Before Hercules

VIRVELINĖS KERAMIKOS KULTŪRA LIETUVOJE 2800–2400 cal BC

During the past century, numerous archaeological surveys and handbooks have been published that include summaries of the Levantine Bronze Age (fourth–second millennia BCE: ca. 3800–1100 BCE). The Archaeology of the Bronze Age Levant by Raphael Greenberg is the most recent and in-depth of these treatments. The ways in which such archaeological overviews are approached have evolved over time. The first of these summaries, notably by W. F. Albright (1940 and later editions), presents the results of excavations in pre-WWII Palestine. This was followed by K. Kenyon's 1960 (and later editions) publication, which integrates the contributions of post-WWII archaeology in Israel and Jordan, especially her excavations at Jericho and Jerusalem. These two books, as their titles suggest, linked the archaeological evidence to the biblical and historical record, and they had a broad appeal for both the academic community and the general public. Three decades later and following a dramatic increase in archaeological activity in the region, A. Mazar (1990) and A. Ben-Tor (1992) published updated archaeological summaries of the southern Levant. Both volumes, which served as textbooks for a generation of undergraduate students and valuable reference works, prioritize the archaeological data, examined together with the primary textual sources.Other surveys dedicated to the archaeology of this region emphasize anthropological approaches to reconstruct the social archaeology of the southern Levant (see, e.g., Levy 1995 and Yasur-Landau et al. 2019). One publication, J. M. Golden's (2009) Ancient Canaan and Israel: An Introduction, organizes the archaeological data thematically. Margreet Steiner and A. E. Killebrew's 2014 multi-author handbook is the most comprehensive archaeological treatment of this region and includes both the northern and southern Levant and Cyprus. It serves as a general resource and reference work for the broader Levant and its interaction with neighboring regions.Greenberg's 2019 monograph differs from these earlier publications in his prioritization of processes over agency. Additionally, it centers solely on the Bronze Age and focuses primarily on the archaeological data interpreted through the lens of socio-anthropological theory while minimizing the use of textual sources. As a coherent, up-to-date narrative written by a single author, it also avoids the pitfalls of earlier edited handbooks and surveys comprised of chapters of uneven quality and differing approaches.The Archaeology of the Bronze Age Levant appears in the Cambridge World Archaeology series, whose targeted audience comprises students, professional archaeologists, and academics in related disciplines. The aim of this series is to publish up-to-date surveys of the archaeology of a particular region that integrate findings, contemporary theoretical approaches, and intellectual trends with broader cross-cultural interpretations. Greenberg's volume is solidly situated in the socio-anthropological approach to Levantine archaeology and lives up to the goals of this series. It is written as a narrative that traces social and cultural change in the Levantine Bronze Age and how communities there interacted with the broader developments in the Near East and Mediterranean, ranging from emulation to resistance. Major transregional themes addressed include the emergence of states, international trade and elite networks, and external imperial ambitions. The author also considers the impact of landscapes and places of commemoration as reflected in the archaeological record. The book consists of seven chapters, including an introduction (Ch. 1) and conclusions that summarize the legacy of the Bronze Age Levant (Ch. 7).Chapter 1 introduces the reader to the Levant and its environment. In this volume, the Levant refers to a section of the eastern Mediterranean littoral, the rift valley and the highlands bordering the valley on either side, today forming the modern entities of coastal Syria, Lebanon, Israel, Palestinian territories, and Jordan. Greenberg outlines his rules of engagement and defines the Bronze Age as a period when key human institutions develop, subdividing these into cities, states, markets, military power, legal codes, and institutionalized religion. The fourth–second millennia BCE also witnessed the human impact on the physical landscape, including the appearance of the layered mound (tell), and the integration of the Levant into a Mediterranean world resulting in the establishment of contact networks and interaction (3). This chapter defines the geographical boundaries of the Levant and characterizes it as “a diverse patchwork of environmental affordances and potentialities” and an “ecological mosaic” with a range of microclimates that serve as a buffer to climatic change (6–7). Contrary to much recent scholarship on the importance of climatic change for settlement patterns, social organization, and economic development, Greenberg downplays its impact on the Bronze Age Levant.Chapter 1 also outlines the principal themes that form the framework for this book. They include the ebb and flow of centralization of power, which the author attributes to the tendency of people in the Levant to both emulate the political ideologies of neighboring regions and resist their practical application (13). In his approach, Greenberg begins with the material culture evidence, privileging excavation results over surveys. As contemporary texts are usually fragmentary and often not directly relevant to the material culture interpretation, he uses these texts sparingly, prioritizing the archaeological over the literary record. In each chapter, chronological parameters and the environmental setting are discussed. Main archaeological categories including settlement patterns, architectural features / built landscape, key artifact types, crafts/industries, and burials / mortuary practices are described in detail.Chapters 2 and 3 are devoted to the Early Bronze (EB) I, II, and III, a period of time spanning over a millennium (ca. 3800/3600–2400 BCE) and the focus of much of Greenberg's decades-long excavation and research. Greenberg traces several trends, including the transition from the village-based world of the EB IA, the establishment of more complex mega-villages, and the beginnings of inequality, that appear in the EB IB during the final centuries of the fourth millennium. The latter period also coincides with the first significant interaction between Egypt and the Levant, which Greenberg terms the “first Egyptian intrusion” (13, 57).The following millennium represents the crystallization of fortified population centers and the appearance of “urban ideologies” (13) in the EB II and III. Chapter 3 explores the nature of EB II–III Levantine society. A key question addressed is: Can the EB II fortified cities be considered “urban”? The physical features of these settlements meet some of the criteria usually defined as “urban” (e.g., fortifications and evidence of town planning), as exemplified in contemporary Mesopotamia and Egypt. However, other commonly cited features of urbanization, such as large, clustered populations, writing, and administration, are lacking. These characteristics suggest that the EB II and III Levant represents “partial” urbanization (what some have termed “complex villages”) or, as Greenberg proposes, a uniquely local, “Levantine” urbanism.Chapter 4 investigates the Intermediate Bronze Age (IBA), a 500-year period of time that in the southern Levant is marked by changes in settlement patterns including the abandonment of mound settlements, a shift in mortuary practices, and regional ceramic assemblages based on village workshops. The retreat from urbanism during the IBA is often attributed to the well-documented climatic change that occurred between ca. 2200 and 1900 BCE. However, Greenberg challenges this interpretation, noting (140) it is difficult to evaluate the impact of climate change on microregions within the Levant and the nature of human response to it. As he points out, counterintuitively, the number of settlements in drier, more marginal regions increases in the southern Levant during the final centuries of the third millennium, coinciding with a period of a warming climate.In Greenberg's account, the picture that emerges during the IBA is one of regionally diverse cultural assemblages that are difficult to place chronologically due to the dearth of uninterrupted stratified sequences in the archaeological record and insufficient radiocarbon dates. Although the IBA is culturally distinct from the EB III, some material-culture features demonstrate elements of continuity with the EB III and overlap with the MB I. These findings suggest that, chronologically, the IBA may have partially co-existed with the EB III and MB I, a phenomenon that Greenberg (182) terms in Chapter 5 as “archaeologically coeval.”Chapter 5 examines the first half of the second millennium, conventionally termed the Middle Bronze Age (MBA). The MBA is also often understood as a cultural “regeneration” that represents the apex of Bronze Age urban culture in the Levant. Following his goal of disentangling the textual and archaeological evidence, Greenberg constructs what he terms a new “conceptual scaffolding” (184), which is grounded in the archaeological evidence and radiocarbon dates. This approach leads him to decouple the end of the MB II from the documented expulsion of the Hyksos and link it with the eruption of the Thera volcano that occurred ca. 1600 BCE and doubtlessly had a profound short-term effect on the environment in the eastern Mediterranean.The remainder of the chapter presents the archaeological evidence, mainly from the southern Levant, arranged chronologically and regionally. Greenberg (264–65) concludes, somewhat controversially, that the end of the MB II is marked by societal collapse, coinciding with the period of the Thera eruption but unrelated to disruptions that may have resulted from New Kingdom Eighteenth Dynasty accounts of a “Hyksos expulsion” from Egypt. In his view, this “collapse” is best exemplified by two phenomena: first, what he considers to be a marked discontinuity between MBA and Late Bronze Age (LBA) material culture (a statement that not all archaeologists would agree with); second, a contraction in population that led to a decrease of settlements, both in size and in number, during the LB I.The LBA is featured in Chapter 6. Greenberg outlines the two main themes that serve as the framework for his narrative interpretation of this period: the expansion of Egyptian imperialism in western Asia and the impact of interconnected regional economic networks. Several dozen pages are devoted to the concept that the Levant was “under Egypt's heel.” This view is puzzling since archaeological evidence for Egyptian interaction during the LB I and LB IIA is scant, as Greenberg himself (299–300, 309) points out. Rather, our knowledge of Egyptian engagement in Canaan during this period depends largely on textual evidence: Eighteenth Dynasty annals, which describe periodic Egyptian campaigns to Canaan, and the mid-fourteenth-century BCE Amarna letters. Except for Jaffa, there is little archaeological evidence for an Egyptian occupation during the LB I and IIA. This changes in the thirteenth century BCE, when Egyptian intervention is archaeologically visible but confined to a number of sites that served as Egyptian strongholds, as summarized by Greenberg (291–99, 302–10). Outside of these strongholds, Egyptian artifacts in Canaan are not abundant and, when they do appear, are usually imported prestige objects. Based on the archaeological evidence, there is little support for the view that New Kingdom Egypt “annexed” the southern Levant as Greenberg maintains (287). Rather, the archaeological evidence suggests Egypt appears to have exercised varying degrees of informal to administrative imperialism during the course of the LBA. Though Greenberg emphasizes the role of Egyptian imperialism in the region, when considered in its larger eastern Mediterranean political context, one may question how much Egyptian imperialistic ambitions affected daily life or controlled socioeconomic, political, and cultural developments in the LBA Levant.The second part of this chapter discusses the LB II prestige economy, exemplified by discoveries from Hazor, Megiddo, and other small towns and nodes of ritual power. In this section, Greenberg justifiably highlights the role of interconnected networks in shaping the LBA Levant. The archaeological evidence is unequivocal. The large number of imported Cypriot and Mycenaean objects at Levantine sites and elsewhere reach their apex during the LB IIA and testify to the Levant's integration in LBA global networks. This coincides with a period during which direct Egyptian imperialistic control seems to have been minimal. Not discussed is the central role of copper from Cyprus and long-distance trade in tin in this imperial and elite-controlled exchange system. Unlike many scholars of this period, Greenberg (341–42) does not consider the end of the LBA and transition to the Iron I period, or what he terms the Terminal Bronze Age (ca. 1200–1100 BCE), to represent a period of societal collapse or significant disruption.In his final, seventh chapter, Greenberg considers the legacy of the Bronze Age Levant, asking “what changed, what stayed the same, and what was passed on to the following eras” (354). The first signs of early state formation can be discerned in the EBA. EB II and III polities, which can be described as “just short” of being towns and states, are, in Greenberg's view, the foundations for MBA, LBA, and later Levantine political entities. Another development is the Levant's unique ability to adopt innovations from neighboring cultures and its willingness to absorb technologies, peoples, and ideas. One of Greenberg's more interesting observations is the linear rise in the “capacity for violence” (355) over time, best evidenced by the increase in weapons and human-induced destructions during the course of the Bronze Age. As Greenberg concludes, ultimately it is the geographic characteristics of this region that shaped the Levant and its cultures, creating a uniquely Levantine idiom. Its diverse landscapes, microregions and climates, and lack of unifying geographic features tended to suppress the ability to accumulate great amounts of surplus or wealth (which, in turn, would have required the development of large bureaucracies). These tendencies also encouraged exploitation of the region by imperial powers. The result is the resilience, creativity, and flexibility to adapt to new situations as narrated in Greenberg's masterly, nuanced, and engaging account of the Bronze Age Levant.

Sicily is one of the main islands of the Mediterranean Sea, and it is characterized by a variety of archaeological records, material culture and traditions, reflecting the history of migrations and populations’ interaction since its first colonization, during the Paleolithic. These deep and complex demographic and cultural dynamics should have affected the genomic landscape of Sicily at different levels; however, the relative impact of these migrations on the genomic structure and differentiation within the island remains largely unknown. The available Sicilian modern genetic data gave a picture of the current genetic structure, but the paucity of ancient data did not allow so far to make predictions about the level of historical variation. In this work, we sequenced and analyzed the complete mitochondrial genomes of 36 individuals from five different locations in Sicily, spanning from Early Bronze Age to Iron Age, and with different cultural backgrounds. The comparison with coeval groups from the Mediterranean Basin highlighted structured genetic variation in Sicily since Early Bronze Age, thus supporting a demic impact of the cultural transitions within the Island. Explicit model testing through Approximate Bayesian Computation allowed us to make predictions about the origin of Sicanians, one of the three indigenous peoples of Sicily, whose foreign origin from Spain, historically attributed, was not confirmed by our analysis of genetic data. Sicilian modern mitochondrial data show a different, more homogeneous, genetic composition, calling for a recent genetic replacement in the Island of pre-Iron Age populations, that should be further investigated.

This chapter presents an analysis of the settlement patterns in the Chalcolithic and Early Bronze Age I (EB I) periods in the southern Jordan Valley and the desert fringes of Samaria. It reviews the data from 102 survey sites, and analyzes those of 30 new sites. Five sites were excavated in order to answer specific questions concerning this subject. The chapter summarizes the surveys and excavation data to give a general picture of the settlement pattern, according to trends and key processes. It identifies a sequence of several sites from earlier periods. Four types of sites were discovered in the Chalcolithic period: the most common was the settlement site-27 sites. Open sites, work sites and enclosures were uncommon. Cave sites, and burial sites were absent from the sites with a medium or higher level of probability in the Chalcolithic.Keywords: Chalcolithic period; desert fringes; early Bronze Age I; Jordan Valley; Samaria; settlement patterns

The Copper Age in the Carpathian Basin is marked by a distinct change in settlement patterns, material culture, social traditions and subsistence practices; however, few studies address the nature of crop cultivation in the region. This paper examines new archaeobotanical data from 13 Copper Age (ca. 4500–2500 cal BC) sites located in continental Croatia, in order to assess the extent to which crop agriculture may have changed and contributed to overall subsistence economies in the Copper Age. From the archaeobotanical results, a dominance in einkorn and emmer is seen followed by barley. Less frequently millet, naked wheat and spelt/new glume wheat are also recovered, but due to their limited numbers, it is less clear whether they were grown as crops or represent weeds. Pulses (e.g. lentil, pea and grass pea), fruit remains (e.g. cornelian cherry and chinese lantern) and wild plant and weed species are also recovered, although more commonly from the late Copper Age sites. The archaeobotanical results show a clear reduction in the quantity and range of plant species recovered during the early/middle Copper Age; however, this is likely the result of taphonomic bias rather than a reduction in crop cultivation. The results therefore highlight problems of recovery bias in the region, which makes comparisons between sites as well as the reconstruction of crop husbandry regimes difficult. Overall, the results from continental Croatia suggest that the type of crops cultivated continued relatively unchanged from the late Neolithic, although it is clear that more research is desperately needed to explore the relationship between crop agriculture and the changing socio-economic environment of the Copper Age in the region.

Revisiting 1177 BCE and the Late Bronze Age Collapse

Subsistence strategies of Meshchera lowlands populations during the Eneolithic period – The Bronze Age: Results from a multidisciplinary approach

This chapter examines the methodology adopted to study the pattern and nature of settlement in the Chalcolithic period and Early Bronze Age I (EB I) in the southern Jordan Valley and the desert fringes of Samaria. The methodology that was decided upon combined the two accepted research methods in archaeology - excavation and survey. The principle of probability is intended to define the chronological ascription of the Chalcolithic site. The reason for this stems from the real need that arose to examine physically each of the finds from the different surveys. At quite a number of sites it was unclear why the surveyor decided that the site actually belonged to a particular chronological horizon. Frequently a chronological ascription to a specific period was solely based on body sherds, or a site was ascribed to a very long chronological period without making a more precise segmentation of the period.Keywords: archaeology; Chalcolithic period; Early Bronze Age I; research methods; Samaria; southern Jordan Valley

This study explores the contribution of large scale integrated pottery analysis to the definition of broader cultural processes and, more specifically, highlights for the first time changes in the role and demand for ceramic objects during the Copper Age in Southern Italy. To identify such trends and drivers of change this study applies a holistic approach to ceramic production integrating typological analysis typical of the Italian tradition with a broader, theoretically informed, technological approach involving macroscopic observations and archaeometric analyses. The study area is Campania, in Southern Italy, where four multi-phase sites were selected spanning through the whole Copper Age (roughly 3800-2100 BC). This study represents the first large scale archaeometric programme on Copper Age contexts from southern Italy and allows us to detect and relatively dating technological innovations (such as the use of moulds and advances in the control of firing) as well as strong manufacturing traditions never previously fully characterised for Copper Age Southern Italy. The combination of typological and technological analyses of different ceramic assemblages highlighted the emergence in the Early/Middle Copper Age of a selected branch of production for complex funerary vessels deposed in collective graves linked to serving and consuming liquids. Towards the end of the 3rd millennium BC, important socio-economic and cultural dynamics led to a radical change in funerary practices in Central and Southern Italy and in the practical and symbolic role of ceramics in these contexts. Ceramic manufacture became more varied with no evidence of a dedicated funerary production, in fact, only few ceramic vessels, also common in domestic contexts, were generally deposed in single flat graves. This typological, productive and also symbolic disruption led to theorise a shift from a 'ritual' to a 'functional' demand for ceramic production, embedded in the cultural processes ongoing in this period. This integration of multiple lines of evidence (context, typology and technology) highlights how research on ceramics can contribute to the definition and understanding of larger phenomena at a regional and wider scale such as demands of production as well as symbolic, and economic drivers of change.

In Ireland, the Middle to Late Bronze Age (1500–600 cal b.c.) is characterised by alternating phases of prolific metalwork production (the Bishopsland and Dowris Phases) and apparent recessions (the Roscommon Phase and the Late Bronze Age-Iron Age transition). In this paper, these changes in material culture are placed in a socio-economic context by examining contemporary settlement and land-use patterns reconstructed from the pollen record. The vegetation histories of six tephrochronologically linked sites are presented, which provide high-resolution and chronologically well-resolved insights into changes in landscape use over the Middle to Late Bronze Age. The records are compared with published pollen records in an attempt to discern if there are trends in woodland clearance and abandonment from which changes in settlement patterns can be inferred. The results suggest that prolific metalworking industries correlate chronologically with expansion of farming activity, which indicates that they were supported by a productive subsistence economy. Conversely, declines in metalwork production occur during periods when farming activity was generally less extensive and perhaps more centralised, and it is proposed that disparate socio-economic or political factors, rather than a collapse of the subsistence economy, lie behind the demise of metalworking industries.

Potential and limitations of LiDAR altimetry in archaeological survey. Copper Age and Bronze Age settlements in southern Iberia

The following paper analyzes ceramic collection from the excavations by M.E. Foss in 1953 from the Podzorovo site in Michurinsky District , Tambov Region, stored in the collections of the State Historical Museum (GIM 104032, inventory A 833). According to the results of the research, M.E. Foss concluded that there was originally a Late Neolithic site, and then a Bronze Age settlement. At the same time, the ceramics were divided into two groups: Late Neolithic (first of all pit-comb ornamented) and relating to the Bronze Age (other). When reviewing the collection in the light of new knowledge we were able to identify the materials of Dronicha late Neolithic culture, Eneolithic Srednestog culture and ceramics of the Ksizovo type, as well as Repino culture of the early Bronze Age. All of them find numerous analogies in the settlements of Don forest-steppe area. Thus, it was established that only in the Neolithic era - early Bronze, the Podzorovo site was settled at least six times. As additional information when describing ceramics, we present data on the results of the technical and technological analysis obtained during the study of ceramics of these cultures and cultural types originating from the settlements of the Upper Don.

Holocene climate changes and variability in Europe are outlined on three time scales: long-term changes throughout the period as a whole; shorter-term fluctuations at centennial to millennial scales; and events with an annual to multi-decadal duration. Human population history in Europe during the Holocene is considered in relation to this history of climatic change and variability; in particular, evidence is reviewed that may indicate that human populations responded to, and perhaps also contributed to, climatic changes. The limitations of the data sources and chronological techniques available are briefly outlined. The prevalent long-term pattern is one of relatively warmer conditions during the early to mid-Holocene, temperature subsequently declining towards its present values. Superimposed upon this pattern, however, are marked spatial patterns in the strength of the overall changes, as well as evidence that temperature seasonality varied systematically during the Holocene. No clear patterns in precipitation change emerge at the scale of Europe as a whole; long-term precipitation changes varied both between regions and between seasons. The extent to which human populations responded to these long-term changes, in particular through changes in agricultural practices or settlement patterns, is a matter of ongoing debate. At centennial to millennial scales, numerous independent palaeoclimate sensors provide evidence of variability, with some fluctuations being recorded by many different sensors. A marked cooling event at ca. 8.2 ka BP is widely recorded. Although other fluctuations correlate with less certainty between sensors, a common pattern emerges from many of these records. There is some evidence that these fluctuations may be periodic in character. Although chronological limitations generally preclude making definitive links between records of human populations and those of climatic fluctuations, there are notable coincidences between dates for archaeological events and for climatic fluctuations. In the more recent period, however, especially the last millennium, the link is quite secure between the climatic fluctuations of the ‘Mediæval Warm Period’ and ‘Little Ice Age’, and impacts upon human populations. At the shortest time scales, annual to multi-decadal events are recorded in tree rings and other records that offer annual resolution. The most striking of these events are dramatic, albeit generally short-lived, cooling events; furthermore, at least some of these events were apparently global in extent. Although the cause of these events remains a matter of debate, it seems most probable that they reflect catastrophic events of some nature that resulted in substantial quantities of material being injected into the upper atmosphere, thus reducing penetration of solar radiation for a period of years to a decade or more. Some of these events appear to be recorded in human mythology, and it is apparent that they have often coincided with major events in human history. Although much remains to be discovered, and much further research is required, it is apparent that human populations have been affected by climatic change, variability and events during the Holocene. It is also apparent that, when considered in the context of the Holocene, the twentieth century period of increase in atmospheric concentrations of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases, and of the onset of consequent global climatic warming, is anomalous. The predicted rate and magnitude of twenty first century global mean temperature increase will probably exceed anything experienced during the Holocene.

Grave Matters: Mediating Corporeal Objects and Subjects through Mortuary Practices

In archaeology, change in material culture is viewed as indicating social or cultural transformation and is the basis of our typo-chronological classification of phases and periods. The material culture from northern Germany reveals both quantitative and qualitative changes during the Bronze Age. At the same time, there is also evidence for ‘boom and bust’ cycles in population density/size, as indicated by changing human impact on the environment in several Bronze Age palaeoenvironmental records. These demographic fluctuations may relate to the observed changes in social phenomena in aspects of ideology, technology, food production and habitation. For example, innovations in food production, such as the adoption of new crops and agricultural techniques, could have led to population growth. While usually viewed by archaeologists as a ‘negative’ development, population stress or collapse may have favoured the emergence of new cultural phenomena. In order to test the cause-and-effect relationship between population dynamics and sociocultural change, we synthesise the archaeological evidence – qualitative and quantitative information from settlements, deposition finds (hoards), burials, material culture and architectural remains – for the Bronze Age in northern Germany, mainly Schleswig-Holstein, and compare it with the boom and bust pattern seen in the palaeoenvironmental record. The synchronicity of changes at ca. 1500 BC and ca. 1100 BC reflects the relationship between phases of major sociocultural transformation in the archaeological datasets and booms and busts in the palaeoenvironmental record of the region seen as a proxies for palaeo-demography. This sets the stage for a better understanding of the transformation of practices and relationships in the Bronze Age communities of the region.