A newly discovered hoard of Bronze Age artefacts from western Latvia

Flodfund - Bronzealderdeponeringer fra Gudenåen

For the last 180 years, scientists have been attempting to determine the ‘provenance’ (geological source) of the copper used in Bronze Age artefacts. However, despite advances in analytical technologies, the theoretical approach has remained virtually unchanged over this period, with the interpretative methodology only changing to accommodate the increasing capacity of computers. This book represents a concerted effort to think about the composition of Bronze Age metal as the product of human intentionality as well as of geology. It considers the trace element composition of the metal, the alloying elements, and the lead isotopic composition, showing how a combination of these aspects, along with archaeological context and typology, can reveal much more about the life history of such artefacts, expanding considerably upon the rather limited ambition of knowing where the ore was extracted. Beyond Provenance serves as a ‘how-to handbook’ for those wishing to look for evidence of human intentionality in the chemical patterning observed in bronzes.

Grave Matters: Mediating Corporeal Objects and Subjects through Mortuary Practices

This article presents the first comprehensive study of metal casting moulds from the Bronze Age and Early Iron Age discovered within present-day Poland. These artefacts, primarily made of tin bronze and unalloyed copper, were used in the direct casting of socketed axes, ornaments, and weapons. Drawing on recent discoveries, the study examines their technological characteristics, metal composition, and spatial distribution. Particular attention is given to manufacturing techniques of metal casting moulds, including lost-wax and ceramic mould-based methods. Comparative analysis places Polish finds within the broader Central European context, revealing shared technological traditions and regional variation. Experimental data support the interpretation that metal moulds were used for repeated direct casting, contradicting earlier views that they served only for model production. The concentration of finds in western Poland, often deposited in hoards of metals and in aquatic contexts, suggests diverse depositional practices of the metal moulds. This study not only expands the empirical base for understanding prehistoric metal casting in Poland but also contributes to ongoing discussions on metallurgical activities in Bronze and Early Iron Age Europe.

The article deals with the history of development of livestock farming among the Irmen people in the Late Bronze Age. The authors’ analysis of a number of research works revealed that Irmen population had a pastoral type of economy with cattle prevailing in the livestock and a smaller proportion of horses and sheep. In addition, it was revealed that the main trend in the pastoral farming development was the formation of distant-pasture cattle rearing. The review of scientific studies showed that the Irmen people of the forest-steppe part of West Siberia had both summer and winter settlements and practiced winter cattle housing. Cattle grazing was conducted within floodplain valleys of large rivers, as well as on remote pasture fields. The conclusions about the use of horses primarily as riding and draft animals, as well as those about their specific ritual role in the Late Bronze Age are rather essential. A conclusion was drawn about individualization of horses’ burials in funeral complexes and connection between burials of horse skulls and certain buried subjects. As a rule, those are cases of men who acted as community leaders. Burials of such men usually marked a series of mounds within Irmen barrows. The rise of the tradition in the Irmen culture is explained in terms of the gradual increase of horses’ role in the economy of southern West Siberia. A hypothesis was also drawn according to which orientation of horse skulls to the northeast or southwest symbolized the rising of the sun in the northeast during the summer solstice and its setting in the southwest during the winter solstice. And the number of horse skulls in Irmen burial mounds symbolizes the number of months during which the sunrise and sunset points make significant shifts to the northeast and southwest respectively. Thus, horse skulls turned to the northeast symbolize the spring and summer months that “carry” the sun towards warmth and increasing daylight. The skulls turned the southwest, on the opposite, “carry” the fading sun towards the cold of winter. The mythological and calendar symbolism stems from the traditions of the early Andronovo sepulchral complexes with their southwestern orientation of buried horses (imitating a yoke) and those of Andronovo burials with the southwestern orientation of human remains. It was understood that the steady tradition of horse burials took shape in the livestock-raising communities of the steppe and forest-steppe zones of Eurasia. In terms of archaeology, the sources of the tradition are well fixed in Bronze Age artifacts and found interpretation in Indo-European rituals. The privileged position of the horse found its archaeological reflection in Irmen house-building, burial and commemorative rituals. The location analysis of animal bone remains within the sacral space of Irmen burial mounds has shown that heads (skulls) and skins of horses had been used by the Irmen people most frequently during burial and subsequent commemorative ceremonies of the funeral cycle.

Abstract

In the above paper, Johan Ling and Zofia Stos-Gale present results from a project comparing isotopes from Bronze Age artefacts with signatures from known Bronze Age mining localities. The results showed that artefacts found in southern Sweden were made from bronze mined in Cyprus. This is in itself interesting, but the discovery of rock art engravings in Sweden that resemble ‘oxhide’ bronze ingots from Cyprus adds a new dimension to the interpretation of Scandinavian rock art, with its strong focus on boat images. The number of possible oxhide ingots represented in Swedish rock art is low, but if the identification of these images is correct, we have evidence, for the first time, of direct connections between Scandinavia and the eastern Mediterranean, connections that have been supposed, but not evidenced, for more than a century (e.g. Hansen 1909). Here, I focus on some implications this article may have for future Scandinavian Bronze Age studies, with special emphasis on rock art.

Provenance of tin in the Late Bronze Age Balkans based on probabilistic and spatial analysis of Sn isotopes

Efforts by scientists to locate the sources of copper used in ancient Mediterranean and Near Eastern cultures through comparative chemical analyses of copper ores and archeological artifacts have largely failed for various mineralogical and metallurgical reasons. The isotopic composition of lead, an element present in a minor amount in many copper ores and bronze objects, is unchanged through metallurgical processes and may in principle be used to determine the sources of the copper used in Bronze Age artifacts. Results suggest that for Late Bronze Age Crete the Laurion region in Attica, Greece, may have been a more important copper source than Cyprus.

Viking Age copper-alloy artefacts from Uppland (south central Sweden) were analysed by SEM/EDX to concretise differences in metal composition. Arte-facts were selected from two settlements (Birka and Rasbo), and four ceme-teries: Birka, Lovö, Norrsunda/Valsta, and Sollentuna/Häggvik, all within a limited area and with social and economic contacts with the world around. The analyses of the Viking Age finds reveal large variations in metal com-position, and large differences compared with Bronze Age artefacts. Few objects were made of “conventional” bronze with 5–10% tin. Instead, tin was often replaced by metals such as zinc, lead, and iron. We attribute this significant change to gradual innovations in mining and metallurgy on the continent. Arte facts of almost pure copper were also found. Seventeen gilded oval brooches from Birka graves form a homogenous group with respect to type, dating, and a high copper content. The artefacts’ preservation was also examined in order to find possible connections to the composition of alloys. The most corroded finds were those from Birka, with corrosion of metal oxides, carbonates, chlorides and sulphates, an effect of polluted soil. No particular alloy could be singled out as being particularly corrosive.

Sheep wool in Bronze Age and Iron Age Europe

The article examines the results of the 2012 and 2013 archaeological excavations of Skrundas Krievu kalns hill-fort, situated in western Latvia. Krievu kalns was listed as a site in the 1920s, but it was not regarded as a hill-fort. During a site inspection, striated pottery was discovered, and this indicated that it might be numbered as a Late Bronze Age and Pre-Roman Iron Age habitation. Excavations revealed the site to be a hill-fort that was fortified in the 11th to the ninth century BC with a palisade made of vertical timbers. In the eighth to the fifth century BC, the defences were moved outwards, thus enlarging the living area. There was possibly even later a third fence. Krievu kalns may be classed as a Late Bronze Age hill-fort with striated pottery, reflecting the characteristic Bronze Age cultural traditions of western Latvia.

Use of variscite as a gemstone in the Late Bronze Age Royal Tomb at Qatna, Syria

To explore the source of Pb in Bronze Age artefacts from the Central Plains (Zhongyuan) in China, we investigated non-ferrous minerals from the Qingyuan archaeological site in Yuanqu County near the Zhongtiao Mountains. Fragments of smelting slag from the Erlitou cultural layer were collected. The smelting slag was investigated by scanning electron microscopy (SEM), energy dispersive X-ray spectroscopy (EDS), X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS), X-ray diffraction (XRD), and lead isotope analysis. The SEM and EDS results confirmed that the slag contained Pb, Pb–As, and Cu–Pb–Sn inclusions and non-metal impurities such as low-Zn spinels. The XRD results signified that the bulk of the slag comprised Fe–Mn–Si phases. The chemical state of Pb was mainly Pb–O with some metallic Pb, as identified by XPS. The theoretical melting point was calculated using FactSage7.1 based on the composition and phase characterisation. The calculated temperature was 1100–1200 °C, which agreed well with the actual melting point of 1114–1354 °C. The slag composition and inclusion phases indicated that Pb–Zn–O ores with Mn and As were added during reduction smelting in Qingyuan. The raw materials of smelting included crude Pb with minor amounts of Cu, As, and Sn. Lead isotope analysis revealed that the lead materials produced in Qingyuan were likely transferred to Yanshi City in the Shang Dynasty. The findings of this study provide significant clues for exploring lead mineral production in the Central Plains during the Early Bronze Age.

Summary Lusatian Urnfield communities inhabiting Lubusz Land and western Greater Poland (Wielkopolska) in the Late Bronze and Early Iron Ages occupy a unique position on the settlement map of the middle Oder basin. For nearly a thousand years, they acted as a kind of buffer between the buoyant Silesian centre, which had achieved its culture-making role thanks to direct exchange contacts with the Transcarpathian and Danubian-Alpine centres of the south, and West Pomeranian groups inspired from the west and northwest by the Nordic circle. The importance of Lubusz-Greater Poland (Wielkopolska) populations to the overall cultural picture of the territories on the banks of the Oder River can hardly be overestimated, so it is worth analysing this phenomenon in more detail. One of the significant cultural elements is the ceramic style. It can be a means of manifesting outside the identity of a group, the identity consolidated by a tradition functioning within this group. It is hard to imagine a relative standardisation of patterns in pottery produced over a certain area to be only the result of more or less random movement of female potters or small groups of people. The standardisation of material culture, resulting from the existence of a style, no doubt enhances homogeneity and stability in everyday life, and therefore can be regarded as a factor integrating neighbouring communities in territorial communities within a supra-local scale. In the Late Bronze Age, in Lubusz Land and western Greater Poland (Wielkopolska), one can notice the same stylistic tendencies in pottery manufacture (bossed style, Urad style, Late Bronze Age style) and in figural art in clay, and a similar repertoire of bronze objects, produced in local metallurgical workshops on the Oder. The formation of Urnfield communities in Lubusz Land and western Greater Poland (Wielkopolska) was no doubt part of a broader process of cultural integration, of supra-local character, which was taking place throughout the upper and middle Oder basin at the transition of the Middle and Late Bronze Ages. This was a process of acculturation, based on the reception of the influx of new cultural contents along the River Oder from Lower Silesia and perhaps, although to a much smaller extent, from Lusatia and Saxony. The result was the cultural unification, for the first time to such an extent, of the western part of what is now Poland. The archaeological indicator of the discussed process was the appearance of large cremation cemeteries, with burials furnished with bossed pottery of the Silesia-Greater Polish type, representing a style typical of most of the middle Oder basin. Similar tendencies can be seen in bronze metallurgy, where a nearly complete unification of the repertoire of produced objects can be observed from the beginning of the Late Bronze Age. Here, however, the distributions of particular forms are much broader and encompass almost the entire western part of the Lusatian Urnfields. In Lubusz Land and western Greater Poland (Wielkopolska) the Late Bronze Age saw a very dynamic development of local bronze production, performed primarily within the Oder metallurgical centre. The result was a relatively high percentage of bronze artefacts in the cultural inventory of Urnfield populations inhabiting the region, most of them ultimately deposited in the many hoards buried during that period. A broad spectrum of manufactured designs, their notable standardisation, and the finds of durable casting moulds all seem to confirm that bronze metallurgy, along with pot-making, belonged to the most important areas of production performed by the population inhabiting the middle Oder basin at the conclusion of the 2 nd and beginning of the 1 st millennium BC, despite it having been carried out by a limited group of initiated specialists. The process of formation of Lusatian Urnfields in the middle Oder basin was most likely not complete before HaA2, and from the subsequent phase onwards one can notice a steady expansion of settled areas, resulting from intensive internal colonisation and the processes of acculturation. The dynamics of this phenomenon are best illustrated by newly established, vast cremation cemeteries, most of which were then continuously used at least until the close of the Bronze Age, with some persisting into the Early Iron Age. With the onset of the Early Iron Age, the Lubusz-Greater Polish territorial community of Lusatian Urnfields started to slowly disintegrate, a phenomenon explained by the adoption of a different model of Hallstatisation by these communities. In Lubusz Land, pottery of the Górzyce style ( Göritzer Stil ) appears, inspired more by Białowice ( Billendorf ) than Silesian patterns, while in western Greater Poland (Wielkopolska) ceramic workshops still maintained a close connection with the tendencies set by their Silesian neighbours, who at that time closely followed the East Hallstatt trends. The Lubusz-Greater Polish territorial community, which crystallised and developed throughout the entirety of the Late Bronze Age largely thanks to the unique role of the Oder River as a route of long-distance exchange and at the same time a culturally unifying element of the landscape, ceased to exist with the onset of the Early Iron Age, never to be reborn.