WORLD ARCHAEOLOGY 2.1 MIDTERM
CHRONOLOGY
period age characteristics
20,000 yrs ago Last Glacial Maximum
Holocene 9600 – 15 BC
Mesolithic 9600 – 5500 BC End last ice age, beginning global warming(1. Sea level rise 2.
Isostatic uplift 3. Flora fauna changes) tilting line in
Denmark, broad spectrum hunter-gatherers ( fowling, shell
collecting and fishing). Microliths (flint) and bone tools
(harpoons), bow and arrow. Hunter-gatherers seasonally
exploited natural resources and traded with farmers. Became
farmers at the very end.
Neolithic 5500 – 2300 BC Agriculture, Domesticated animals, Pottery, Polished stone
axes. People in southeast Europe lived on tells and cults.
Female figurines were important. LBK. Settlements close to
rivers and loess soil depended. Early Neolithic tell-like
settlements. Second wave 5700-5600 = colonization. (west
wave cardial, north wave lbk). Third wave 4100 becoming
farmers . cannibalism
CRUCIAL BECAUSE
1. Irreversible impact on environment: nature into
agriculture (slash-and-burn)
2. Farming allows much larger populations
3. Population increases diseases, conflict and warfare
Bronze age 2300 – 800 BC Farmers, hierarchy, globalisation. classic bronze is 90% copper
and 10% tin. in 5th millennium BC, west Europe = stone-using,
east Europe = copper-using. jadeite (jade) was very rare in
west Europe. IN EUROPE, c.2300 BC earliest tin-bronzes from
England
WHY WAS THE STRUCTURAL ADOPTION OF BRONZE A GAME-
CHANGER
1. Allows novel shapes that are impossible to make in
stone
2. Bronze can be 100% recycled
3. Technological sophistication/progress (swords)
4. Leads to pan-european exchange-trade networks
5. Leads to social stratification (elites)
Burial mounds for elites and commoners, usually collective.
Deceased often cremated (west Europe).
Warrior ideal: males have bronze swords and tweezers/razors,
ornaments related to body/hair
Economy of destruction: part of bronze was not recycled but
deliberately deposited in landscape. Placed in semi-circles and
upright position
Rivers swords
Bogs axes
Graves local style ornaments
, Iron age 800 – 15 BC Farmers, celts
- iron is stronger than copper and tin and can be found almost
everywhere in Europe, democratic, reshift trade networks
- iron is often won from iron pans in streams and bogs
- iron is forged and can’t be cast and copied like bronze, in
prehistory no techniques to smelt of cast iron
PEOPLES
name place age
LBK linear 5700- Globular pottery with incised ‘waved-bands’
bandkeramik 4900 BC decoration. Rectangular longhouses, stone adzes
neolithic (often made from amphibolite). Lived in
hamlets/villages on fertile loess soils, they cut
open spaces in forests. Mass graves indicate a crisis
that led to collapse, caused by over population and
dwindling resources. POWERPOINT
TRB culture, Mainly in 3800- Hunebedden, pottery: funnel shaped neck and
trichterbech northern 2800 BC usually decorated. Had wagons and ploughs.
er/funnel Netherlands, neolithic Megaliths, longhouses, stone axes
beaker northern
Germany,
Denmark, south
Sweden and
northern Poland
Tripolye- Romania, 3500- Lived in very large settlements that could house
Cucuteni Moldavia and 3000 BC over 10,000 people. Dissapears when Yamnaya
culture Urkaine neolithic starts to spread. (as a result of an epidemic, the
plague)
Yamnaya Pontic-Caspian 3300- Were nomadic and built round burial mounds for
cultures steppes, migrated 2800 BC individual graves (sometimes contain remains of
into Europe and neolithic wagons). European dna derived from Yamnaya
transformed into ancestors
Corded Ware
Corded Ware Mainly in east 2800- Mainly known from graves. Single grave burial.
culture central and north 2500 BC Very widespread and uniform Grave has an
europe neolithic individual in crouched position on side. Stone
battle axe, flint knife, ceramic vessel (decoration
cords and protruded foot). Round burial mounds.
Male bias. Grave goods: amber disc, flint blades,
battle axe, flint axe
Bell Beaker Mainly in western 2500- Grave has an individual in crouched position on
culture europe. (atlantic) 2000 BC side. Earliest metal objects. Decorated bell-shaped
Bell beaker neolithic beaker, tanged copper dagger, flint arrowheads,
people from the bronze wristguard (archery), gold or amber ornaments,
Netherlands age cushion stone. Round burial mound. Archery
migrated to equipment, wristguard, arrowshaft smoothener.
England Maritime connectivity. BELL BEAKER PACKAGE:
beaker pot, knife, wristguard, gold ornaments,
cusionstones
Hallstatt 800-500 Burial of four-wheeled wagons, horse gear, bronze