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Settling and Moving: a biographical approach to interpreting patterns of occupation in LBA Circum-Alpine Lake-Dwellings

Yes / Lakeshore and wetland settlements of the Circum-Alpine region are well known for their excellent preservation of organic remains and their potential for accurate dating through dendrochronology. This settlement tradition spans from the Neolithic to the Early Iron Age, though several hiatuses in lake-dwelling construction are observed. Traditional models for the abandonment of lake settlements rely upon climatically deterministic models, linking declining climatic conditions to increasing lake-levels, which would have impacted upon settlements and forced the inhabitants to relocate. Recent studies of Neolithic lake-dwellings have indicated that social factors also influenced the development of these settlements, while the ‘social biography’ of settlements has been an area of increasing interest in terrestrial settlements. A review of selected Late Bronze Age (LBA) lake settlement illustrates the development sequence seen at many lake-dwellings from across the Circum-Alpine region. The proposal of a biographical model linking cultural influences to the development sequence observed in LBA lake-dwellings, and to the choice to abandon areas and relocate villages, offers further insights into the development of enigmatic settlements. / Swiss National Science Foundation

Identiferoai:union.ndltd.org:BRADFORD/oai:bradscholars.brad.ac.uk:10454/9540
Date January 2012
CreatorsJennings, Benjamin R.
Source SetsBradford Scholars
LanguageEnglish
Detected LanguageEnglish
TypeArticle, Accepted manuscript
Rights© 2012 Taylor & Francis. The Version of Record of this manuscript has been published and is available in the Journal of Wetland Archaeology at http://dx.doi.org/10.1179/jwa.2012.12.1.001., Unspecified

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