Iron Age Sites Research Articles

Preliminary report on the forth season of the Konya-Ereğlİ Survey (KEYAR)1 2016

The KEYAR survey project began in 2013 with the intention to fill in a gap of underinvestigated provinces of the greater Konya region. The south-eastern corner, which encloses the provinces of Karapinar, Eregli, Emirgazi and Halkapinar are investigated in this survey project. The survey focuses on the investigation of Bronze and Iron Age sites, which is a great challenge, as the area comprises different geographies, such as the fertile Konya plain, the slopes of the Bolkar Mountains, the Kara...

Raman and XRF classification of Asian and European glass beads recovered at Mutamba, a southern African Middle Iron Age site

Twenty-eight representative beads found at the thirteenth-fourteenth century AD site of Mutamba in southern Africa were classified morphologically and then analysed with pXRF. Eighteen beads were selected from four identified series of K2-IP, EC-IP, Mapungubwe Oblate and European for Raman spectroscopy. The results show corrosion has a great effect on the composition and nanostructure of Mapungubwe series with lixiviation of alkalis. In corroded K2-IP beads elevated amounts of potassium recorded on the surface layer compared to less corroded IP beads. Despite these changes pXRF and Raman spectroscopy were successful in discriminating of the bead series by considering the concentration of trace elements (Zr, U), detected pigments (lead tin yellow (II), red lead), opacifiers (SnO2, calcium antimoniate) and colorants (Fe, Cu, Co) and their concentrations in the beads.

Hoby – An Exceptional Early Roman Iron Age Site in the Western Baltic Region

Hoby on the island of Lolland in the western part of the Baltic Sea is strategically located in a coastal landscape offering abundant resources. In 1920, one of the most richly furnished so-called “Lübsow type” graves dating to the first century AD was discovered at Hoby. The settlement associated with the grave was recognised in 1999. Excavations of the settlement between 2001 and 2016 have confirmed the central role of Hoby in the Iron Age society. The research has focused on the Iron Age population and the infrastructure on Lolland. The Iron Age open cultural landscape encompassed numerous settlements, richly furnished burials and fortifications, and has produced unique metal finds. The article presents a summary of investigation results.

Chemical–physical characterisation of Early Iron Age glass beads from Central Europe

Archaeological excavation of the Institute of Archaeology and Ethnology (Polish Academy of Sciences, PAN) at several Iron Age sites located in West Poland and South Germany has allowed the recovery of an important set of coloured glass beads mostly decorated (6th–4th centuries BC). The present paper summarises the results obtained through the chemical and microstructural characterisation of such beads. The research was carried out by binocular microscope observations, X-ray diffraction, scanning electron microscopy, energy dispersive X-ray spectrometry and visible spectrophotometry. The main objective was to attain information on the production technology and conservation state of these beads.The results indicated that all them were produced with soda lime silicate glass, even though two groups can be separated: (i) beads containing high MgO percentages made from plant ashes as an alkaline source, and (ii) beads containing low MgO percentages made from natron as an alkaline source. As regards decorations, opaque white was obtained from tin oxide, turquoise blue from Cu2+-ions, and opaque yellow from lead antimonate.Additionally, results showed microstructural and microcrystalline differences between some glass beads studied here and other glass beads from Mediterranean areas, dated in the same chronological period. This fact pointed out the valuable role given to these beads by Iron Age communities from Central Europe.

Metalworking at Megiddo during the Late Bronze and Iron Ages

Metalworking at Megiddo during the Late Bronze and Iron Ages

Памятники эпохи раннего железного века - средневековья Южного Предуралья: источниковедческий контекст (лес и лесостепь)

Памятники эпохи раннего железного века - средневековья Южного Предуралья: источниковедческий контекст (лес и лесостепь)

Sediments, soils, and the expansion of farmers into a forager's world: A geoarchaeological study of the mid-to-late Holocene in Hwange National Park, Zimbabwe

The transition from foraging to food production in interior southern Africa is still not well understood, despite being central to hypothesized migration and diffusion routes connecting the earliest agropastoralist sites in central Africa with the southern African subcontinent. Hwange National Park (14,650 sq. km), Zimbabwe is located along these proposed routes and has both Late Stone Age and Early Iron Age sites that can address this transition.To better understand this change in lifeways and any environmental and/or topographic factors that influenced it, geoarchaeological investigations characterized the soils, sediments, and landforms in six different areas of the park. Forty-eight stratigraphic sections varying from two to four m thick were described, six of which are detailed here. These stratigraphic sections include dated material that allows correlation between basins of different substrates and comparisons of carbon isotopic signatures to reveal whether conditions were locally favorable to grasses (hot/dry) or woodlands (cool/wet) through time.Examined river cuts and augered samples show that some river basins have sediment textures, soil types, and topographic relief that should have been attractive to farmers. However, radiocarbon ages reveal variable potential for finding remains of any early farmers from basin-to-basin, with some bedrock-constrained valleys having no preserved deposits of appropriate age. The repeated scouring of these river basins testifies to sometimes volatile conditions that would have challenged sustained food production.In fact, in the study area landscape instability and variable environmental conditions were commonplace during the past three millennia. Drought between ca. 2.8 and 2.6 ka may have lessened the risk of disease vectors for the earliest agropastoralists that arrived during more mesic conditions between 1.9 and 1.65 ka. At this time basins began to accumulate fill and soil development suggests landscape stability even in headland basins. Changes in soil carbon isotope values imply relatively hot/dry conditions prevailed around 0.73 ka and 0.41 ka and cool/wet conditions around 0.53 ka, but much information has been lost due to the numerous erosional events that wiped away swaths of sediments during intervening droughts. The landscape in Hwange National Park continues to change rapidly as reflected by several meters of river downcutting in response to recent man-made disturbance and/or drought. This downcutting both reveals and endangers the few remaining archaeological sites that are critical to understanding the first food producers in the region.

Archaeology on Television, 1937

The birth of archaeologically themed television programmes is intimately linked to the birth of television itself. Yet little is known of the earliest broadcasts owing to both the fragmentary archival record and the longstanding hype surrounding later archaeology TV productions. This article examines two of the first such shows, likely the earliest in the English-speaking world for which records survive, focused on the British Iron Age site of Maiden Castle and on the reconstruction of prehistoric pottery. While noting the role of Mortimer Wheeler in their development, I also highlight several key women who produced the programmes, starred in them, and otherwise held critical posts in the establishment of professional archaeological practice in Britain, including Margot Eates, Ione Gedye, and Delia Parker — all based at London's Institute of Archaeology (IoA). These BBC TV broadcasts were specifically deployed to showcase the sites and methods of the burgeoning discipline of archaeology. More importantly, however, they were subtle players in the building of intellectual and institutional capital for both the IoA and the BBC. Augmented by other graphic media produced by the IoA itself, the earliest televised archaeology shows generated income, exposure, capacity, and clout for these two very different but pioneering organizations.

Metallurgical traditions and metal exchange networks in late prehistoric central Myanmar, c. 1000 BC to c. AD 500

Myanmar has been notably underrepresented in recent studies of archaeometallurgy in Southeast Asia, despite its richness in both mineral and cultural resources and its potentially central role in long-distance exchange networks linking India, China and peninsular neighbours. Here, we present original analytical data on copper-base artefacts from several Bronze Age and Iron Age sites in Myanmar. Observed microstructures range from as-cast, worked, to fully annealed; compositions include leaded copper, low-tin to high-tin bronzes, and arsenical copper/bronze. Lead isotope analyses indicate that the metal originates from different geological sources, including several that match the lead isotope signatures of known prehistoric copper mines in Thailand and Laos. These archaeometallurgical data, including evidence for secondary copper-base production, more than double those currently available for Myanmar and document the presence of multiple local alloying and working traditions, perhaps chronologically differentiated, as well as identifying possible links to primary mineral sources across the region. Overall, this adds significant new information to the emerging picture of Southeast Asian prehistoric metallurgy at the crossroads of several major ancient cultures.

Gods and monsters in Roman Scotland

Recent finds of copper alloy and lead figural sculpture from Roman Scotland are presented and discussed. These are rare finds in this frontier area, and represent a significant addition to a small corpus. Discussion considers whether such finds offer clues to the location of shrines or other sacred places in the wider landscape, a question that has largely been ignored in research to date. The rarity of such finds among the Roman imports on Iron Age sites leads to a discussion of the uptake and impact of such naturalistic imagery on the local population. An appendix catalogues the finds.

Populära kärl och användbara skärvor Spåren av återbrukad keramik i centralplatsen Uppåkras kärna

Popular vessels and useful shards. Traces of use and recycling of pottery from the Iron Age site of Uppåkra in south Sweden. During the early migration period at the central settlement of Uppåkra, in south Sweden, people reused pottery shards as tools. As this is a fairly uncommon area of study regarding prehistoric Scandinavian pottery, the traces of use and recycling on pottery found in other prehistoric and historic contexts were compared to traces on these shards. This resulted in a discussion on possible areas of use for the reused pottery pieces, and what kind of reuse generates these traces. Several shards were interpreted as having been reused as tools of different kinds, and some types of pottery appear to have been more popular for this purpose, such as thin walled, slightly harder fired vessels. Signs of reuse on shards from pottery vessels include: thin vertical striations perpendicular to the fracture, beveled fracture surface, polish, discoloration, various forms of attrition, and retouching. The shards might have been utilized as scrapers or as a potter’s tool in the production of new vessels. The theory that pottery was seen as a resource even after a pot was broken, is confirmed by some small collections of unused and reused pottery shards that were located within the boundary of house no. 21 at Uppåkra.

Elusive wild foods in South East Asian subsistence: Modern ethnography and archaeological phytoliths

A common predicament in archaeobotany is the relatively low proportion of the plant material exploited by humans that survives into the archaeobotanical record. Ethnobotanical survey can provide insights on how people utilized and disposed of their local plant resources and this can feed back into interpretations of archaeological evidence. Here ethnobotanic data from different regions of Thailand are employed to better understand the exploitation of gathered and garden economic plants in the context of traditional village systems where there is often a blurred line between the wild and the domestic and no clear division between the garden and the forest. This information is used in turn, to understand archaeobotanical results from Rach Nui, a Neolithic settled non-agricultural site in Vietnam, and Non Ban Jak, an Iron Age site with a rice farming economy in Northeast Thailand.

Más allá del valle del <em>Thader</em>: poblamiento y dinámicas territoriales en las comarcas meridionales murcianas entre los siglos V a. C.-II d. C.

El presente trabajo aborda el estudio del poblamiento entre los siglos V a. C.-II d. C. en el sureste peninsular y, en particular, en los valles del Quípar y del Guadalentín. Se presenta así por primera vez un análisis de conjunto, diacrónico y comparativo, del poblamiento ibérico en toda el área meridional de la región de Murcia y de las dinámicas que marcaron su transformación con el mundo romano. Con la ayuda de un Sistema de Información Geográfica, se ha recopilado y revisado toda la información arqueológica relativa a los 202 yacimientos documentados en estos territorios, analizándola de forma combinada con aquella relativa a su contexto espacial (vías de comunicación, potencialidad agrícola de los suelos, recursos naturales, explotación tradicional e histórica, etc.). Todo ello nos permite, por un lado, trazar la evolución del poblamiento en estos territorios ofreciendo una visión de largo recorrido hasta ahora ausente en los estudios regionales y, por otro, insertar este sector murciano en los procesos que definen este periodo en otras áreas del sureste, en especial, en las vecinas tierras alicantinas y andaluzas.

Raw material variability as archaeological tools: Preliminary results from a geochemical study of the basalt vessel workshop at Iron Age Tel Hazor, Israel

The discovery of a basalt vessel workshop at Tel Hazor, one of the most important Iron Age sites in the Near East, marks a turning point in our understanding of stone artifact production and distribution during the1st millennium BCE. It offers a rare opportunity to characterize ancient raw material sources, production sites, and study production, trade and distribution systems. The basalt vessel workshop, the only one of its kind in the Levant, produced large quantities of bowl preforms and production waste. To better understand the production and distribution systems behind this specialized production center, in 2011 we initiated a focused geochemical project that concentrated on the products of this unique workshop. We measured the major and trace element composition of 44 unfinished basalt vessels from the workshop and other contexts at Hazor, and can demonstrate that the majority of these objects were derived from one specific, geochemically well-constrained, basaltic rock source. Only a few bowls clearly deviate from this geochemical composition and were produced using raw material from other sources. Thus, we believe that one major quarry existed that supplied the Hazor workshop with the majority of the basaltic raw material. The products from this specific extraction site provide us with a “Hazor reference group” that can be used to test whether or not finished vessels from Hazor and contemporary sites were produced in the Hazor workshop.

The first herders in the upper Ebro basin at Los Husos II (Álava, Spain): microarchaeology applied to fumier deposits

Fumier deposits are the product of the recurrent use of caves and rock shelters for stabling livestock and the periodic burning of the resulting dung. Their chronologies in the Mediterranean area extend from Neolithic times up to the Bronze Age, but they are scarce in or absent from Iron Age sites. The study of these deposits has provided important information to better understand past livestock and husbandry practices. The archaeological site of Los Husos II, Alava, in the upper Ebro basin, Spain, dating to 6,990–6,770 cal bp, represents one of the earliest pieces of evidence for animal domestication in the Basque Country. The Ebro basin is particularly important, since this was the main route by which the Neolithic economic system spread from the Mediterranean coast to the northern Iberian Peninsula and the western Pyrenees. We present here the results of the study of the fumier deposits from the Neolithic Levels IV to IX of Los Husos II, through analyses of phytoliths, faecal spherulites and ash pseudomorphs. The main goal was to discover the ways in which Neolithic populations in this region adapted these new practices and carried out their activities. The results indicate a constant pattern of keeping animals throughout the study period. The principal component of the livestock diet consisted of wild grasses from the vicinity. The presence of grass inflorescences suggests a diet rich in summer grass. In addition to grasses, dicotyledonous plants were also indicated, both through phytoliths and ash pseudomorphs. Faecal spherulites from herbivores were also noted in the samples and together with phytoliths and ash pseudomorphs they give important information regarding the formation processes of the studied deposits.

Of Buffalo and Butchers: Coupling Traditional Procurement Studies with Taphonomic Analyses to Explore Intensive Wild Animal Processing Patterns at Two Early Iron Age Sites in the Kruger National Park

Located in northeastern South Africa in the Kruger National Park, the wild-dominated faunal assemblages at Le6 and Le7 allow for a site-level examination of the treatment of wild species within the highly variable spectra of Early Iron Age animal use. Looking at hunting beyond pure subsistence choices, this paper couples traditional morphological analysis with taphonomic analysis and theoretical frameworks of intensification to ask new socially focussed zooarchaeological questions of these assemblages. Through this, both the procurement and processing methods utilized at Le6 and Le7 are identified and the significance of these choices is discussed. In so doing, the paper addresses possible specialization in both the hunting and the processing of large wild mammals. The socio-economic implications and potential drivers of these faunal choices are then considered within the broader context of the southern African Early Iron Age, and a potentially new faunal use strategy and site type are introduced.

Iron Age beta (23% tin) bronze: Peninsular Indian bowls of Adichanallur, Nilgiris, and Boregaon

ABSTRACTAs-cast binary copper–tin alloys with over 15% were generally not much in use in antiquity as they get embrittled at higher tin contents due to the increasing presence of the intermetallic delta phase compound. Even so, the unusual and skilled use of a higher tin binary bronze alloy, known as wrought and quenched high-tin beta bronze, is found, especially from some Iron Age or megalithic sites in southern and peninsular India, around the early first millennium BCE. They are closely approximating to the composition of the pure beta phase of 22.9% tin, which is an intermetallic compound. This article presents some of the micro-structural evidence of heavily hot-forged, carinated, and perforated bowls from the site of Adichanallur, Tamil Nadu. They rank amongst the most finely wrought examples of beta bronze known in the world, with continuing traditions into the medieval Chola Tamil region and contemporary period. A process of experimentation with thermomechanical processes in the Peninsular Indian Iron Age is also suggested, since it slightly differed from an example of a vessel with 21% tin that was only cast and quenched, found in Boregaon from the Vidarbha megaliths of Maharashtra in the Central Deccan.

Phum Lovea: A moated precursor to the pura of Cambodia? Sociopolitical transformation from Iron Age settlements to early state society

The understanding of Angkorian pre-state society has been greatly enhanced by an increase in archaeological investigation in recent years. From excavations conducted at Cambodian Iron Age sites we have evidence that attests to a transformative period characterised by increasing sociopolitical complexity, intensified inter- and trans-regional mercantile activity, differential access to resources, social conflict, technological transfer and developments in site morphology. Among the growing corpus of Iron Age sites excavated, Phum Lovea, on the periphery of Angkor, is uniquely placed to provide insight into increasing sociopolitical complexity in this area. The site is one of the few prehistoric moated settlements known in Cambodia and the only one to date to have been excavated. Excavation of the site has revealed an Iron Age agrarian settlement whose occupants engaged in trade and exchange networks, craft specialisation, metal production, and emergent water management strategies. These attributes can be seen as antecedent to the profound developments that characterise the first millennium CE polity centred on Angkor.

What is on the menu in a Celtic town? Iron Age diet reconstructed at Basel-Gasfabrik, Switzerland

The late Iron Age (150–80 BC) proto-urban site of Basel-Gasfabrik, Switzerland, yielded numerous human skeletal remains, with individuals of all ages and both sexes being found in two cemeteries and in various features of the settlement itself. About 200 inhumations and two cremation burials as well as isolated skulls and bones attest to complex mortuary practices. Stable carbon and nitrogen isotope analyses of 90 human, 48 faunal, and seven cereal samples provide a rich database for dietary reconstruction. The results point to a diet that was largely based on C3 plants with a limited contribution of herbivore or pig meat and/or dairy products. Divergent isotope ratios can be attributed to the consumption of chicken meat/eggs or seasonally available salmon. Moreover, the contribution of C4 plants, supposedly millet, to human diets is well documented at Basel as well as at other central European Iron Age sites. We found no significant dietary distinctions between males and females. In children, indications for breastfeeding terminate between 1.5 and about 4 years of age, with isotopic differences emerging with regard to the investigated skeletal elements. The stable isotope data from different burial contexts, forms of mortuary practice, and presence or type of funerary objects overlap widely, providing only tentative indications for dietary differentiation within the living population. These findings distinguish Basel-Gasfabrik from other Iron Age sites and call for further integrative studies for deciphering the complex mechanisms behind the highly differentiated mortuary practices in the late Iron Age.

Dietary changes and millet consumption in northern France at the end of Prehistory: Evidence from archaeobotanical and stable isotope data

Diachronic changes of dietary human habits between the Neolithic and the Bronze Age are mainly identified through archaeological artefacts and archaeozoological and archaeobotanical studies. This paper aims to demonstrate the importance of a multi-disciplinary approach for palaeodietary studies and to identify the food changes between Neolithic and Bronze Age human groups in northern France. These changes are probably linked to the introduction of new crops, such as millet, and the use of stable isotope analysis on bones and teeth proves to be an effective method for assessing the role of this specific cereal in the diet and the economy. Stable isotope analyses were performed on bone and tooth collagen and apatite from eight humans and five domestic animals from a Late Bronze Age site (LBA; Barbuise; 15th–13th c. BC; Aube). The studied corpus is compared with isotopic data from human and animal bones from a nearby Neolithic site (Gurgy; 5th mill. BC; Yonne) and regional Neolithic to Iron sites located in northern France. Moreover, Barbuise data are supplemented by information from an important archaeobotanical study carried out on 21 LBA and Early Iron Age sites in the region. Neolithic and LBA human collagen isotopic ratios (δ13C, δ15N) differ statistically, as do those of some animals. Carbon isotopic ratios of human apatite corroborate collagen results indicating the consumption of 13C enriched food by LBA humans and animals compared to Neolithic samples. The high number of occurrences of plant remains in the Bronze Age settlements near the site points to the consumption of C4 plants, such as millet, and would account for these results.