-pieces and parts of chariots; the skulls of four horses displayed traces of the bits on their teeth. Materials from elite burials in Majiayuan with real chariots and horse skeletons confirmed the conclusion that horse sculls in Wangdahu belong to chariot horses. These discoveries have demonstrated an extraordinary constructive and functional diversity of chariots, represented by various objects, from combat and parade quadrigas to large single-axle wagons drawn by four bulls. The data obtained from Wangdahu and Majiayuan burial grounds, left by the Western Rong, only demonstrate the use of chariots. Evidence of horse riding hasn’t yet been found. However, in some ancient Chinese narratives, the Western Rongpopulation is noted to be excellent horsemen who were engaged to serve in the cavalry corps of the Qin army. An indirect confirmation of this is the presence of riding horses with the steppe-type saddles in the Qin Terracotta Army of the same period (the 2nd half of 3rd century BCE).
В статье представлены образцы керамики эпохи раннего железа, обнаруженной на поселении Худутепе, которое располагается на территории Джалилабадского района. В ходе археологических раскопок в ...культурном слое и во время сбора подъемного материала была выявлена, так называемая «Дворцовая керамика» государства Урарту. «Дворцовая керамика» («Изделия Топраккале», «Ванские черепки», «Керамика Бианили») – термин, применяемый к монохромным керамическим изделиям (как правило, краснолощеным, ярко-вишневого цвета с отполированной поверхностью, изготовленным на гончарном круге) государства Урарту. Изделия встречались исключительно в крепостях, в небольшом количестве, и относилась к предметам, которыми пользовалась, вероятно, преимущественно, элита общества государства Урарту. «Изделия Топраккале» составляли лишь 5 % от всего керамического производства государства Урарту. Материалы представлены восемью фрагментами керамических сосудов различной формы и предназначения. Вероятно, они принадлежали двум мискам, чашке/кубку, двум кувшинам-трилистникам, двум шаровидным сосудам. Следует отметить, что керамика подобного рода впервые встречается в юго-восточном регионе Азербайджана. Возможно, «Керамика Бианили» выявленная на Худутепе попала сюда из крепости урартов с территории современного северо-западного Ирана, и поступила она в качестве престижного товара для местной знати, даров и/или подношения, как керамика специального или иного назначения. Находки «Дворцовой керамики» государства Урарту на поселении - свидетельствуют о связях древнего населения Азербайджана с ближневосточной «Великой державой» того времени.
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