Thesis (doctoral)--University of Liverpool, 1979. / Includes indexes. Includes bibliographical references (p. 367-415).

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Umeå, 1986. / Includes bibliographical references (p. 188-194).

Thesis--Frankfurt am Main. / A part of the author's larger work with title Äxte und Beile in Österreich, which will be published in its entirety as Abt. IX, 9 of Prähistorische Bronzefunde. Vita. Includes bibliographical references.

Thesis (doctoral)--University of Liverpool, 1979. / Includes indexes. Includes bibliographical references (p. 367-415).

<p>This master essay deals with the changes in the use of and the abandonment of the Avebury monument and the change of the surrounding landscape during the late Neolitihic, about 3000 B.C, and into the Bronze age, about 1500 B.C. The change in the way people supported themselves, the development of agriculture, brought along many other changes as well. I am in this paper dealing with these issues, how and what lead up to these changes, the peoples own part in the development, and I am also looking into the fact that these changes might not have meant an end of old ideologies, but rather a development in the expression of beliefs where the monuments of the neolithic no longer had a place in society.</p>

The study of ancient Eurasian metallurgy has been suffering from (or preoccupied by) two conventional perspectives. One is that of the diffusion model emphasising the importance of the settled empires of ancient Egypt and Mesopotamia, of south-eastern Europe and of China (Shennan 1986, 1993; Kristiansen 1984). The supremacy of these 'cradles' of early civilisation is marked not only by social hierarchies, but also by technological inventions such as metal production. This view sees the mobile populations of the Eurasian steppe as occupying the "hinterland" of these early settled states in the south, believing that the emergence of metal technologies in the Steppe was the result of the expansions of "advanced" civilisations. The second perspective is rooted in the provenance study which traces metal objects back to their geological sources (Pernicka 2014). It assumes that chemical and isotopic composition of metal is static and only reflects a simple linear relationship between artefacts and specific ore deposits. Drawing from a legacy database of approximately 9,000 chemical analyses of copper-based artefacts, this thesis rejects the simplicity of both the diffusion and the provenance models. While admitting that the use of metal might have originated from western Asia, the development of metallurgy in the Eurasian steppe should be understood on its own terms. It is constantly re-shaped by vigorous circulation of metal artefacts across mobile communities on a regional or inter-regional scale. This observation is based on the application of a new innovative framework to interpret the patterns of compositional data (Bray et al. 2015). This novel method argues that metal can flow, quite literally, from one object to another as it is re-melted, re-mixed and re-cast in different shapes and colours, depending on different social contexts. Thermodynamic modelling and modern experiments have shown that during the copper melt, some volatile elements in copper alloys (e.g. arsenic, antimony, and zinc) are preferentially removed through oxidative loss. Instead, some elements, such as silver, nickel, and gold, tend to be preserved in metals. These predictable patterns of elemental losses provide valuable information to trace the directional flow of metal units between regions/cultures, if we combine chemical data of metal artefacts properly with archaeological context, landscape and chronology. By using this new methodology, several routes of copper supplies have been identified in the Steppe during different periods. They feature the exchange of metals within regional networks, fuelled by local copper sources. The Urals, central Kazakhstan, the Altai, and the Minusinsk-Tuva regions were the primary copper production centres that developed distinct trace-element chemistry and artefact typology. By contrast, alloying techniques employed by steppe peoples, generally demonstrate the long-distance connections based on two major metallurgical practices: arsenical copper in the western steppe and tin-bronze in the eastern steppe. Copper-arsenic production was concentrated in the Caucasus but the recycling of its arsenical copper became more apparent further away towards the Urals. On the other hand, the invention of tin-bronze metallurgy was triggered by the formation of the Seima-Turbino phenomenon (c. 2100- 1800/1700 BC) in the Altai, and this alloying tradition was amplified by the emergence of the Andronovo culture (c. 1700-1400 BC) in the Ural-Kazakh steppe. Tin-bronze ornaments, in particular, were exchanged between eastern and western mobile communities over a considerable distance, through the mechanism of pastoral seasonal movements. In conclusion, traditional views of diffusion and provenance theories cannot be uncritically applied to the inception of ancient metallurgy in the Eurasian steppe. Mobile pastoralists developed multi-regional production hubs based on the accessibility of ore resources and the variations in subsistence strategies. Although steppe metalwork revealed some technological borrowings from settled communities, steppe peoples had transformed them into locally adapted products that could fit into their socio-economic systems. That is, when dealing with the issues of Eurasian metallurgy, we should acknowledge the complexity of human engagement with metal and look into subtler differences in cultural context, landscape, and ideology.

The Bronze Age in southern Sweden is a period that has seen a great deal of research for as long as archaeological studies have been undertaken in this country. While we have a rich material record and even many visible indicators of the time in the landscape, such as the rock carvings of Tanum and the many mounds dotting the landscape, many aspects of that society are relatively poorly understood. I´m mainly referring to the economic structures underpinning Bronze Age societies. This project will take the models of Wealth and Staple Finance Systems, developed by Timothy Earle and successfully tested in many equivalent contexts around the world, and apply them on Swedish settlement materials from the Bronze Age settlements of Pryssgården and Apalle. The study looks at site distribution patterns, the prevalence of prestige goods and the possible importance of external contacts in order to produce a reliable economic model of the Swedish Bronze Age. While some similarities in resource management are obvious, some relevant aspects were found to differ.

The late Bronze Age settlement in Březnice near Bechyně (South Bohemia) was investigated during 2005-2009. As well as commonly found features, many ditches were also found (about 1/3). These ditches are linear pits oriented in a north-south direction and the length (usually 4-7m) is four times the width. The results of macro-remains analysis of the late Bronze Age settlement in Březnice represent extraordinarily rich collections of archaeobotanical finds. Extracted macro-remains bear attributes of waste origin where Chenopodium album, Polygonum aviculare, Fallopia convolvulus are the most frequent. In the analyzed samples the main cereals were millet (Panicum miliaceum) and barley (Hordeum vulgare). Less frequent were species of wheat: bread wheat (Triticum aestivum), spelt (T. spelta), emmer (T. dicoccum) and einkorn (T. monococcum). Other macroremains found were legumes: lentil (Lens esculenta), pea (Pisum sativum) and broad bean (Vicia faba). Poppy seeds (Papaver sp.) were rare.

No description available.

abstract: This study frames research on board games within a body of anthropological theory and method to examine the long-term social changes that effect play and mechanisms through which play may influence societal change. Drawing from ethnographic literature focusing on the performative nature of games and their effectiveness at providing a method for strengthening social bonds through grounding, I examine changes in the places in which people engaged in play over the course of the Bronze Age on Cyprus (circa 2500¬–1050 BCE), a period of increasing social complexity. The purpose of this research is to examine how the changes in social boundaries concomitant with emergent complexity were counteracted or strengthened through the use of games as tools of interaction. Bronze Age sites on Cyprus have produced the largest dataset of game boards belonging to any ancient culture. Weight and morphological data were gathered from these artifacts to determine the likelihood of their portability and to identify what type of game was present. The presence of fixed and likely immobile games, as well as the presence of clusters of portable games, was used to identify spaces in which games were played. Counts of other types of artifacts found in the same spaces as games were tabulated, and Correspondence Analysis (CA) was performed in order to determine differences in the types of activities present in the same spaces as play. The results of the CA showed that during the Prehistoric Bronze Age, which has fewer indicators of social complexity, gaming spaces were associated with artifacts related to consumption or specialty, heirloom and imported ceramics, and rarely played in public spaces. During the Protohistoric Bronze Age, when Cyprus was more socially complex, games were more commonly played in public spaces and associated with artifacts related to consumption. These changes suggest a changing emphasis through time, where the initiation and strengthening of social bonds through the grounding process afforded by play is more highly valued in small-scale society, whereas the social mobility that is enabled by performance during play is exploited more commonly during periods of complexity. / Dissertation/Thesis / Doctoral Dissertation Anthropology 2016