This book is the first synthesis of the archaeology of the Urals and Western Siberia. It presents a comprehensive overview of the late prehistoric cultures of these regions, which are of key ...importance for the understanding of long-term changes in Eurasia. At the crossroads of Europe and Asia, the Urals and Western Siberia are characterized by great environmental and cultural diversity which is reflected in the variety and richness of their archaeological sites. Based on the latest achievements of Russian archaeologists, this study demonstrates the temporal and geographical range of its subjects starting with a survey of the chronological sequence from the late fourth millennium BC to the early first millennium AD. Recent discoveries contribute to an understanding of issues such as the development of Eurasian metallurgy, technological and ritual innovations, pastoral nomadism and its role in Eurasian interactions, and major sociocultural fluctuations of the Bronze and Iron Ages.
The peoples who inhabited Europe during the two millennia before the Roman conquests had established urban centers, large-scale production of goods such as pottery and iron tools, a money economy, ...and elaborate rituals and ceremonies. Yet as Peter Wells argues here, the visual world of these late prehistoric communities was profoundly different from those of ancient Rome's literate civilization and today's industrialized societies. Drawing on startling new research in neuroscience and cognitive psychology, Wells reconstructs how the peoples of pre-Roman Europe saw the world and their place in it. He sheds new light on how they communicated their thoughts, feelings, and visual perceptions through the everyday tools they shaped, the pottery and metal ornaments they decorated, and the arrangements of objects they made in their ritual places--and how these forms and patterns in turn shaped their experience.
How Ancient Europeans Saw the Worldoffers a completely new approach to the study of Bronze Age and Iron Age Europe, and represents a major challenge to existing views about prehistoric cultures. The book demonstrates why we cannot interpret the structures that Europe's pre-Roman inhabitants built in the landscape, the ways they arranged their settlements and burial sites, or the complex patterning of their art on the basis of what these things look like to us. Rather, we must view these objects and visual patterns as they were meant to be seen by the ancient peoples who fashioned them.
Abstract Cornaux/Les Sauges (Switzerland, Late Iron Age) revealed remnants of a wooden bridge, artifacts, and human and animal skeletal remains. The relationship between the collapsed structure and ...the skeletal material, whether it indicates a potential accident or cultural practices, remains elusive. We evaluate the most plausible scenario for Cornaux based on osteological, taphonomic, isotopic, and paleogenomic analysis of the recovered individuals. The latter amount to at least 20 individuals, mostly adult males. Perimortem lesions include only blunt force traumas. Radiocarbon data fall between the 3rd and 1st c. BCE, although in some cases predating available dendrochronological estimates from the bridge. Isotopic data highlight five to eight nonlocals. No close genetic relatedness links the analyzed skeletons. Paleogenomic results, the first for Iron Age Switzerland, point to a genetic affinity with other Central and Western European Iron Age groups. The type of skeletal lesions supports an accidental event as the more plausible explanation. Radiocarbon data and the demographic structure of the sample may suggest a sequence of different events possibly including executions and/or sacrifices. Isotopic and paleogenomic data, while not favoring one scenario over the other, do support earlier interpretations of the last centuries BCE in Europe as a dynamic period from a biocultural perspective.
•New archaeomagnetic data from the Early Iron Ages were obtained for Spain.•High geomagnetic fluctuation rates up to 8° and 16 μT/century were observed.•A new reconstruction model (SHAWQ-Iron Age) ...has been obtained.•New hints about the evolution of the Levantine Iron Age Anomaly (LIAA) are shown.•Normal flux patch (NFP) linked to the LIAA is observed at the core-mantle boundary.
Variations of geomagnetic field in the Iberian Peninsula prior to Late Iron Age times are poorly constrained. Here we report 14 directional and 10 palaeointensity results from an archaeomagnetic study carried out on 17 combustion structures recovered from six archaeological sites in eastern Spain. The studied materials have been dated by archaeological evidences and supported by radiocarbon dates (8th-5th centuries BC). Rock magnetic experiments indicate that the characteristic remanent magnetization is carried by a low coercivity magnetic phase with Curie temperatures of 500-575°C, most likely titanomagnetite/maghemite with low titanium content. Archaeointensity determinations were carried out by using the classical Thellier-Thellier experiment including pTRM-checks and magnetic anisotropy corrections. A new full vector Iberian Paleosecular Variation Curve for the Iron Age is presented. High fluctuation rates on both directions and intensities are observed during the Early Iron times that seems to be related with the Levantine Iron Age Anomaly (LIAA), the most prominent anomaly of the geomagnetic field of the last three millennia. Two intensity maxima were observed at Iberian coordinates, the oldest around 750 BC (associated with easterly declinations of around 23°) and the second 275 yrs later (475 BC) with northerly directions. The related virtual axial dipole moment was up to 14⋅1022 Am2 for the oldest materials (750 BC) and reaching 16⋅1022 Am2 for the materials corresponding to the end of the Early Iron Age.
In order to investigate the origin of the unusually high fluctuations of the palaeofield we have developed a new global geomagnetic field reconstruction, the SHAWQ-IronAge model, which is based on a critical revision of the global archeomagnetic and volcanic dataset. The new model provides an improved description of the evolution of the LIAA, which is related to a normal flux patch at the core-mantle boundary (CMB) below Arabian Peninsula clearly observed at around 950 BC. This flux patch expanded towards the north-west, while decreasing in intensity, reaching Iberia at around 750 BC. Around 600-500 BC, it underwent a revival below the European continent after that it seems to vanish in situ.
•Glass from Bilsk is chemically close to coeval materials from the Mediterranean.•At least two primary sources of glass were distinguished.•Faience beads feature peculiar composition of the vitreous ...phase.•Intense exchange of the local population with distant localities confirmed.
The Bilsk archaeological complex comprises the remains of many structures associated with an impressive Iron Age fortified site and extends over a vast area in central-east Ukraine. Its importance is marked by the presence of apparently imported objects, including some vitreous ones (represented mainly by glass and faience beads), which provide researchers with materials for studying past trade in the area. A representative set of vitreous fragments was subjected to an analytical study with several instrumental techniques (namely: scanning electron microscopy coupled with energy dispersive spectrometry, laser ablation inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry, micro-Raman spectroscopy and micro-X-ray diffraction) in order to characterise the beads on compositional basis. The complementary data from different techniques revealed a complex picture for the raw materials, identifying several sources of silica and, consequently, several production centres for the items included in the analysed set. This information in turn led to a better understanding of the trade networks that operated in the region between the 7th and 4th century BCE. Colouring and opacifying agents are also discussed.
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