Journal of Neolithic Archaeology
Not a member yet
184 research outputs found
Sort by
Cover, table of contents and preface
No full textThis volume presents a selection of papers delivered at the Archéologie et Gobelets Bell Beaker workshop “Tink global, act local”, held between the 17th and the 21st of May 2017 at Kiel University, Germany. The Archeologie et Gobelets is a research community and network of archaeological specialists from all across Europe who meet every few years, discussing new findings and research concerning the Bell Beaker phenomenon and the wider 3rd millennium BC in Europe.
On the conference itself, ca. 70 people attended and 27 papers were presented. Out of these, 9 papers made it to this volume. The papers range spatially from Portugal to Denmark, assessing both funerary and settlement archaeology. They reflect the many different approaches and many fruitful discussions such an environment brings
Bell Beaker common ware and Giant Beakers: A Final Neolithic to Early Bronze Age settlement model based on the sequence of site Altgaul, Brandenburg
Get PDFA well- preserved Final Neolithic to Early Bronze Age settlement stratigraphy on the western edge of a lowland area in east Brandenburg allows the possibility to derive a model of Final Neolithic settlement dynamics. The sequence evidences features and intra-site pattering which would be difficult to detect under regular preservation conditions. Both the settlement pattern as well as the typochronological development of specific vessel forms, recognized from the stratigraphic sequence, can serve as an explanation for larger spheres of interaction within second half of the 3rd millennium BC. Of great importance is the close relationship of Bell Beaker common ware and the Giant beaker horizon as settlement pottery within the sequence. The analyses of the Altgaul sequence and the here presented results are part of my doctoral thesis (Lehmphul in press)
Violent Deaths in the Development of the Farming Economy: The Case of Bury
Get PDFMany recent publications have tended to emphasise warfare and violent death during the emergence of the farming economy, linking the expansion of early farmers with inter-group conflicts. Cases of violent death have also been identified in other periods of the development of Neolithic communities. The collective grave of Bury in the Paris basin provides one particular deposit, dated from the late 4th millennium cal BC and composed of a group of individuals, arranged in a specific position in the northeast corner of the monument. The central individual of the deposit, an adult man, showed clear signs of violence. The archaeological context and the formal chronological modelling undertaken using a large series of radiocarbon dates enable more precise estimates of the timing and duration of the depositional events, which took place within the burial chamber. The results demonstrate the ritual role of such violent death, which are particularly frequent in periods of change
Beaker Longhouses: Livelihood Specialization and Settlement Continuity in North Jutland
Get PDFWithin South Scandinavia, the Limfjord region of North Jutland in the 3rd millennium BC was geographically a markedly archipelagic landscape fairly open to the North Sea, with numerous islands and the presence of long streams connecting to the hinterlands. Culturally, during the younger Single Grave Culture as well as during the early Late Neolithic, this region certainly welcomed novel impulses from near and far. Not least, longhouses with a sunken floor in their eastern half were used for habitation in areas of the central Limfjord region. From the early Late Neolithic, some new investigations of sites of such longhouses at the Beaker settlements may also feed into the discussion of livelihood specialization and settlement continuity
Beaker pottery in the Peñon de la Zorra (Alicante, Spain): Change and emergence of social complexity between the Neolithic and the Bronze Age
Get PDFThis paper analyses the Bell-Beaker pottery record recovered at the Peñón de la Zorra site. This study focuses on number of variables, ranging from the morphological characteristics to the stylistic variability of this pottery. The significance of this unique set of decorated vessels can only be fully understood by also looking at the archaeological and historical contexts in which it was found, so other deposits and the territorial organization patterns noted in the Alto Vinalopó (Alicante, Spain) are also considered here
Editorial: Think global, act local! The Archéologie et Gobelets workshop in Kiel and some future perspectives for research into the 3rd millennium BC
Get PDFThis special volume of the Journal of Neolithic Archaeology is dedicated to a collection of papers presented at the conference held between the 17th and 21st of May 2017 in Kiel, Germany. The topic of this conference was “Think Global, Act Local! The Transformation of Spatial Interaction and Material Culture in Beaker Contexts of the 3rd Millennium BC in Europe”
Salt, fire, cress and fennel – how to create pollution
Get PDFThis article reflects on the concept of pollution as a concept and its history from an anthropological-archaeological perspective. With reference to Mary Douglas, the peculiarities of the archaeological approach to the concept are explained. The context of pollution is illuminated as an interpretative category by historical and ethnological case studies
Water-management in Central Germany based on geoarchaeological and palaeobotanical analyses of wells from the mid to late 3rd millennium BC at Roitzschjora
No full textOnly very view well features dating to the late 3rd millenium BC have been discovered so far from Central Germany. Here we present the results of palaeobotanical, sedimentological and archaeological analyses performed on three small well features from the Roitzschjora site. Our results prove that these group of features could serve as valuable palaeoenvironmental on-site records in spite of their poor preservation and small extent. The may espacially contribute to our general understanding of water management in comparatively dry environments and a more realistic assessment of the vulnerablity of these societies to small-scaled hydrological changes
Mansion on the Hill – A Monumental Late Neolithic House at Vinge, Zealand, Denmark
Get PDFThis paper presents the results of an excavation of the remains of a large, Late Neolithic two-aisled house in the northeastern part of Zealand, Denmark. The house shows a strong resemblance to the well-known Fosie-houses, but is almost three times as large as these structures. It is suggested that the building housed a Late Neolithic family, their farmhands and their livestock. Furthermore, the house’s monumentality signalled the power and wealth of its inhabitant(s) and is thus a clear indicator of the presence of an elite in the Scandinavian Late Neolithic society. The house is contemporaneous with the flourishing Únětice-centre in the Thuringia/Saxony-Anhalt region, from where copper and bronze were imported to Scandinavia. Although rooted in a Scandinavian building tradition, the Vinge house was probably influenced by the building of monumental houses in that area. The interactions with the Continent were likely based on a surplus in the Scandinavian Late Neolithic society generated by changes in agricultural strategies. These changes are reflected to some degree in the material from Vinge
Early Neolithic human bog finds from Falbygden, western Sweden: New isotopic, osteological and histological investigations
Get PDFDeparting from two recently dated finds of human bones in wetlands from the area of Falbygden in western Sweden, this paper describes the finds in detail and sets them in a wider context of depositional practices in the south Scandinavian Early Neolithic. The two finds are both of girls in the age of 15-20 years, and in one of the cases it is probable that she was bound and possibly intentionally drowned in shallow water.
The Falbygden finds have clear parallels in Denmark and in southern Sweden in the same period. The Danish material indicates that a particular segment of the population was treated in this way, primarily young individuals around 15-20 years. Some of them show signs of disease or deformations, many have signs of trauma, and a couple have been found with cords around the neck, suggesting violent deaths. In a number of cases, they were also found in pairs.
One of the Falbygden finds, the so-called Hallonflickan, was also unusual in that her Sr isotope ratio indicates that the was born far away, probably in Scania in southern Sweden. Whether other finds of this kind were also long distance movers is not known.
Direct bone datings show that this practice is established at the same time as the introduction of agriculture and of the Funnel Beaker culture in Scandinavia, around 4000 BC, and continues until ca 3000 BC after which it disappears for ca 1000 years. Deposition of humans in wetlands is paralleled by deposition of animals, pottery and stone tools, and we suggest that these form parts of a complex of ritual practices established over a large area at the time of the earliest Scandinavian agriculture