The article presents the results of research on the settlement of the Pyrzyce Lowland, NW Poland, in the Pre Roman and Roman Iron Ages. The central part of this area was covered in the past by a ...large water body, pre-Miedwie lake, which due to natural processes and subsequent human intervention was partially drained. In order to carry out the research, 85 Pre-Roman and 305 Roman Iron Age sites were catalogued. The main method of researching the spatial organization was triangulation and subsequent polygon networking. The results of the spatial analysis were confronted with data from lake Racze’s palynological profile. Thanks to this procedure information was obtained on settlement structures, population, environment and economy, as well as their changes in time. The similarities and differences between the Pre-Roman and Roman Iron Ages were then discussed. During the research a strong suggestion of settlements having been relocated according to changes of the palaeo-shoreline of pre-Miedwie lake was concluded. Also, the change from inhabiting large and stable settlements in PRIA to single, often relocating farms in RIA was registered. There were no significant changesin terms of economy, which stayed diversified during the entire PRIA and RIA periods. The changes in anthropopression were most likely linked with changes in population size, reflecting 8 distinct phases of settlement in the area.
The rich and extensively studied archaeological record of the Near East provides an opportunity to develop a comprehensive archaeomagnetic dataset for exploring the behavior of the geomagnetic field ...with high precision. The Levantine archaeomagnetic curve (LAC) project is an ongoing effort to develop a continuous high‐resolution geomagnetic intensity curve for the Levant and Mesopotamia. The first version of the LAC covered the period between 3000 and 550 BCE. Here, we report archaeointensity data from 169 samples compiled into 32 groups dating between the 7th and the 1st centuries BCE aiming at extending the LAC up to the end of the first millennium BCE. Twenty‐two groups are assembled from storage jar handles bearing different types of royal seal impressions, which were used in Judah as part of a taxation administrative system. These groups are combined with 10 other groups of pottery assemblages, three of which are from Hellenistic destruction layers dated using radiocarbon and coins. The new curve shows that the Levantine Iron Age Anomaly (LIAA) spanned 550 years (1100 ‐ 550 BCE) and that the rate of decline during the last spike around 600 BCE could have reached ∼0.6 μT/year. During the 6th century, the virtual axial dipole moment (VADM) dropped from 160 ZAm2 to 125 ZAm2 after which field intensity only slightly increased to 135 ZAm2, until another considerable decline to ∼90 ZAm2 during the 3rd to the 1st centuries BCE. We highlight the archaeomagnetic implication of the new curve in inferring the relative chronological relationship between different stamp types.
Plain Language Summary
The Earth's magnetic field is continuously changing both in time and space in an unpredictable manner. A detailed description of how the magnetic field has changed throughout Earth's history offers constraints on our understanding of the mechanism generating the field in Earth's core. In this study, we reconstruct the intensity of the past field using an assemblage of well‐dated archaeological materials from Israel, dated to the Assyrian, Babylonian, Persian, Hellenistic and Hasmonean periods. This work is part of an ongoing effort to procure a high‐resolution curve describing the changes in field intensity for the Levant and Mesopotamia over the past several millennia. With the new data, we calculate the curve for the first three millennia BCE. The curve provides further details on an anomalous behavior of the field between 1100 BCE and 550 BCE, termed the Levantine Iron Age Anomaly (LIAA), during which the field intensity and its rate of change were significantly higher than today's. In addition, the curve forms the basis for an archaeomagnetic dating tool, which can be especially useful for periods when traditional archaeological dating methods fail to provide precise ages due to large uncertainties in radiocarbon dates.
Key Points
Archaeomagnetic intensity data from 32 groups of pottery in Israel dated between the 7th and the 1st centuries BCE
The second generation of the Levantine Archaeomagnetic Curve (LAC.v.2.0) covering the last three millennia BCE
The new data constrain the duration of the Levantine Iron Age Anomaly (LIAA) from 1100 BCE to 550 BCE
A free open access ebook is available upon publication. Learn more at www.luminosoa.org . Situated at the disciplinary boundary between prehistory and history, this book presents a new synthesis of ...Late Bronze Age and Early Iron Age Greece, from the rise and fall of Mycenaean civilization, through the "Dark Age," and up to the emergence of city-states in the Archaic period. This period saw the growth and decline of varied political systems and the development of networks that would eventually expand to nearly all shores of the Middle Sea. Alex R. Knodell argues that in order to understand how ancient Greece changed over time, one must analyze how Greek societies constituted and reconstituted themselves across multiple scales, from the local to the regional to the Mediterranean. Knodell employs innovative network and spatial analyses to understand the regional diversity and connectivity that drove the growth of early Greek polities. As a groundbreaking study of landscape, interaction, and sociopolitical change, Societies in Transition in Early Greece systematically bridges the divide between the Mycenaean period and the Archaic Greek world to shed new light on an often-overlooked period of world history.
Summary
This paper analyses social transformations in the Early Iron Age based on a holistic and longue durée approach applied to the first fortified habitats in the Iberian north‐west. Through a ...comprehensive review of two paradigmatic settlements of the EIA in the province of A Coruña (Galicia, north‐west Iberia), Punta de Muros and A Graña, a comparison is drawn between the social and territorial dynamics of this period by means of an in‐depth analysis of the main characteristics of both settlements.
Accordingly, a greater level of social complexity during the phases of occupation of the settlement of Punta de Muros has been identified, in contrast to the resistance to change observed in A Graña. Based on these conclusions, the role of metalworking and its symbolic value in fostering and legitimizing these social and territorial transformations and in the development of Iron Age communities are analysed.
This paper documents the abundance of Stone Age finds in the Middle Kalahari, both through earlier publications and newly documented sites. Results of several decades of Stone Age research are ...presented through a variety of projects and placed within the context of previous archaeological investigations in the region. We argue for the importance of open-air sites in constructing a more representative picture of prehistoric behaviour in the interior of southern Africa.
•Presentation of abundant Stone Age finds from Middle Kalahari - overview of earlier publications and newly documented sites.•The Kalahari of northern Botswana illustrates the potential of this under-researched area.•Results of decades of research from a variety of projects are placed in context with previous archaeological investigations.•Demonstrates the time depth and landscape variety of the prehistory in this region.•Emphasis on the role of open-air sites in reconstructing prehistoric behaviours in the interior of southern Africa.
We assembled genome-wide data from 271 ancient Iberians, of whom 176 are from the largely unsampled period after 2000 BCE, thereby providing a high-resolution time transect of the Iberian Peninsula. ...We document high genetic substructure between northwestern and southeastern hunter-gatherers before the spread of farming. We reveal sporadic contacts between Iberia and North Africa by ~2500 BCE and, by ~2000 BCE, the replacement of 40% of Iberia's ancestry and nearly 100% of its Y-chromosomes by people with Steppe ancestry. We show that, in the Iron Age, Steppe ancestry had spread not only into Indo-European-speaking regions but also into non-Indo-European-speaking ones, and we reveal that present-day Basques are best described as a typical Iron Age population without the admixture events that later affected the rest of Iberia. Additionally, we document how, beginning at least in the Roman period, the ancestry of the peninsula was transformed by gene flow from North Africa and the eastern Mediterranean.
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