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The Oxford Handbook of the European Bronze Age is a wide-ranging survey of a crucial period in prehistory during which many social, economic, and technological changes took place. Written by expert specialists in the field, the book provides coverage both of the themes that characterize the period, and of the specific developments that took place in the various countries of Europe. After an introduction and a discussion of chronology, successive chapters deal with settlement studies, burial analysis, hoards and hoarding, monumentality, rock art, cosmology, gender, and trade, as well as a series of articles on specific technologies and crafts (such as transport, metals, glass, salt, textiles, and weighing). The second half of the book covers each country in turn. From Ireland to Russia, Scandinavia to Sicily, every area is considered, and up to date information on important recent finds is discussed in detail. The book is the first to consider the whole of the European Bronze Age in both geographical and thematic terms, and will be the standard book on the subject for the foreseeable future.
This book contends that Indo-European languages came to Greece, central Europe, southern Scandinavia and northern Italy no earlier than ca. 1600 BC, brought by the first military men whom Europeans had seen. That the Greek, Keltic, Italic and Germanic sub-groups of Indo-European originated in the middle of the second millennium BC is a controversial idea. Most Indo-Europeanists date the origin a thousand years earlier, and some archaeologists would place it before 5000 BC, as agriculture spread through Europe. Here Robert Drews argues that the Indo-European languages came into Europe via military conquests, and that militarism – a man’s pride in his weapons and in his status as a warrior - began with the employment of horse-drawn chariots in battle.
This book contributes to better recognition and comprehension of the interconnection between archaeology and political pressure, especially imposed by the totalitarian communist regimes. It explains why, under such political conditions, some archaeological reasoning and practices were resilient, while new ideas leisurely penetrated the local scenes. It attempts to critically evaluate the political context and its impact on archaeology during the communist era world wide and contributes to better perception of the relationship between science and politics in general. This book analyzes the pressures inflicted on archaeologists by the overwhelmingly potent political environment, which stimulates archaeological thought and controls the conditions for professional engagement. Included are discussions about the perception of archaeology and its findings by the public.
Presents finds from thirty-seven graves at the Roman Cemetery at Nemesbod (Hungary), which consisted of mainly cremation but also of some inhumation burials. Detailed analysis of grave goods (bronze vessels, pottery, glass, personal accessories, lamps etc.) provides a study of burial customs and their evolution.
Ancient religions are definitely complex systems of gods, which resist our understanding. Divine names provide fundamental keys to gain access to the multiples ways gods were conceived, characterized, and organized. Among the names given to the gods many of them refer to spaces: cities, landscapes, sanctuaries, houses, cosmic elements. They reflect mental maps which need to be explored in order to gain new knowledge on both the structure of the pantheons and the human agency in the cultic dimension. By considering the intersection between naming and mapping, this book opens up new perspectives on how tradition and innovation, appropriation and creation play a role in the making of polytheist...
Archaeology, as with all of the social sciences, has always been characterized by competing theoretical propositions based on diverse bodies of locally acquired data. In order to fulfill local, regional expectations, different goals have been assigned to the practitioners of Archaeology in different regions. These goals might be entrenched in local politics, or social expectations behind cultural heritage research. This comprehensive book explores regional archaeologies from a sociological perspective—to identify and explain regional differences in archaeological practice, as well as their existing similarities. This work covers not only the currently-dominant Anglo-American archaeological paradigm, but also Latin America, Western and Eastern Europe, Asia, and Africa, all of which have developed their own unique archaeological traditions. The contributions in this work cover these "alternative archaeologies," in the context of their own geographical, political, and socio-economic settings, as well as the context of the currently accepted mainstream approaches.
When the scientific study of the Black Sea Region began in the late 18th and early 19th centuries, initially commissioned by adjacent powers such as the Habsburg and the Russian empires, this terra incognita was not yet considered part of Europe. The eighteen chapters of this volume show a broad range of thematic foci and theoretical approaches - the result of the enormous richness of the European macrocosm and the BSR. The microcosms of the many different case studies under scrutiny, however, demonstrate the historical dimension of exchange between the allegedly opposite poles of `East' and `West' and underscore the importance of mutual influences in the development of Europe and the BSR.
Selected, peer reviewed papers from the 8th Hungarian Conference on Materials Science, October 9-11, 2011, Balatonkenese, Hungary
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The Danubian provinces represent one of the largest macro-units within the Roman Empire, with a large and rich heritage of Roman material evidence. Although the notion itself is a modern 18th-century creation, this region represents a unique area, where the dominant, pre-Roman cultures (Celtic, Illyrian, Hellenistic, Thracian) are interconnected within the new administrative, economic and cultural units of Roman cities, provinces and extra-provincial networks. This book presents the material evidence of Roman religion in the Danubian provinces through a new, paradigmatic methodology, focusing not only on the traditional urban and provincial units of the Roman Empire, but on a new space taxon...