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"Fortification, Prehistoric."
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Hillforts and the Durotriges
This volume sets out the results of a detailed programme of non-intrusive geophysical survey conducted across hillforts of Dorset (UK), generating detailed subsurface maps of archaeological features, in the hope of better resolving the phasing, form and internal structure of these iconic sites.
eBook
Dating Prehistoric Fortified Coastal Sites in the Balearic Islands
A special type of coastal settlement, promontory forts defended by inland-facing walls, appeared in the Balearic Islands in an imprecise time during the Bronze Age. A research project was initiated in 2011 to study one of these sites on each of the two major islands of the archipelago. The first one, Es Coll de Cala Morell (north Menorca), is a walled promontory with a relatively large plateau, with 13 horseshoe-shaped houses (navetes). The second, Sa Ferradura (east Mallorca), is a smaller coastal cape, with a different spatial planning, with only two large built-up areas, both attached to the enclosure wall. Two of the navetes have been excavated at Es Coll de Cala Morell, showing a domestic space with a central hearth in both cases. The occupation has been dated to around 1600–1200 cal BC. At Sa Ferradura seven hearths have been recorded in a large, open-air area. Their chronology falls within the interval of approximately 1200/1100–900 cal BC. From a chronological point of view, fortified settlements in coastal promontories are not, as was expected, a unitary phenomenon in Menorca and Mallorca and have to be related to different cultural periods.
Journal Article
War Before Civilization
For the last fifty years, most popular and scholarly works have agreed that prehistoric warfare was rare, harmless, and unimportant. According to this view, it was little more than a ritualized game, where casualties were limited and the effects of aggression relatively mild. Lawrence Keeley's groundbreaking War Before Civilization offers a devastating rebuttal to such comfortable myths and debunks the notion that warfare was introduced to primitive societies through contact with civilization. Building on much fascinating archeological and historical research and offering an astute comparison of warfare in civilized and prehistoric societies, from modern European states to the Plains Indians of North America, Keeley convincingly demonstrates that prehistoric warfare was in fact more deadly, more frequent, and more ruthless than modern war. He cites evidence of ancient massacres in many areas of the world, and surveys the prevalence of looting, destruction, and trophy-taking in all kinds of warfare, again finding little moral distinction between ancient warriors and civilized armies. Finally, and perhaps most controversially, he examines the evidence of cannibalism among some preliterate peoples. But Keeley goes beyond grisly facts to address the larger moral and philosophical issues raised by his work. What are the causes of war? Are human beings inherently violent? How can we ensure peace in our own time? Challenging some of our most dearly held beliefs, Keeley's conclusions are bound to stir controversy.
eBook
Elements of Continuity
Stones can serve an infinite array of functions both when they are worked and when they are left in a ‘raw’ state. Depending on their function, stones can also be meaningful objects especially when they act as vehicles of ideas or instruments of representation. And it is, therefore, in their functional context, that the meaning of stones can be best grasped. The stones dealt with in this study are non-figural (or aniconic) or, sometimes, semi-figural. They come from ritual contexts and, as such, act as a material representation of divine presence in their role as betyls. But it is not mainly the representational aspect of these stones that this study seeks to highlight. As material representations of divine presence that are also worshipped, these particular stones form part of a phenomenon that seems to know no geographical or temporal boundaries. They are of a universal character. It is this universal character of theirs that seems to qualify these stones as elements forming part of the phenomenon of continuity: continuity across different cultures and in different places along several centuries. It is this phenomenon which this study seeks to highlight through a study of these stones. The Maltese islands are presented as a case study to demonstrate the phenomenon of continuity through a study of these stones. Worship of stones in representation of divine presence is found on the Maltese islands since prehistoric times. But the practice survived several centuries under different cultures represented by unknown communities during the islands’ prehistory and the Phoenicians / Carthaginians and the Romans in early historic times.
eBook
Iron Age Hillfort Defences and the Tactics of Sling Warfare
Was the purpose of an Iron Age hillfort to defend people and resources or was it there to show the power of the community and its leaders? Was the Middle Iron Age trend to large complex ‘defences’ a response to developing tactics of assault or did the huge amounts of construction work serve the purpose of building community identity through shared labour? The name ‘hillfort’ implies a defensive purpose, but in recent decades alternative interpretations have gained favour, based on analyses suggesting that hillforts are poorly suited to military purposes and on views of Iron Age society that emphasise the importance of boundaries, symbolic display and communitybuilding. Excavations of hillfort interiors reveal they were sites for many activities; large caches of stones suggest that sling warfare was one. This book reports an investigation of these issues. Sling accuracy at a hillfort was measured for the first time, in a controlled experiment comparing attack and defence across single and developed ramparts. Tactical scenarios modelled from the results showed that hillfort development gave defenders increased advantage. These results support defence as the explanation for the features of the enclosing works of hillforts. Full details of the method and analyses are included.
eBook
The Lost Dark Age Kingdom of Rheged
Trusty's Hill is an early medieval fort at Gatehouse of Fleet, Dumfries and Galloway. The hillfort comprises a fortified citadel defined by a vitrified rampart around its summit, with a number of enclosures looping out along lower-lying terraces and crags. The approach to its summit is flanked on one side by a circular rock-cut basin and on the other side by Pictish Symbols carved on to the face of a natural outcrop of bedrock. This Pictish inscribed stone is unique in Dumfries and Galloway, and southern Scotland, and has long puzzled scholars as to why the symbols were carved so far from Pictland and even if they are genuine. The Galloway Picts Project, launched in 2012, aimed to recover evidence for the archaeological context of the inscribed stone, but far from validating the existence of Picts in this southerly region of Scotland, the archaeological context instead suggests that the carvings relate to a royal stronghold and place of inauguration for the local Britons of Galloway around AD 600. Examined in the context of contemporary sites across southern Scotland and northern England, the archaeological evidence from Galloway suggests that this region may have been the heart of the lost Dark Age kingdom of Rheged, a kingdom that was in the late sixth century pre-eminent amongst the kingdoms of the north. The new archaeological evidence from Trusty's Hill enhances our perception of power, politics, economy and culture at a time when the foundations for the kingdoms of Scotland, England and Wales were being laid.
eBook
Enfoques Metodológicos en el Estudio de Los Asentamientos Fortificados de la Edad Del Hierro
This volume focuses on the main methodological perspectives currently existing in studies on Iron Age fortified settlements.
eBook
Sacred games, death, and renewal in the ancient Eastern Woodlands
The book presents an account of the Ohio Middle Woodland period embankment earthworks, ca 100 B.C. to A.D. 400, that is radically different from the prevailing theory. Byers critically addresses all the arguments and characterizations that make up the current treatment of the embankment earthworks and then presents an alternative interpretation. This unconventional view hinges on two basic social characterizations: the complementary heterarchical community model and the cult sodality heterarchy model. Byers posits that these two models interact to characterize the Ohio Middle Woodland period settlement pattern; the community was constituted by autonomous social formations: clans based on kinship and sodalities based on companionship. The individual communities of the region each have their clan components dispersed within a fairly well-defined zone while the sodality components of the same set of region-wide communities ally with each other and build and operate the embankment earthworks. This dichotomy is possible only because the clans and sodalities respect each other as relatively autonomous; the affairs of the clans, focusing on domestic and family matters, remain outside the concerns of the sodalities and the affairs of the sodalities, focusing on world renewal and sacred games, remain outside the concerns of the clans. Therefore, two models are required to understand the embankment earthworks and no individual earthwork can be identified with any particular community. This radical interpretation grounded in empirical archaeological data, as well as the in-depth overview of the current theory of the Ohio Middle Woodland period, make this book a critically important addition to the perspective of scholars of North American archaeology and scholars grappling with prehistoric social systems.
eBook
Spirits of earth : the effigy mound landscape of Madison and the Four Lakes
Between A.D. 700 and 1100 Native Americans built more effigy mounds in Wisconsin than anywhere else in North America, with an estimated 1,300 mounds—including the world's largest known bird effigy—at the center of effigy-building culture in and around Madison, Wisconsin. These huge earthworks, sculpted in the shape of birds, mammals, and other figures, have aroused curiosity for generations and together comprise a vast effigy mound ceremonial landscape. Farming and industrialization destroyed most of these mounds, leaving the mysteries of who built them and why they were made. The remaining mounds are protected today and many can be visited. explores the cultural, historical, and ceremonial meanings of the mounds in an informative, abundantly illustrated book and guide.
Finalist, Social Science, Midwest Book Awards
eBook