Chalcolithic Catamenia

The Chalcolithic Flow in the southern Levant lasted some 1000 years (c. 4500–3500BC) during which gild saw major changes.

From: Encyclopedia of Archaeology , 2008

ASIA, Due west | Southern Levant, Chalcolithic Cultures

Jonathan M. Golden , in Encyclopedia of Archaeology, 2008

The Chalcolithic Period in the southern Levant lasted some one k years ( c. 4500–3500   BC) during which guild saw major changes. Economic modify can exist seen in the appearance of copper metallurgy, the rise of arts and crafts specialization, and an increase in long-distance substitution networks. Important social developments during the Chalcolithic include the first extramural cemeteries and rich corporate cavern tombs. New types of figurines and temple complexes may reflect new religious practices and behavior. In that location is regional variation in material civilisation with regional sub-groups observed in the Wadi Grar, Beer Sheva region, the Golan, N Jordan Valley, and elsewhere. Chalcolithic culture seems to have adult directly out of local Neolithic traditions, with limited external influences (e.one thousand., Syria). It is unclear why the Chalcolithic cultures collapsed, but many sites of the northern Negev and elsewhere were abandoned sometime in the get-go half of the fourth millennium.

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EUROPE | Neolithic

Peter Bogucki , in Encyclopedia of Archaeology, 2008

Intimacy with the Dead

One of the defining characteristics of the Late Neolithic and Copper Age is what could be called 'mortuary ceremonialism'. Such ceremonialism takes a variety of forms, from the megalithic tombs of the Atlantic fringe to the elaborate cemeteries of southeastern Europe. A distinctive feature of these societies was a item intimacy with the dead, who were a persistent presence in club and connected to be encountered on a regular ground in excarnation places, collective tombs, settlement burials, and family plots and cenotaphs in cemeteries. These encounters occurred in a context of formalism veneration for ancestors and a sense of continuity of place and affiliation. It legitimized the existence and perpetuation of the household or hamlet to whom the dead belonged.

A cemetery at Varna, in northeastern Bulgaria, provides the richest collection of Late Neolithic/Copper Age burials in eastern Europe. Although its dating is inexact, correlation with dates finds from other sites suggests that the Varna cemetery was in use between 4900 and 4400   BC. The nearly 300 graves incorporate gilt, copper, and other luxury items, although 20% were 'symbolic graves' or cenotaphs without actual human remains. Gold artifacts, the nigh distinctive aspect of the Varna cemetery, occur in 61 graves, including most of the cenotaphs. Curiously, almost of the gold is found in the cenotaphs, while simply a few of the graves with skeletons were similarly furnished. Three cenotaphs contained gold-ornamented dirt masks with male person features. The richest burial at Varna contained the skeleton of a man nigh 40–50   years former and about ane.75   m alpine. Accompanying the skeleton were about a g gold objects along with other items made of copper, stone, clay, and Spondylus shell. One of the gold objects is termed a 'scepter', in which a wooden handle had been sheathed with aureate and topped with a stone macehead.

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ASIA, W | Southern Levant, Statuary Age Metal Production and Utilization

Sariel Shalev , in Encyclopedia of Archaeology, 2008

The beginning known use of metals in the Southern Levant is during the Chalcolithic period (end of 5th to most of the fourth millennium BC). Dating from that time more 500 metal objects have been found mainly in hoards, burials, and habitation remains, most of the metals come from sites in the southern part of State of israel and Jordan and very rarely from beyond the center of State of israel and north of Nahal Qanah. Almost of the metals belong to ii major categories and there is also a 3rd, minor category:

1.

Prestige/cult elaborated and circuitous-shaped objects made of copper (Cu) assimilated (either past a deliberate choice of circuitous minerals or past adding several minerals together) with singled-out corporeality of antimony (Sb) or nickel(Ni) and arsenic(As). They were cast in a 'lost wax' technique into single closed clay molds and so polished into their concluding shining greyness or gold like colors depending on the amount of antimony or nickel and arsenic in the copper. The biggest hoard (416 metal objects) comprising mainly of these highly artistically complex-shaped objects was institute subconscious in a remote cavern (the cave of the treasure) in Nahal Mishmar, Judean desert, State of israel, wrapped in a straw mat. The origin of the complex source material for the product of these objects is currently unknown. The nearest suitable ore is in Trans Caucasus and Azerbaijan – more then 1500   km from the finding sites of the objects. Several dirt and rock cores and clay mold's remains were petrographically analyzed and the results betoken to a possible local production within the metals distribution zone in State of israel. Currently, no product remains or product sites of these prestige/cult objects have been found.

2.

Unalloyed copper tools comprising mainly of relatively thick and curt bladed objects (axes, adzes, and chisels) and points (awls and/or drills) fabricated from a smelted copper ore bandage into an open mold and then hammered and annealed into their final shape and their blade's or betoken's hardness properties. The copper tools were produced in the Chalcolithic villages on the banks of the Beer-Sheva valley where slag fragments, clay crucibles, some possible furnace lining pieces, copper prills and amorphous lumps were institute beside loftier-grade carbonated copper ore (cuprit). The ore was collected and selected in the surface area of Feinan in Trans-Jordan and transported to the Northern Negev villages some 150   km to the north to be smelted there for the local production of these copper objects.

3.

A group of viii aureate (Au) and electrum (Au + upwardly to 30% Ag) solid rings was found in Nahal Qanah cave. This unique find, with no dated parallels, is attributed past the excavators to the Chalcolithic menstruum based upon local stratigraphic and geological reasons and 14C dating of ground samples from the vicinity of the discover in the cave. Surface analyses of these objects revealed a surface gold enrichment acquired by the depletion of silvery and the copper traces. This effect could be caused naturally by degradation, simply could as well result artificially at the fourth dimension of product in society to achieve a yellowish color for the electrum rings rich in silverish. During the Chalcolithic (copper + stone) era at least two, if non three unlike metal industries of different metals beside copper were operating and left their products in the Southern Levant.

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Trauma and Treatment∗

Mary Lewis , in Paleopathology of Children, 2018

Dislocations

Dislocation refers to a complete loss of normal contact between the bone and articular cartilage components of the joint. Subluxation refers to a partial loss of contact that is more likely to reset spontaneously. In that location may be respective damage to the connective tissue, muscles, ligament nerve, and vascular supply (Ortner, 2003). If left untreated, a fake articulation (pseudoarthrosis) may develop at the site of displacement. Compression fractures to the rim in the glenoid cavity, acetabulum, humeral, or femoral head accept been noted in clinical cases (Loma–Sachs type lesion), although they are more common in adults (Divecha et al., 2012). In all cases, it is important to dominion out dislocation or subluxation as the event of a developmental disorder such equally congenital dysplasia.

Dislocations of the Upper Limb

Dislocations of the glenohumeral junction are rare in children, although they increase in adolescence. The humerus is usually displaced anteriorly as the issue of a fall or fight. Posterior dislocations are normally only seen in modernistic automobile accidents or violent assault (Resnick and Goergen, 2002). Cases of nonadult shoulder dislocations are besides rare in the archeological record, and information technology is likely that any dislocations would accept been quickly and hands reduced, although recurring subluxation with ligament laxity could be a feature. One possible case of shoulder dislocation with Hills–Sach deformity of the glenoid crenel was identified in medieval Lincolnshire in a 10- to 13-year-old female (Fig. 5.29).

Figure v.29. Possible shoulder dislocation in a 10- to 13-yr-old from Barton-upon-Humber, Lincolnshire (Advertising 1150–1500, skeleton 400). The unfused glenoid cavity is enlarged with a flattened area above the articulation indicative of compressions to the outer rim (Hills–Sach deformity).

 Photograph by P. Verlinden.

Nikitovic et al. (2012) reported a dislocated right elbow in a vii- to eight-year-old from Copper Age Republic of croatia (3500–2780 BC). The radial caput had confused from the ulna resulting in lateral posterior displacement and the evolution of a medial exostosis on the ulna that acted every bit a pseudoarthrosis, limiting full move of the elbow. The lack of a fracture line or underlying deformity ruled out a Monteggia fracture dislocation or built malformation. This case likely represents an isolated fracture of the radial caput (Monteggia equivalent type I), probably as the upshot of falling onto an outstretched paw (Stanley and De La Garza, 2001). A similar confused right elbow was identified in an adolescent from St Mary Spital, London (Fig. 5.30), and Rohnbogner (2015) reported a fracture to the elbow in a Roman child with gross enlargement of the olecranon (Fig. 5.31).

Effigy 5.30. (A) Posterior dislocation of the right elbow in a 12- to 17-year-old from St Mary Spital, London. (B) The morphology of the ulna suggests a fracture as the cause, (C) but the reduced radial caput suggests there may accept been an underlying congenital deformity. Both basic evidence heterotrophic ossification of the ulnar collateral ligament (AD 1400–1540, skeleton 2917).

 Photograph by F. Shapland with the kind permission of the Museum of London.

Figure 5.31. Confused right ulna in a fourteen-yr-erstwhile from Romano–British Butt Route (skeleton 299). The left olecranon is grossly enlarged and flattened (A) in comparison to the right (B).

 Photograph past A. Rohnbogner.

Dislocations of the Lower Limb

In children, traumatic hip dislocations are rare and make up only 1% of all pediatric fractures (Blasier and Hughes, 2001). Trauma to this expanse is more than likely to event in a slipped femoral epiphysis, although children under 5   years are more susceptible to dislocation after balmy trauma due to the shallowness of the acetabulum and frail epiphyseal junction. As the acetabulum deepens with maturity, more than severe force is required for a traumatic injury (Ráliš and McKibbin, 1973). The bulk of dislocations are posteriorly placed. Offierski (1981) classified the force needed for a traumatic injury into three types: balmy forcefulness as the result of running, tripping, and falling; moderate force from excessive speed or impact, such as cycling, skiing, and football game; or severe force every bit the result of a high energy impact or burdensome. The latter would unremarkably be accompanied past other traumatic injuries such as head or pelvic fractures. Hip dislocations may also occur in conditions where there is known ligament laxity such as Down syndrome. Around 27% of nonadult hip dislocations develop complications, including soft tissue interposition specially of the acetabulum cartilage ring (posterior acetabular labrum) and avascular necrosis, coxa magna, and osteoarthritis. The threat of avascular necrosis is college in children due to the vascular barrier created by the growth plate and a reliance on the cervical arteries for the blood supply to the femoral epiphysis (Sulaiman et al., 2014). Reports of hip dislocation should include consideration of the age of expiry; sexual activity of the individual; destruction to the femoral caput; presence, absence, or severity of subperiosteal new os germination; atrophy; and hip mobility (Blondiaux and Millot, 1991). Blondiaux and Millot (1991) presented a traumatic hip subluxation in an boyish from Cambrai-Mont des Boeufs, France, based on an innominate with a shallow and enlarged acetabulum and flattening of the superior aspect of the acetabular margin.

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CLASSIFICATION AND TYPOLOGY

William Y. Adams , in Encyclopedia of Archaeology, 2008

The Ancestry of Culture Classification

European scientific archaeology, including classification, had its beginnings in Scandinavia, a region that had lain outside the realm both of classical antiquity and of the prehistoric megalith-builders. Scandinavians at the outset of the nineteenth century were gripped by the same spirit of nationalism that afflicted nearly all European peoples, and like many others they had begun to regard prehistory as an essential function of their national heritage. Without major architectural monuments or conspicuous objets d'art, however, they had a much more difficult job to recover that heritage than had their neighbors in more southerly countries. Information technology was in that context that scientific archaeology had its beginnings.

As far back as 1776, Scandinavian scholars had recognized that in their countries there were some archaeological sites which yielded only stone cutting tools, others having both stone and copper, and still others with stone, copper, and fe. In the early nineteenth century, Vedel Simonsen wrote specifically of a Stone Age, a Copper Age, and an Iron Age as stages in the prehistory of Scandinavia. Information technology was even so Christian Thomsen who offset gave wide publicity to what has come to exist called the three-age system, when in 1819 he arranged all of the prehistoric collections in the newly opened Danish National Museum into separate Stone Age, Statuary Age, and Fe Age assemblages. The three-age system was from the beginning both a civilisation classification and a kind of artifact classification.

Past the 1850s, discoveries in England, Ireland, and Switzerland had convinced at to the lowest degree some scholars that the scheme had continent-broad validity (meet HISTORIC ROOTS OF ARCHAEOLOGY). A little later it was constitute to accord perfectly with the worldwide schemata of cultural evolution proposed by Herbert Spencer, John Lubbock, Lewis Henry Morgan, and other pioneer evolutionists, and its acceptance became universal. Indeed, it remains at the foundation of about all cultural nomenclature systems in Europe and the Well-nigh E, down to the nowadays twenty-four hours.

French prehistorians, working in the middle of the nineteenth century, fabricated an important add-on to the 3-age system when they recognized the existence of 2 stone ages: an earlier menses characterized by the sectional use of chipped stone tools, and a later period having also ground and polished tools. In his Pre-Historic Times, showtime published in 1865, the English language prehistorian John Lubbock gave to these phases the formal names by which they are still known: the Palaeolithic or Old Stone Age and the Neolithic or New Stone Age.

It was besides the French prehistorians of the after nineteenth century who first revealed the great diversity of stone age cultures, and the very long time span that they had occupied.

The de Mortillet organisation, originally proposed in 1869, recognized four stages – Mousterian, Solutrean, Aurignacian, and Magdalenian – each named after a 'blazon-site' in central France where the remains had first been identified. The de Mortillet scheme underwent continual modification, as new cultural assemblages were identified, and a few old ones dropped. Nonetheless, the arrangement became an accepted catechism of prehistory for decades, and in many respects information technology remains and so today.

Part of its appeal lay in the fact that the entire system was strictly chronological and unilineal, each stage succeeding the preceding, with no allowance for concurrent, spatial variation in culture in unlike parts of Europe. Equally such, information technology was wholly consequent with the unilinear theories of social evolution that gained general acceptance in the latter part of the nineteenth century. In the broadest sense it may be said that evolutionism, biological and social, provided the ideological framework inside which archaeological nomenclature adult for more than half a century.

It was recognized from the beginning that the European Neolithic had been a stage of far shorter duration than the Palaeolithic, indelible perhaps not more than than a few chiliad years. Nevertheless European scholars at the end of the nineteenth century were so wedded to a unilinear vision of cultural development that they at get-go tried to fit all of the known varieties of Neolithic civilization into a unmarried developmental succession, as they had washed in the example of the Palaeolithic. However, the Neolithic archaeological record was far richer and more diverse 1 than was that of the Palaeolithic, encompassing not simply tool types but also pottery, houses, and burials. As the total diverseness of these remains came to be recognized, the effort to fit them all into a strictly evolutionary and unilinear sequence became insupportable. Equally a result, the classification of Neolithic cultures in Europe and the Well-nigh E came to be based as much on the recognition of spatial as on temporal differences.

The great systematizer for the European Neolithic, besides as for the Bronze and Iron Ages, was yet another Scandinavian, Oscar Montelius. Through the detailed written report of artifact collections from all over Europe he worked out a serial of regional chronologies, then went on to suggest an overall periodization into which they could all be fitted. It encompassed four stages, designated as I–IV, for the Neolithic, and five stages (I–5) for the Bronze Age. Other scholars, working at nearly the same time, subdivided the prehistoric Atomic number 26 Historic period into 2 phases. The new schemes substituted diagnostic assemblages for individual diagnostic tool types as the ground for definition of cultures and culture periods. This approach to culture nomenclature was chosen by Montelius the 'typological method'.

The Montelius chronology of roman-numbered Neolithic and Bronze Age stages is still occasionally employed by European prehistorians, insofar every bit information technology provides a handy set of typological–chronological pigeonholes into which detail cultures tin be placed. However, modified versions of the scheme take a much more basic role in the classification of Aegean and Almost East cultures, where scholars still routinely assign sites and cultures to the Early, Eye, or Late Bronze Age, and to numbered subdivisions thereof.

A new and highly formal methodology for the development of culture classifications was proposed in 1968 by David Clarke. In the broadest sense it represented a refinement of the typological method, in which artifacts were to exist clustered into types, types into assemblages, and assemblages into cultures, using highly rigorous criteria of inclusion at each level. However, this discussion was purely programmatic; the author did not go along to propose an actual classification based on his arrangement, nor did the Soviet prehistorians who discussed and debated the methods of culture classification in rather like terms during the same period. The time/infinite filigree of European prehistory that remains in actual, everyday use among prehistorians is withal very largely an extension of the ones created initially by Thomsen, de Mortillet, and Montelius, and is based on their typological methodology.

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Conflict and State of war, Archeology of: Weapons and Artifacts

Helle Vandkilde , in International Encyclopedia of the Social & Behavioral Sciences (Second Edition), 2015

Weaponry

Weaponry divides arbitrarily into implements with a potential for war and existent weapons intended for offensive and/or defensive purposes. Bows and arrows, points, axe blades, knives, and daggers, made of diverse organic or nonorganic materials, belong to the outset category. In fact, almost whatever object tin can find uses as weapon if need be, and this was certainly the example from the earliest times and throughout the history of mankind. The second category comprises mainly swords, spearheads, shields, and torso armor, but also maceheads and battle-axes. These objects were definitely produced with warfare in listen using selected materials to effectuate this purpose. Weaponry for war is a late phenomenon measured on the groundwork of millennia of human history. In Eurasia battle-axes and maceheads began to appear only later the introduction of farming, and particularly in Europe more systematic production and uses of these weapons are in particular attached to the so-chosen Corded Ware period dating to the onset and beginning centuries of the third-millennium BCE and which seem to link upwards with spread of Indo-European languages, wheeled vehicles, and probably horses from a homeland in the north Kazakh steppes. The early on third-millennium BCE also brings u.s. the showtime articulate evidence of warband institutions: Organized frames for warfare and warriorhood.

Weapons for war typically occur in burials and other ritual contexts and they establish a large category of finds from after prehistory and onward, hence testifying to the presence of warfare inside a broader social domain. The appearance of these first weapons – made unequivocally for waging state of war and often made in copper, bronze, or spectacularly colored stone – in many places coincides with the emergence of marked social distinctions with denoting forms of leadership and discrete organizations of war. Throughout, the distinction between would-be weapons made in whatsoever material at hand, weapons such every bit bow/pointer with other uses, and genuine weapons made in special materials seems concurrent with social distinctions in social club as such and with distinctions in warfare between war leaders, loftier-ranking warriors, and common fighters. With the mature Bronze Age from 1700 BCE, or somewhat before in some regions, this picture becomes peculiarly singled-out sustained by the innovations of spearheads and swords and adjacent novel techniques of fighting in the upper echelons of social club. In the Final Neolithic (Copper Age) and particularly in the Statuary Age, the group of 18-carat weapons grew markedly in numbers and in technical and ornamental elaboration. This seems tied to the full general inventiveness of these periods, but almost certainly also to reorganizations of institutions of war and new ideologies to support them. Although the presence of warrior clubs is rather strongly indicated from around 2800 BCE in temperate Europe, their more precise position, central or marginal, in the societal meshwork is unknown, merely could have varied enormously in the catamenia 3000–500 BCE. In the Bronze Age the warband seems to abound in importance and its internal organization to be based on hierarchical principles.

The to a higher place typology of weaponry roughly suggests that about weapons have potential uses exterior warfare, notably hunting. Bone assemblages from Final Neolithic and Bronze Age settlements normally show petty inclusion of wild animals, and it tin can thus be presumed that hunting in these periods, and virtually certainly in the Statuary Age, was more a matter of prestige than economic necessity for at least the privileged part of the population. The purlieus between prestige hunter and warrior tin be blurred, as famously illustrated by the lion-chase dagger from Shaft Grave Four at Mycenae. Dating to c.1600–1500 BCE, information technology shows warfare confronting the king of beasts. This is likely a metaphor for bravery in combat and for the princely warrior chieftain in early Mycenaean lodge. In the thirteenth-century BCE, this symbol was appropriated past the imperial house of Mycenae as their 'coat of artillery,' visualized and so vividly past the Panthera leo Gate to the citadel.

The multifunctionality, or ambiguity, of textile culture in full general implies that weapons cannot be reduced merely to tools of war. A serial of other potential functions and meanings presents itself. Notably, weapons often maintain identities of gender, age, rank, or diverse other types of group identity like kinship, ethnicity, and profession. In European prehistory the cultural biographies of weaponry typically ended with a ritual deposition either in burials or in votive offerings. Such depositions may comprise one item or a combination of several items depending on cultural and social factors. From the Bronze Age of temperate Europe and in several similarly organized societies around the world numerous weapons exist; the sheer quantity being aplenty testimony to warfare equally an option that could be acted upon and indeed to the presence of warriorhood as an identity feeding from bellicose interaction and from ideologies of war. Macro- and microwear analyses of swords and other weapons confirm that many have indeed been put to repeated and forceful employ. It is often speculated that some of the most spectacular weaponry: shields, helmets, giant axes, and body armor – for reasons of construction – cannot have been very suitable for warfare, but again such splendid items probable had several social uses in addition to warfare. Such weapons may have had ritual functions in funerary games, religious performances, and/or were parade armor that should impress and scare. This may be supported by the pictorial slabs from the Kivik tomb in Scania from around 1500 BCE, rock-carving scenes from various places in the Eurasian Neolithic and metal ages, and past Patroklos' funeral games in Homer's Iliad. By contrast, a substantial series of other weapons exists that were surely meant to wound and kill other human beings: spears and arrows definitely vest here, as do the swords. Especially the swords are central to our understanding of the Statuary Age and later prehistory/history equally they mediate tales of supreme, active, and symbolic warriorhood among privileged strata in society. However, albeit less prestigious, spears and in particular arrows were key weapons for assail and defence force, as shown past their massive presence in the early battleground of Tollense near Greifswald in n Germany dating to around 1200 BCE. Projectile points of flint, and later in metallic, sitting in situ in human bone establish a frequent grade of skeletal trauma and cause of death throughout later prehistory, peculiarly from Neolithic farming communities in the 9th to eighth millennia BCE and onward.

The exquisite and highly specialized craftsmanship of many of these weapons of metal suggests organized warriorhood in warbands. Information technology would likewise support the proposition that such warrior institutions were recruited and organized internally according to hierarchical principles, and thus not unlike the system that can exist deduced from the Iliad, from Tacitus' Germania, and from a large number of ethnographically studied cases. A material hierarchy of weapons arguably existed, which was differentially constituted in unlike periods; in the later Statuary Age from c.1200 to 700 BCE likely with metal-hilted swords and body armor in the top part, followed past organic-hilted swords, axes, spearheads and arching equipment lower down, and wooden clubs and similar items in the bottom part. Such hierarchies of weaponry may be suggested to reverberate social divisions inside warrior institutions.

Weapons can be highly individualized objects – swords usually are – and thus invested with personalized names and meanings while simultaneously mediating in variable measure gender, status, rank, kinship, ethnicity, profession, and then on. Weapons may have whole biographies and stories fastened to them, which could accept been invoked on special occasions. The famed boar's tusk helmet which Odysseus puts on for a nightly spying expedition is a instance in point, which could very well generally apply when looking at the finest prehistoric weapons, such as the twin horned helmets of statuary (c.1100 BCE) found in a bog at Viksö in Denmark. Such particular weapons are perhaps likely to be inalienable possessions kept in the family equally tokens of retentiveness and inheritance or ritually exchanged with the gods in sacred places or with very item ancestors in monumental tombs.

The potential multifunctionality of fabric culture thus implies that weapons cannot be reduced only to existence war implements, only became intertwined with other social uses, equally also suggested by contextual show. Fifty-fifty the near frightening or deadly of weapons very often had alternative social functions exterior the strict sphere of waging war. Albeit the spotlight has here been on weaponry and what it can tell nigh warfare and its organization it is equally true that endless archaeological data exist that inform near peaceful moments, domains, and times.

The cultural biographies of weapons typically concluded with a ritual deposition either in burials or in votive offerings. Such depositions in subsequently European prehistory comprised one detail or a combination of several items depending on cultural and social factors. The archaeologist thus obtains intimate knowledge mostly of the concluding activities, the ritual death of things, which may have had several very agile lives prior to the last degradation. These last destinations of weaponry, however, may still be able to deliver information nigh the living guild, equally outlined above and substantiated below.

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Copper-based alloys in the Jezirah during the third millennium BC in lite of archaeological evidence and laboratory analyses

Southward.T. Razok , in Journal of Cultural Heritage, 2021

4.1.3 A3. Arsenical copper with low arsenic content and nickel

This metal composition rich in Equally and Ni was widely used across the Near E [28] . Information from Anatolian sites such Arslantepe, Tepecik and Tülintepe confirms the utilisation of this pattern since Late Chalcolithic period. It was used in Jezirah and Mesopotamia throughout the third millennium and was particularly ascendant in the ED Iii period in Mesopotamia and the EJZ 4 in Jezirah as shown in the objects from Tell Brak. Equally the A1 pattern, this sub-blazon was principally used to produce body and garment adornments and tools in both Jezirah and Mesopotamia. It was also used in Anatolia and Mesopotamia for weapons product.

Nickel was more often than not nowadays in concentrations below ii% in Mesopotamian, Anatolian and Jezirah objects. In some examples mainly from Mesopotamia and Anatolia, the proportions of nickel and/or arsenic exceeded 2% [29,30]. Results of analysed samples from Tepecik and Tülintepe point that copper-arsenic alloy containing Equally above 2.5% with or without nickel was one of the oldest alloys produced there since the EBA I, II [31,32].

Despite that Equally and Ni were typical components of copper artefacts found at Arslantepe during the period VI B1 (EJZ 0), the results of all the assay samples coming from this menstruum confirm that copper/iron ores were the simply type regularly used during this period, and a such the composition (As-Ni) is inconsistent with the smelting of pure Cu/Fe-ores. The reason for this contradiction, however, might be explained by a change in the cultural context or by a recycling of metals from earlier periods [27].

The fact that this pattern was used, and diffused, for the first fourth dimension in Anatolia and appeared subsequently in Jezirah suggests that arsenical-nickel copper alloy technology could accept been introduced in Jezirah from the n or northward-east of Anatolia. Still, the source of As-Ni enriched copper is non all the same known because the present investigations do not establish its origin with certainty as being from any of the known metal mines of Eastern Anatolia [32]. Other opinions on the origin of these ores volition exist discussed below. Atomic number 82 isotope fingerprints of some Cu-As-Ni objects from Arslantepe and Hassek Höyük are isotopically matching with various ores sources in Anatolia (Karaali south of Ankara, Gölcük, Mamlis, and Ergani-Maden) [5].

The advent of the A3 blueprint in Mesopotamia before its appearance in Jezirah, particularly during the Acadian menstruation (EJZ 4) in Tell Brak, may advise that the metal reached Jezirah from the south with the Acadian expansion. Omani ore deposits are generally suggested in the literature equally the origin of the Southern Mesopotamian metal finds.

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When flint for items of big volume is in loftier demand: The "Flint Depot" of prehistoric northern State of israel during the Lower-Middle Paleolithic and Neolithic/Chalcolithic times

Meir Finkel , in Journal of Archaeological Science: Reports, 2020

3.3 ICP-MS based correlation between E&R complexes and occupation sites

The question raised here is: Was the Eocene flint extraction and reduction "strip" of the Eastern Galilee the source for the whole of northern Israel (and maybe parts of southern Lebanon) in the Lower and Centre Paleolithic, and later in the Neolithic and Chalcolithic periods, when a large book of stone tools were in demand? Identifying indicative characteristics of the flint establish in this "strip" enables cross-referencing with flint artifacts in Paleolithic and Neolithic/Chalcolithic habitation sites in the Galilee and Hula Valley and provides preliminary answers to this question. It is important to annotation that the Giv'at Rabbi E&R Complex in the Lower Galilee ( Ekshtain et al., 2012; Yaroshevich et al., 2017. see Fig. one) is also situated within a flint begetting Eocene formation, and was recently suggested as one of the sources of Centre Paleolithic Qafzeh Cavern.

In society to respond the above-mentioned question, we created a geochemical fingerprint of Timrat Formation flints and compared it to that of tools from prehistoric sites in northern State of israel. We did this in cooperation with The Institute of Earth Sciences, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem, headed past Prof. Yigal Erel. The method used was Inductively Coupled Plasma Mass Spectrometry (ICP-MS), in which a total flint item is ground in order to produce a sample which averages the whole object and overcomes the geochemical heterogeneities inside the same flint object.

Our start step was to compare average values of rare globe elements (REEs) based on analysis of 10 flint debitage samples taken from each of seven E&R localities (altogether 69 samples) – three from the Dishon, three from Mt. Achbara and one from Sede Ilan. The results were all like- (Fig. 12).

Fig. 12. A comparison of REE concentrations (afterward chondrite normalization) in flint from seven E&R localities from the three Due east&R complexes (for each n = 10, except for R [n = 9]). All samples represent the Eocene Timrat Germination. For the raw data and standard deviation values of each locality, run into Finkel et al., 2019, Supplemental Table 1).

Our next step focused on the Dishon. Here we compared the results from the three localities distanced 1 km from each other to tools from vi occupation sites. Three Lower Paleolithic sites: the nearby Yiron and Baram (which were found in surveys [mentioned higher up] on the basalt caps in a higher place the Dishon Stream) and 20 km to the due north Hamara (Maayan Baruch), in the Hula Valley, which contained more than than 6000 handaxes; and three Neolithic/Chalcolithic sites: the nearby Ein Miri, and Hagoshrim and Beisamoun (the concluding two located 10–20 km northeast of the E&R complex, each with more than 5000 adzes and axes) (Fig. thirteen). Here again, 10 tools were sampled from each site. Interestingly, in most of the cases researchers who worked at those sites suggested that the flintstone items were of Eocene origin (Finkel et al., 2019).

Fig. 13. The three East&R localities in the Dishon expanse and the half dozen occupation sites sampled for geochemical analysis, with an example of one antiquity from each site (geological map: Sneh et al., 1998).

Our assay showed that all bifacials were produced from flint of an Eocene origin. In add-on, we ascertained that there was a geochemical correlation between Eastward&R Pile Bs (Fig. thirteen) within Locality Baram Plateau South (Fig. 2), where there were mixed Paleolithic and Neolithic/Chalcolithic flint finds and the iii Neolithic/Chalcolithic occupation sites. A lesser correlation was found betwixt Pile R (within RAW site, see Figs. 2 and 13) and those sites. We also found a geochemical similarity between E&R Pile Bn (Fig. 13), located inside Locality Baram Plateau Northward (Fig. two), which contained only Paleolithic finds, to the 3 Lower Paleolithic occupation sites analyzed (Fig. 14) (Finkel et al., 2019). Those finds may imply a specific use of certain E&R localities in different periods.

Fig. 14. Chondrite normalization of REE from three E&R localities within the Dishon Complex and six occupation sites (n = 10 for each, except for R [northward = nine]).

To sum upwards the results presented thus far, we offer a first comprehensive overview of this "industrial strip" and its East&R complexes (Nahal Dishon, Mt. Achbara and Sede Ilan), demonstrating that these product areas were used mainly for the manufacture of large-volume items such as Lower Paleolithic handaxes, Middle Paleolithic Levallois cores and Neolithic/Chalcolithic axes/adzes.

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The potential for portable X-ray fluorescence determination of soil copper at ancient metallurgy sites, and considerations across measurements of total concentrations

M. Tighe , ... P. Yukongdi , in Journal of Ecology Direction, 2018

1 Introduction

The production and use of metallic objects is a cardinal component of social complexity and emerges ∼8000 BCE with an initial focus on Cu (Killick and Fenn, 2012). Copper product too contributes Cu every bit a significant ecology pollutant, which, from express studies to date, may potentially be found in extremely high concentrations at such sites around the world (Nagajyoti et al., 2010). This review focuses on examples of Cu contagion at metallurgy sites spanning the Neolithic (∼8000 BCE) to the mid beginning millennium BCE. More than specifically, we focus on production sites (Cu smelting and metalworking) rather than mining sites.

Current earliest bear witness for Cu working and the first case of anthropogenic heavy metal pollution is at Neolithic sites (Grattan et al., 2016). The mining of native Cu and fabrication of Cu items rapidly expanded in the Chalcolithic (Copper Historic period) and by the Early Bronze Historic period production of Cu-based alloys included workout elements such as As and Sn (Harper, 1987; Killick and Fenn, 2012). From the Bronze Age, metallurgical practices involved sustained effort and increasingly circuitous and large scale operations (Killick and Fenn, 2012).

Ancient smelting sites are not typically situated within naturally mineralized zones (i.east. areas with naturally elevated groundwork concentrations of heavy metals (Pryce et al., 2010)), although they may exist within close proximity. This separation allows ready differentiation between natural and anthropogenic heavy metal contamination at these sites as such sites do non have an unknown degree of elevated 'background' contamination from mineralization. Examining Cu in item at aboriginal smelting sites could provide insights into the longest term human-induced pollution.

Contemporary assessment of soil contamination from Cu typically focuses on soils that were contaminated over a relatively short time frame (years to decades, and in a very few studies, a few hundred years (e.g. Carr et al., 2008)). Cess of contamination via total metal concentrations is an essential precursor (see Fig. 1) to more detailed investigations into chemical element mobility, potential biological availability, and actual transfer into biota and foodchain at these sites to determine site specific risk of contamination (NEPC, 2013; Tighe et al., 2013). Still, even this preliminary analysis is rarely undertaken (Frahm and Doonan, 2013).

Fig. 1

Fig. 1. The requirements and current limitations in assessing total Cu at ancient archaeometallurgy sites framed in terms of the initial sampling and assay component of recommended contaminated site assessment (NEPC, 2013; Tighe et al., 2013).

Given the absence of these central baseline data on total soil Cu concentrations specifically at archaeometallurgy sites, nosotros review what is known of total soil Cu at such sites, and explore the potential of portable 10-ray Fluorescence spectrometry (pXRF) equally a tool to accost this shortcoming. We outline the major considerations in the awarding of this technology in this context with specific reference to practical considerations in quantifying Cu with this method. Assessing total soil Cu will provide new insights into the unintended consequences of metallurgically produced pollution on past societies, and can also enable preliminary assessment of the contemporary contamination risk such sites notwithstanding pose. These baseline Cu data can additionally inform possible long term behaviour of a given level of contemporary contamination in similar environments.

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Minateda rock shelters (Albacete) and post-palaeolithic fine art of the Mediterranean Basin in Spain: pigments, surfaces and patinas

Martí Mas , ... Pedro-Pablo Pérez , in Journal of Archaeological Science, 2013

i Introduction

The rock art of the Mediterranean Bowl in the Iberian Peninsula was alleged a World Heritage Site by UNESCO in 1998 based on the 757 archaeological sites present in the area. Two different styles take been identified: the naturalistic style, traditionally called Levantine art and exclusive to the Mediterranean Bowl, and the schematic-abstract mode, which extends throughout the Iberian Peninsula. Levantine fine art was the cosmos of hunter-gatherer groups and schematic fine art the creation of the starting time food-producing communities (Acosta Martínez, 1968 ), demonstrating a conceptual unity between the Neolithic and the Chalcolithic periods. Theories regarding the origin and evolution of Levantine art are divided into those that relate it to the Epipalaeolithic period, although it may take continued to develop later, and those that consider it exclusively Neolithic (created by acculturated hunter-gatherers) ( García Arranz et al., 2012). The oldest absolute dates, obtained from calcium oxalate patinas (AMS 14C) via ante quem dating, identify Levantine art earlier 5000 or 6000 cal BC (Ruiz et al., 2006, 2012; Mas et al., 2012).

The Abrigo Grande de Minateda and the Abrigo del Barranco de la Mortaja are rock shelters formed in marine biocalcarenites from the Miocene (Breuil, 1920, 1935) (Hellín, Albacete), and these structures form part of one of the most important rock shelter groups (Minateda) in the Mediterranean Basin (Fig. 1). The 2 sites are significant in terms of the quantity and quality of the paintings that decorate the Abrigo Grande de Minateda and contribute to the specificity of the Abrigo del Barranco de la Mortaja, which contains exclusively schematic art.

Fig. i. Location of the Minateda rock shelters in the Mediterranean Bowl on the Iberian Peninsula.

The work of Breuil (1920, 1935) (Figs. 2 and three) represented one of the first attempts at determining the origin and evolution of Levantine art and used a systematisation that has been followed past numerous researchers and practical to other sites for decades, although with some chronological nuances influenced by different historiographical trends developed during the twentieth century. State-of-the-art technologies are now used to heighten the precision of the definition and analysis of paintings.

Fig. ii. Reproduction of the Abrigo Grande de Minateda according to Breuil (1920) [from Beltrán Martínez (1968)].

Fig. 3. Reproduction of the Abrigo del Barranco de la Mortaja according to Breuil (1935).

We can identify an initial phase (Abrigo Grande de Minateda) with feature representations that can exist related to the fashion defined by some authors equally Five (Epipalaeolithic) (Bueno Ramírez et al., 2007; Mas et al., 2012) too as, to a minor extent, a final phase that is quantitatively underrepresented, representing a style with schematic tendencies. This final stage has an explicit presence in the Abrigo del Barranco de la Mortaja. The intermediate sequence (Levantine fine art) exhibits non simply important technical, stylistic, and thematic variability, with considerable overlap and infrapositions, but besides considerable formal homogeneity.

Studies conducted to appointment (vibrational, infrared (IR) and Raman spectroscopies and other complementary techniques such as SEM-EDX) (Hernanz et al., 2008) have revealed that the rock paintings of the Serranía de Cuenca (Levantine and schematic art) consist predominantly of haematites and, in some cases, maghemite and amorphous oxyhydroxides such as lepidocrocite. The filler materials in the pigments used in the Levantine style include quartz, muscovite, and apatite (calcium phosphate from organic sources, the mineral phase of bone), with apatite being specially significant. Quartz and anatase (major components) and some phyllosilicates (minor components) have been found in white paint, which is likewise nowadays at the same sites although in smaller proportions (Levantine art). Other components related to the pigments take been reiteratively characterised. Baggy carbon (soot or charcoal) was later detected in a schematic zoomorph painted in blackness in the Abrigo de la Hoz de Vicente (Minglanilla, Cuenca) (Hernanz et al., 2010). Organic binders have not been conclusively detected (Hernanz et al., 2008, 2010). Experimental studies suggest, however, that rock paintings in shelters or open air require some type of binder (Mas Cornellà, 2005; Rogerio-Candelera et al., 2011). We believe that the pioneering studies (Clottes et al., 1990), which identified recipes and filler pigments, accept led sure researchers to unnecessarily force a working hypothesis. In fact, the composition of the paints may simply reverberate trace elements included in the raw textile. Without whatsoever elaborative process and as indicated past other early analyses –in this instance, in the Mediterranean Basin– the chemical compositions of the Levantine and schematic paintings were thought to be like (Montes Bernárdez and Cabrera Garrido, 1991–1992). These considerations exercise not rule out an intricate elaboration of the pigment aimed at achieving a loftier quality in the paintings (Mas Cornellà, 2005; Fiore et al., 2008).

Our report focuses on the characterisation of the paint used to make of one of the nigh representative paintings in the Abrigo Grande de Minateda, the big bovid of naturalistic tendency located in the central zone (Fig. 4) (Levantine fine art), also every bit a comparison of the bovid with a quadruped of schematic tendency and smaller dimensions in the Abrigo del Barranco de la Mortaja (Fig. 5) (schematic fine art). Nosotros used two not-destructive techniques, SEM-EDX and Raman microspectroscopy, to determine the similarities and differences in pigment composition between these two pictorial styles, which are probable separated by millennia and had dissimilar meanings and uses. Thus, we contribute data regarding the pigments or substances in the paintings, data which is relevant to the conservation of these sites. In addition, gas chromatography was utilised to ostend or refute the presence of organic compounds including binders (or colouring substances). We believe that the development of new techniques to facilitate in situ analysis (Roldán, 2009) volition allow u.s. to propose stratigraphic characterisations such as those discussed here. As noted by other authors (Hernanz Gismero et al., 2012), these characterisations are non as sensitive as those fabricated in the laboratory. However, with new and robust working hypotheses, we can decide whether to behave further sampling.

Fig. 4. Large bovid of naturalistic tendency from the Abrigo Grande de Minateda, indicating the betoken sampled.

Fig. 5. Quadruped of schematic trend from the Abrigo del Barranco de la Mortaja, indicating the point sampled.

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