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Alternative Iron Ages : social theory from archaeological analysis
\"Alternative Iron Ages examines Iron Age social formations that sit outside traditional paradigms, developing methods for archaeological characterization of alternative models of society. In so doing it contributes to the debates concerning the construction and resistance of inequality taking place in archaeology, anthropology and sociology. Constructing new social theory both archaeologically based and supported by sociological and anthropological theory, the book is perfect for those looking to examine and understand life in the European Iron Age\"-- Provided by publisher.
Book
How Ancient Europeans Saw the World
The peoples who inhabited Europe during the two millennia before the Roman conquests had established urban centers, large-scale production of goods such as pottery and iron tools, a money economy, and elaborate rituals and ceremonies. Yet as Peter Wells argues here, the visual world of these late prehistoric communities was profoundly different from those of ancient Rome's literate civilization and today's industrialized societies. Drawing on startling new research in neuroscience and cognitive psychology, Wells reconstructs how the peoples of pre-Roman Europe saw the world and their place in it. He sheds new light on how they communicated their thoughts, feelings, and visual perceptions through the everyday tools they shaped, the pottery and metal ornaments they decorated, and the arrangements of objects they made in their ritual places--and how these forms and patterns in turn shaped their experience.
How Ancient Europeans Saw the Worldoffers a completely new approach to the study of Bronze Age and Iron Age Europe, and represents a major challenge to existing views about prehistoric cultures. The book demonstrates why we cannot interpret the structures that Europe's pre-Roman inhabitants built in the landscape, the ways they arranged their settlements and burial sites, or the complex patterning of their art on the basis of what these things look like to us. Rather, we must view these objects and visual patterns as they were meant to be seen by the ancient peoples who fashioned them.
eBook
An Archaeology of Images
Using archaeology and social anthropology, and more than 100 original line drawings and photographs, An Archaeology of Images takes a fresh look at how ancient images of both people and animals were used in the Iron Age and Roman societies of Europe, 600 BC to AD 400 and investigates the various meanings with which images may have been imbued.
The book challenges the usual interpretation of statues, reliefs and figurines as passive things to be looked at or worshipped, and reveals them instead as active artefacts designed to be used, handled and broken. It is made clear that the placing of images in temples or graves may not have been the only episode in their biographies, and a single image may have gone through several existences before its working life was over.
Miranda Aldhouse Green examines a wide range of other issues, from gender and identity to foreignness, enmity and captivity, as well as the significance of the materials used to make the images. The result is a comprehensive survey of the multifarious functions and experiences of images in the communities that produced and consumed them.
Challenging many previously held assumptions about the meaning and significance of Celtic and Roman art, An Archaeology of Images will be controversial yet essential reading for anyone interested in this area.
'[Aldhouse Green] is to be congratualted on bringing together such a wide ranger of examples of iconographic art ... The book is well-written and readable.' – Britannia
Miranda Aldhouse Green is Professor of Archaeology at University of Wales College, Newport. Her main research interests are in the material culture of ritual and religion in the European Iron Age and western Roman provinces. Her previous publications include Symbol and Image in Celtic Religious Art , Exploring the World of the Druids, and Dying for the Gods.
Preface 1. Introduction: Images in Action 2. Image and Identity: Personhood, Self and Other 3. Imaging Gender: Iconographies of Difference 4. Materiality and Meaning 5. Thinking with Beasts 6. Dreaming Monsters and Shamanic Shape-Shifters 7. Paths of Perception: Ways of Seeing, Ways of Telling 8. Resistant Iconographies: Post-Colonial Perspectives Postscript: Images Unlocked? References
eBook
Headhunting and the body in Iron Age Europe
\"This book examines the widespread evidence for the removal, curation, and display of the human head in Iron Age Europe\"-- Provided by publisher.
Book
The Urbanization of Northern Italy
Recent excavations and theoretical advances have revealed evidence of an early and perhaps independent nucleation and centralization process in the region south of the Alps, a phenomenon that has been undervalued in previous studies. In this paper I present a broad overview and attempt to reassess the role of the Cisalpine regions as crossroads of trade and cultural transfer between the Mediterranean and central Europe through a critical evaluation of key archaeological evidence. I adopt alternative and up-to-date perspectives on the urbanization phenomenon, disentangling commonsensical and text-driven definitions of urbanism and social formation, while challenging the outdated “check-list” approach. This theoretical framework should promote a paradigm shift that leads to a substantial backdating and broadening of the appearance of complex site agglomerations in northern Italy, avoiding unidirectional development patterns and instead looking at possible cases of instability, ephemerality, and seasonality. The adoption of a comparative perspective triggers a timely disentanglement of the simplistic equation between urbanism and social hierarchy. Beyond a narrow and selective emphasis on elites, this paper considers alternative social entities and actions, including commoners, subaltern groups, and cooperation.
Journal Article
Iron Age Slaving and Enslavement in Northwest Europe
Archaeologists have yet to consider seriously the impact of slaving and enslavement on socio-cultural developments in Iron Age Europe. Commonly treated as a mere byproduct of incessant tribal warfare, it is generally held that slavery was not a significant phenomenon in temperate Europe before the Roman era. This is a curious state of affairs considering the clear cross-paradigmatic recognition of competition and conflict as prime movers of historical transformation. How is it that prehistorians see evidence for social stratification and inter-group conflict in so many contexts, yet grant slavery so little attention? If slaving and enslavement can be shown to have been a significant transformative phenomena in Iron Age Europe, how would this affect the interpretation of (old and new) archaeological evidence, and how would this change ideas about broader socio-cultural developments that have long been considered known by those who have looked at these things through the lens of 'acculturation' or 'complexification'? Comparative research shows how slavery is a multifaceted phenomenon with complex interrelated material, behavioral, and ideological dimensions. Therefore, any meaningful archaeological study has to take a multi-thread approach whereby a wide range of material categories and domains of social practice are examined, contextually, relationally, and comparatively. In taking such an approach, this exploratory study of the dynamics of Iron Age slaving and enslaving in Northwest Europe contributes to a complex but neglected topic.
eBook
Paths to Complexity - Centralisation and Urbanisation in Iron Age Europe
Exploring the origins of urbanism – the emergence and development of the first cities, has long constituted one of the main challenges of archaeological and ancient historical research. Studying cities in a long-term and cross-cultural perspective links the past with the present, allowing a better understanding of one of the most important developments in human history. Moreover, archaeological research on ancient cities can contribute to a better understanding of contemporary processes of urbanisation. The 21 papers in this volume aim bring together the latest continental and English-speaking research with contributions by well-established researchers and younger colleagues providing innovative perspectives. The whole Iron Age – ca. 800 BC to the beginning of the Common Era – is considered on an international basis to consider such topics as the similarities and differences observed between centralisation and urbanisation processes of the Early and Late Iron Age; new approaches to the internal organisation of settlements and their formation processes; the supply management of central places and economic support from their environment; and the crucial role of sanctuaries in the formation of urban settlements. Contributions cover an area stretching from central Spain to Moravia and from southern France to Britain. The aim has been to produce a work of reference for readers interested in Iron Age archaeology in particular, and in urbanisation processes in general.
eBook
Representations and Communications
In this volume, which is the outcome of the four-year long collaboration project SARA (Scandinavian and Atlantic Rock Art) between the archaeology department at University of Gothenburg and the Laboratory of Heritage of Spanish National Research Council, nine papers summarize new excavation and survey results, advanced studies of iconography and intriguing landscape studies. It addresses topics such as human activities in the vicinity and surroundings of rock-art panels, movement and communication, ritual and symbolism, and finally representations and constructions of landscapes. The book is a sophisticated study of the rock art of two major regions of prehistoric Europe, but one with implications for research over a much wider area. It is wide-ranging, topical and will no doubt also be controversial. Contributors include Per Nilsson, Manuel Santos Estévez, Yolanda Seoane Veiga, Johan Ling, Åsa C. Fredell, Marco García Quintela, Kristian Kristiansen, Lasse Bengtsson and Felipe Criado Boado.
eBook
The European Iron Age
This ambitious study documents the underlying features which link the civilizations of the Mediterranean - Phoenician, Greek, Etruscan and Roman - and the Iron Age cultures of central Europe, traditionally associated with the Celts. It deals with the social, economic and cultural interaction in the first millennium BC which culminated in the Roman Empire. The book has three principle themes: the spread of iron-working from its origins in Anatolia to its adoption over most of Europe; the development of a trading system throughout the Mediterrean world after the collapse of Mycenaean Greece and its spread into temperate Europe; and the rise of ever more complex societies, including states and cities, and eventually empires. Dr Collis takes a new look at such key concepts as population movement, diffusion, trade, social structure and spatial organization, with some challenging new views on the Celts in particular.
eBook