scholarly journals The deposition of bronzes at Swiss lakeshore settlements: new investigations

Antiquity ◽  
2011 ◽  
Vol 85 (330) ◽  
pp. 1298-1311 ◽  
Author(s):  
Viktoria Fischer
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Shallow Water ◽  
Bronze Age ◽  
Late Bronze Age ◽  
Ritual Practice ◽  
Special Places

The famous lakeside sites of Switzerland have long been known for their pile dwellings and their massive quantities of Late Bronze Age metalwork. On the most recent excavations, the bronzes have been mapped in situ, allowing comparison with assemblages from dryland sites and rivers, as well as providing a context for the nineteenth-century collections. The pile dwellings emerge as special places where depositions of selected bronze objects in groups or as single discards, comparable to those usually found in dryland deposits or in rivers, accumulated in the shallow water during a unique 250-year spell of ritual practice.

Neolithic Pits, a Bronze Age Cremation and an Early Iron Age Ring-Ditch at Newton Farm, Cambuslang, Lanarkshire

2009 ◽  
Vol 31 (1-2) ◽  
pp. 1-31
Author(s):  
Leonora O'Brien ◽  
Victoria Clements ◽  
Mike Roy ◽  
Neil Macnab
Keyword(s):  
Bronze Age ◽  
Iron Age ◽  
Housing Development ◽  
Early Iron Age ◽  
Small Ring ◽  
Late Bronze Age ◽  
River Terraces

Fieldwork at Newton Farm, Cambuslang (NGR NS 672 610) was undertaken in advance of housing development in 2005–6. A cluster of six shallow Neolithic pits were excavated, and a collection of 157 round-based, carinated bowl sherds and a quern fragment were recovered from them. The pits produced a date range of 3700 to 3360 cal BC. Most of the pits yielded burnt material, and one of the pits showed evidence of in situ burning. The pottery may form ‘structured deposits’. A Bronze Age adult cremation placed in a Food Vessel dated to 3610±30 BP (2040–1880 cal BC) was set in a wider landscape of single and multiple cremations and inhumations on the river terraces overlooking the Clyde. A possible unurned cremation was also identified. This was cut by the course of a small ring-ditch dated to the very late Bronze Age or early Iron Age 2520±30 BP (800–530cal BC).

Creating a Community

2010 ◽  
Author(s):  
Niall Sharples
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Family Member ◽  
Bronze Age ◽  
Field Work ◽  
Late Bronze Age ◽  
National Museum ◽  
Metal Detector ◽  
Direct Relevance ◽  
Television Programme

In the summer of 1979, when I was working on my undergraduate dissertation in the National Museum, I became involved in an interesting piece of field-work that has direct relevance to the material that we are going to examine in this chapter. A Mrs MacDonald came into the museum to enquire whether some objects she had in her possession were of any archaeological significance. She had been encouraged to make this visit by a recent television programme where the presenter discussed and exhibited objects that were similar to those in her possession. She explained to the curator that the objects had been found by a family member during ploughing and had been kept in the kitchen drawer for the last two decades, though they were often brought out for the children to play with. She then removed, from her shopping bag, a gold bracelet and a gold ‘dress fastener’ of distinctive Late Bronze Age type. This had the immediate effect of rendering the museum curator speechless—these were in the days before metal detecting had become a popular hobby, and new finds of this significance were seldom made. The most recent discovery of comparable objects was in the nineteenth century. Further discussion of the nature of the discovery revealed that the location of the find was still remembered; it was just behind the farmhouse. It was also thought that other objects were discovered at the time, but these were discarded, as they were not so interesting. As there was a possibility that objects were still present in the field it was decided that a team would be sent by the museum to explore the finds location. I was dispatched, with two other students then working in the museum, and a metal detector, purchased specially for the occasion, to see what we could find. I have to say that metal detecting must be one of the most boring pastimes ever invented. In our youthful enthusiasm, we decided to be thorough and systematic. We set out a grid that covered the area where the gold had been discovered and began work.

Phylakopi 1911 and the History of the Later Cycladic Bronze Age

1974 ◽  
Vol 69 ◽  
pp. 1-53 ◽  
Author(s):  
R. Barber
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Bronze Age ◽  
Late Nineteenth Century ◽  
Late Bronze Age ◽  
Technical Standards ◽  
British School ◽  
External Relations ◽  
History Of ◽  
Late Nineteenth

For many years, interpretation of the history of the Middle and Late Bronze Age in the Cyclades has depended almost entirely on the late nineteenth-century excavations of the British School at Phylakopi on Melos. This site has been especially significant as the only one with a comprehensive stratigraphie sequence.Recent major excavations on Kea (Ayia Irini) and Thera (Akrotiri) have vastly increased our knowledge of the second-millennium Cyclades, but Phylakopi remains of outstanding importance. From the publication and from the Daybooks kept by Duncan Mackenzie it is clear that the technical standards of the excavation were extremely high for their time. It is unfortunate, however, that precise details about the contexts of individual finds are lacking from Phylakopi. Such details are vital if we are to make any useful reassessment of the history and external relations of the site in terms of subsequent excavations and studies.

Late bronze age hoards from the Chelmer valley, Essex

1986 ◽  
Vol 66 (2) ◽  
pp. 248-266 ◽  
Author(s):  
D. G. Buckley ◽  
N. Brown ◽  
P. Greenwood
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Bronze Age ◽  
Late Bronze Age

Details of a recently discovered Ewart Park phase hoard from Boreham, Essex are reported. The opportunity is also taken to publish Late Bronze Age metal finds from Boreham, together with a hoard discovered in the nineteenth century at Little Baddow. These finds are viewed in the light of recent fieldwork and previous finds in the Chelmer Valley.

Two Late Bronze Age Settlements on the Kennet Gravels: Excavations at Aldermaston Wharf and Knight's Farm, Burghfield, Berkshire

1980 ◽  
Vol 46 ◽  
pp. 217-295 ◽  
Author(s):  
Richard Bradley ◽  
Sue Lobb ◽  
Julian Richards ◽  
Mark Robinson
Keyword(s):  
Bronze Age ◽  
Iron Age ◽  
The Other ◽  
Late Bronze Age ◽  
Open Site ◽  
Gravel Pits ◽  
Cross Reference

One of the major problems of British prehistory has been the contrast between the mass of Late Bronze Age metalwork and the rarity of contemporary settlements. The Berkshire river gravels are one area in which a high proportion of bronze objects is recorded in apparent isolation. With the increasing recognition of Late Bronze Age pottery, however, it has been possible to identify domestic finds of this period among the artefacts from gravel pits around Reading. Part of the gap in the settlement record has also been closed by the excavation of two sites on the Berkshire Downs, the earthwork enclosure at Rams Hill, and an open site at Beedon Manor Farm (Bradley and Ellison 1975; Richards in press). But it was not until 1974 that a Bronze Age settlement on the gravels could be examinedin situ, and since the formation of the Berkshire Archaeological Unit a series of five sites have been sampled or more extensively investigated. This paper is concerned with the two most extensive sites, those at Aldermaston Wharf and Knight's Farm, Burghfield, but will make cross reference to the other work where necessary, in particular to a more recently recorded site at Pingewood.It is now clear why this evidence was so difficult to find. The pottery is extremely friable and would not survive on the surface; and the gravel sites contain very few worked flints. The main features are small pits under 50 cm deep, and for this reason the sites cannot be detected from the air; and, even if they could be recognized, there would be nothing to distinguish them from Iron Age open sites, like those in the Upper Thames Basin.

scholarly journals The Vedic Agni and Scandinavian Fire Rituals: A Possible Connection

2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (1) ◽  
pp. 77-97
Author(s):  
Anders Kaliff
Keyword(s):  
Bronze Age ◽  
Cultural Context ◽  
Late Bronze Age ◽  
The Sun ◽  
Ritual Practice ◽  
Archaeological Interpretation ◽  
The World ◽  
The Creation

To use ethnographic analogies is not the same as picking up ready-made interpretations from one cultural context and importing them into another. On the contrary, analogies are a powerful and necessary tool for any archaeological interpretation. If we as scientists are not aware of this we will most certainly use our own time and culture as an unconscious analogy: it is not possible to make interpretations, or even to think, without references outside oneself, and such references are nothing but analogies. l will put forward the hypothesis that the Late Bronze Age society of Scandinavia had rituals resembling, and probably related to, the Vedic tradition. As in Vedic tradition, fire sacrifice seems to have been an important ritual practice in Scandinavia. The Vedic fire altars are built as a symbolic microcosmos, repeating the creation of the world, and the fire (Agni) is seen as a link between earth and the heavenly fire —the sun.

A Late Bronze Age Urnfield on Steyning Round Hill, Sussex

1958 ◽  
Vol 24 ◽  
pp. 158-164 ◽  
Author(s):  
G. P. Burstow
Keyword(s):  
Bronze Age ◽  
Late Bronze Age ◽  
Grammar School ◽  
Circular Area ◽  
South Eastern

In the autumn of 1949 when ploughing was taking place on a south-eastern spur of Steyning Round Hill (Map Ref. 51/166099), fig. 1, two schoolboys D. Atkinson and M. J. Manetta found the remains of nine Late Bronze Age urns with cremated bones just under the surface of the plough soil. They lay in a circular area roughly 30 feet in diameter covered with large flints. Most of these urns were wisely left in situ until the Steyning Grammar School Archaeological Society under the direction of the Headmaster, Mr J. Scragg, and Mr W. Gardiner, assisted by Messrs N. E. S. Norris, G. Mason, and the writer, members of the Brighton and Hove Archaeological Society, undertook a methodical exploration. Our grateful thanks should be recorded to the farmer, Capt J. T. Mackley, who permitted the excavation and to all who helped in the work and dealt with the finds, as well as to Mr D. C. Tutt for kindly drawing the plan and pottery.

THE REDISCOVERY OF GREEK ROSSO ANTICO MARBLE AND ITS USE IN BRITAIN IN THE NINETEENTH AND TWENTIETH CENTURIES

2012 ◽  
Vol 107 ◽  
pp. 341-386
Author(s):  
Peter Warren
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Roman Empire ◽  
Bronze Age ◽  
Late Bronze Age ◽  
Developing Economy ◽  
Wide Range ◽  
Greek Government ◽  
Nineteenth And Twentieth Centuries ◽  
University Buildings ◽  
Of Greece

The metamorphic geology of Greece and the Aegean produced a wide range of coloured stones which were used in antiquity. In the second half of the nineteenth century several of the ancient quarries were rediscovered and reopened by Greek and British companies within the developing economy of the young Greek state. One such stone is the fine maroon marble rosso antico, emplaced at several locations in the Mani. It had first been exploited in the Late Bronze Age and exploitation continued extensively during the Roman Empire. The new quarryings of the nineteenth century resulted in much export to Britain, where the marble was used in churches, notably St Paul's Cathedral and Westminster Cathedral in London, in commercial and university buildings, in private houses and, as a gift of the Greek government, for the plinth of Byron's statue in Park Lane, London.

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