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The Final Bronze Age in the Near East and in Temperate Europe

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  27 May 2014

V. Gordon Childe
V. Gordon Childe
Affiliation:
Director, The Institute of Archaeology, London University
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Extract

When ten years ago I discussed the absolute chronology of the European Bronze Age, I took the amber beads from Kakovatos as providing a terminus ante quem about 1450 B.C. for its ‘Early’ phase and accepted the appearance in the East Mediterranean area of cremation burial in urn-fields, cut-and-thrust swords (fig. 1), safety-pins (fig. 3), turban dishes and urns with ribbed or twisted handles as indicative of a similar limit about 1250 B.C. for the beginning of the Late Bronze Age. The first date has subsequently been confirmed and given precision in a satisfactory manner. In his paper on ‘The Early Bronze Age in Wessex’ Piggott showed how his Wessex culture could be cross-dated by Aegean contacts. On the one hand many Wessex graves contain segmented faience beads imported from the East Mediterranean and plausibly dated there about 1400 B.C.: on the other, graves of the same culture at Normanton and Manton were furnished with gold-bound amber discs identical in form and size with one from a L.M. II tomb at Knossos. Assuming the latter to be a British import, it gave 1450 as a terminus ante quem for the rise of the Wessex culture. At the same time British types in Central Europe and Unětician types in Wessex barrows, established a synchronism between the Wessex culture and the advanced phase of the Early Bronze Age cultures of the Danubian area (in typological terms Reinecke's phase A2), to which phase the Perjamos grave at Ószentivan, containing imported segmented faience beads, identical with those from Wessex and therefore also datable about 1400, should be assigned.

Type
Research Article
Information
Proceedings of the Prehistoric Society , Volume 14 , 1948 , pp. 177 - 195
Copyright
Copyright © The Prehistoric Society 1948

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References

page 177 note 1 ‘The Orient and Europe,’ Presidential Address to Section H of the British Association, 1938, reprinted in A.J.A., XLIV, 1939, 10–26 Google Scholar.

page 177 note 2 P.P.S. IV, 1938. In the discussion of this paper Prof. Piggott pointed out that at least one amber spacer bead of the Wessex culture shows the same peculiarity.

page 177 note 3 Germania, XXIV, 1940, 99–101 Google Scholar; for the date of Kakovatos see Furumark, Chronology of the Mycenaean Pottery.

page 178 note 1 Bittel, , MDOG., 77 (1938), 20 Google Scholar; the pin was actually unstratified.

page 179 note 1 Siedelungs- und Kulturgeschichte d. Rheinlande, i, Mainz, 1921 Google Scholar.

page 179 note 2 ‘Bronzezeit Süddeutschlands’ (Kat. d. Röm-germ. Zentralmuseums, 6), Mainz, 1921 Google Scholar.

page 179 note 3 e.g., knot-headed pins with T heads with Unětician pots in grave 92 at Gemeinlebarn, at Dol. Dubrany (Mor.), etc.

page 179 note 4 Germania, XXII, 1938, 8 Google Scholar.

page 179 note 5 ‘Bronzezeit in niedermainischen Hessen,’ Vorgeschichtliche Forschungen, 12, 1939, 107 Google Scholar; Böhm, Zaklady, also admits an overlap between Reinecke A2 and Unětice (p. 231).

page 179 note 6 Germania, XVII, 10–12 Google Scholar.

page 180 note 1 Dvořák, , ‘Knižeci Pohřby na Vozech,’ Praehistorica, I, Praha, 1938, 62–4Google Scholar.

page 180 note 2 What Reinecke calls Hallstatt C. But to me the Hallstatt period begins with these swords and their wielders, and, if only to save type, I shall treat his Hallstatt A and Hallstatt B as phases E and F of the Bronze Age.

page 180 note 3 Filip, , Popelnicová Pole a Počátky Železné Doby v Cechách, Praha, 1936–1937 Google Scholar, distinguishes four stages in the urnfield culture: F types occur already in stage I and continue, together with antennae swords and the first harp and spectacle brooches throughout II; Hallstatt swords and horse-trappings characterize III which comprises the bulk of the Platonice cemetery but includes already Certosa types. The poor graves of IV come down to La Tène II!

page 180 note 4 AuhV., V. pp. 210ffGoogle Scholar, and pls. 38–9.

page 180 note 5 ‘Handelsgeschichte der german. Bronzezeit,’ Vorgeschichtliche Forsch., 7, 1930, 51–3Google Scholar. Broholm, , Danmarks Bronzealder, II (Copenhagen, 1944), 172 Google Scholar, assigns them to Montelius II; cf. von Merhart, , SMYA., XLV, 1945, 85 Google Scholar.

page 180 note 6 B.A.U.B., XIX, 1915, 13ff.

page 180 note 7 von Merhart, , ‘Urnengrab mit Peschiera Fibel aus Nordtirol,’ Schumacher Festschrift, 1930 Google Scholar.

page 180 note 8 Bayer, , ‘Jungbronzezeitliche Gräber bei Baierdorf, N-Ö,’ M.A.G.W., LXI, 1931, 209 Google Scholar.

page 180 note 9 Sprockhoff, ‘Handelsgeschichte,’ 67 remarks that the cup from Grünwald differs from the others in having conical rivets; it might therefore be regarded as a little earlier. There is another Fuchsstadt cup from Gross Mügl, Lower Austria, a site of an urnfield, not scientifically excavated, from which came also a Peschiera fibula and an urn with cylindrical neck (letter from Prof. Pittioni).

page 180 note 10 ‘Die Spätbronzezeitliche Keramik der Schweiz,’ 26.

page 180 note 11 ‘Die Urnenfelderkultur in Baden,’ Röm.-germ. Forschungen, 14, 127–8Google Scholar.

page 181 note 1 ‘Die germanische Griffzungschwerter,’ Röm.-germ. Forsch. 5, 1931, 26 Google Scholar.

page 181 note 2 ‘Nordtiroler Urnenfelder,’ Röm.-germ. Forsch. 15, 39 and pl. 37Google ScholarPubMed; note that he assigns biconical Lusatian ossuaries only to his third and latest Zeitgruppe.

page 181 note 3 Zaklady, 103–12; Forssander, Medd. Lunds Univ. Historiska Museum, 1942, 182–9Google Scholar, takes a similar view.

page 181 note 4 Mühlau, grave I; that from Glüsing, Norddithmarschen, assigned to Montelius II ( Jacob-Friesen, in IPEK, 1931, 36 Google Scholar) must belong to the same context and so must the earlier gold vases with embossed circles, including the gold ‘food vessel’ from Gönnebek (Kersten, Zur älteren nordischen Bronzezeit, pl. XXI) and the celebrated ‘hat’ from Schifferstadt that Reinecke had expressly classed as D ( AuhV., v, 214 Google Scholar) and whose Western, Irish connexions are now recognized by Sprockhoff, , BRGK., 31, 1941, T. 11, p. 56 Google Scholar.

page 181 note 5 Wiesloch in Baden, assigned to E (H.A.) by Kimmig, op. cit., 101; but the comparable import at Liesbüttel, Holstein, belongs to Montelius II and should therefore be earlier than the Gönnebek ‘food-vessel.’

page 181 note 6 Sprockhoff's type Kirkendrup is unhappily named after a single northern outlier of a distinctively Danubian group. Cf. Sprockhoff, , “Handelsgeschichte,’ 55 Google Scholar; Nestor, , P.Z., XXVI (1935), 53 Google Scholar; Holste, , W.P.Z., XXVII (1940), 16 Google Scholar; Peschek, , W.P.Z., xxx, 158 Google Scholar; Pittioni, , ‘Der Dépotfund von Hauslaü-Regelsbrünn,’ Jhb. d. Vereins f. Landeskunde v. Niederösterreich, 1948 Google Scholar.

page 181 note 7 von Merhart, , B.R.G.K., 30, 1941, 13 Google Scholar.

page 181 note 8 Both tongue-grip like Wollmesheim and bronze hiked of Liptau form, W.P.Z., XXVI, 1939, 65–74 Google Scholar.

page 181 note 9 Vogt, . Zeitschr. f. schweiz. Altertumskunde und Kunst., IV, 1942 Google Scholar, enumerates the most important ‘H.B.’ types.

page 181 note 10 Vogt, , ‘Spätbronz. Keramik,’ 75 Google Scholar.

page 181 note 11 Holste, , ‘Zur jüngeren Urnenfelderzeit in Ostalpengebiet,’ P.Z., XXVI, 1935, 58–76 Google Scholar.

page 181 note 12 W.P.Z., IV, 1917, 45–7Google Scholar.

page 181 note 13 Pittioni, ‘Hauslau-Regelsbrunn.’

page 181 note 14 Gallus, and Horvath, , ‘Un Peuple cavalier préscythique en Hongrie,’ Dissertationes Pannonicae, II, 9, 1939 Google Scholar

page 182 note 1 Nevertheless the Platenice type of bit which is admittedly Hallstatt (C) is separated by a very short step from the types I and II assigned by Gallus and Horvath to our F.

page 182 note 2 Derived types were for instance associated with a Stillfried cup and a gold ornament of triangular section at St. Martin le Pré, Marne ( Rev. Arch., XXVIII, 1928, 17–30 Google Scholar) and with a Thrako-Kimmerian bit at Steinkirchen on the Upper Danube (W.P.Z., XXVII, 7). I know no Fuchsstadt cups attributed to this horizon.

page 182 note 3 ‘Die Höttingerkultur in ihrer Beziehung zu den endbronzezeitlichen Kupferbergwerken der nordlichen Alpen,’ W.P.Z., XIX, 1932, 10–15 Google Scholar.

page 182 note 4 Dörpfeld, , Troja und Ilion, I, 355 Google Scholar; A.J.A., XLI, 595.

page 182 note 5 Heurtley, , Prehistoric Macedonia, 98 Google Scholar.

page 183 note 1 Böhm, , Zaklady, p. 163 Google Scholar.

page 183 note 2 Ibid., figs. 45, 52, 5, and 22. They are commoner in the Silesian culture that is frankly F.

page 183 note 3 Arik, Remzi Ogiz, Les Fouilles de Alaca Höyük, 1935, pls. CLXIX, CLXXIGoogle Scholar.

page 183 note 4 Lamb, , Thermi, 83 Google Scholar.

page 183 note 5 Arch., LXXXVII, 248 Google Scholar; this urn has fluted warts too.

page 183 note 6 Evans, , Palace of Minos, 11, 2, fig. 406Google Scholar.

page 183 note 7 Obzor, XIII, 1946, 62 Google Scholar.

page 183 note 8 The earliest is at Tylissos with pottery of Furumark's Myc. III C1 style; Marinatos, in Ath. Mitt., LVI, 1931, 112–8Google Scholar.

page 183 note 9 Carchemish, , L.A.A.A., VI, 1914, 95–6Google Scholar; Hama, , Ingholt, , ‘Rapport prélimin. sur les fouilles de H.,’ K. Dansk. Videnskabs Selskabs arch. kunst-hist. Meded., III, 1, 1940, 70–82 Google Scholar; Atchana, , Ant. J., XVIII, 1938, 4 Google Scholar. Schaeffer, , Stratigraphie comparée de l'Asie Occidentale (Oxford, 1948), 546 Google Scholar, argues that these urnfields must begin in the 14th century at latest.

page 183 note 10 A.J.A., XXXIX, 6–8.

page 183 note 11 e.g. the Kisapostag group; Moszolics, , ‘A Kisapostagi Urnatemetö,’ Arch. Hung. XXVI, 1942 Google Scholar. Reinecke accepts a dating to Tószeg A ( Germania, XXVII, 1943, 58 Google Scholar) and in fact four very early graves in the Szöreg cemetery contained cremations, Dolg., XVII, 72.

page 183 note 12 Fluted ware including turban dishes is of course common in many Hungarian urnfields, but none seems earlier than Tószeg D and the best available grave-group comprised a Thrako-Kimmerian bit—at Füzesabony, Gallus and Horvath, l.c., pl. 11. On the other hand late neolithic Baden pottery is often fluted and sometimes associated with cremations; e.g., Dolgozatok, XVII, 1941, 161 Google Scholar. Finally the fluted ‘Tripolye’ pottery from Roumania comprises forms quite like the Villanovan ossuary from Füzesabony, Dacia, IX/X, 1941–1944, 31, pl. 1, 3Google Scholar.

page 184 note 1 Real., XI, s.v. Schwert, Ägypten; cf. p. 200 below.

page 184 note 2 cf. Säflund, . Le Terremare (Rome, 1939), p. 157, n.1Google Scholar.

page 184 note 3 Schaeffer, , B.S.P.F., 1930, 166 Google Scholar.

page 185 note 1 Koşay, Hâmit Zübeyr, Ausgrabungen von Alaca Höyük, 1936, T., LXXXI, no. 26Google Scholar. Cf. Schaeffer, op. tit. p. 543.

page 185 note 2 Kraiker, and Kubler, , Kerameikos, I, 84 Google Scholar.

page 185 note 3 Marinatos, , Arch. Eph., 1933, 92 Google Scholar; the same form recurs, undated at Pólis on Ithaka, B.S.A., XXXV, 72.

page 185 note 4 Lanceolate blades are assigned to Montelius 11 in the North; cf. Kersten, op. cit., Taf. XXXVI, 27; Forssander, Ostskandinavische Norden, pl. LXIV. In Central Europe one is assigned to Reinecke D by Hell, , W.P.Z., XX, 1933, 129 Google Scholar, but most are admittedly E; cf. Sudeta, XI, 1935, 78 Google Scholar, and Pittioni, , ‘Hauslaü-Regelsbrümm,’ and Beiträge zur Urgesckichte der Landeschaft Burgenland, 1941, 92 Google Scholar.

page 185 note 5 Holste, , P.Z., XXVI, 60, Abb. 3Google Scholar.

page 185 note 6 Ath. Mitt., LV, 1930, 120 Google Scholar.

page 185 note 7 ‘Rod Tripods,’ Acta Arch., X, 1939, 7 Google Scholar.

page 186 note 1 Shape 226 in Furumark, , The Mycenaean Pottery, 1941 Google Scholar.

page 186 note 2 Furumark, , Chronology, 91 Google Scholar.

page 187 note 1 To Furumark's list add Ath. Mitt., 1931, 116, TylissosGoogle Scholar.

page 187 note 2 B.S.A., XXXVII, 1930–1931, 35–6Google Scholar.

page 187 note 3 Q.J. Dept. Ant. Palestine, IV, 1935, 181 Google Scholar.

page 187 note 4 One from grave 17 at Gemeinlebarn has been restored by Sundwall, (Die älteren italischen Fibeln, 13)Google Scholar with a spiral catch-plate, but it may belong to a cremation grave of phase D-E; that from grave 108 at Polepy, Bohemia ( Pam. Arch., XXXV, 1926–1927 Google Scholar, pl. IX), may not have been a safety-pin at all as no pin nor catch-plate survives !

page 187 note 5 Grünwald, Munich, B.A.U.B., 1915; Altschlesien, 1931, 3 Google Scholar.

page 187 note 6 cf. von Merhart, , ‘Donauländische Bezeihungen der früheisenzeitlichen Kulturen Mittelitaliens,’ B.J., 147, 73 Google Scholar.

page 188 note 1 Hötting, , W.P.Z., XIX, 1932, 15 Google Scholar; Lhota Zaborna, Pic, Urnenfelder, fig. 10; Domoniky, , Eisner, , Slovensko v Právěku (Bratislava, 1933), 117 Google Scholar.

page 188 note 2 Vogt, , ‘Spätbronz. Keramik,’ 75 Google Scholar; the well-known ribbed fibula from Egg, Zurich (B.J., 131, pl. v, 1) came from graves not scientifically excavated and so is not reliably associated with the D types with which it is usually figured.

page 188 note 3 von Merhart's map (B.J., 147, Taf. 5, fig. 10 here) shows that the distribution of harp and posamentarie fibulae is virtually exclusive so that the latter must rank as eastern contemporaries of the harp series and belong mainly to F.

page 188 note 4 Real., II, pls. 35–6.

page 188 note 5 e.g., Karo, Schachtgräber, Taf. XII.

page 188 note 6 Kuftin, Trialeti, pl. CIII.

page 189 note 1 Furumark's shape, 213.

page 189 note 2 Evans, , Palace, II, 2 Google Scholar, figs. 409b and 420.

page 189 note 3 Holste, , ‘Der frühhallstattzeitliche Bronzegefässfunde von Ehingen,’ Praehistorica, 5, 1939 Google Scholar. His map shows all ‘späturnenfelderzeitliche’ (Late Bronze Age) cauldrons as found west of the Tisza and the March and concentrated in Istria and along the upper Save. The ‘Hallstatt’ (scil. C) cauldrons are concentrated in Hungary and farther east with only 6 specimens in the Hallstatt province denned in Fig. 9. Cf. also, Lindgren, , ‘Om Importen av ungerska bronskärl i nordisk bronsålder,’ Studier tillägnade Nils Åberg, Stockholm, 1938, 70–6Google Scholar.

page 191 note 1 Murray, , Terracotta Sarcophagi, Greek and Etruscan, in the British Museum, 1898, pl. 1Google Scholar.

page 191 note 2 Ancient History of the Near East, 1913, 504 Google Scholar.

page 192 note 1 See especially, Nestor, , B.R.G.K., XXII, 1933, 95–113 Google Scholar; Tompa, , B.R.G.K., XXIV–XXV, 1934–1935, 84–104 Google Scholar; his attempt to subdivide Tószeg B, is to be rejected, Parducs, , Dolg, XVII, 80 Google Scholar—Tompa's B2 and C are really inseparable.

page 192 note 2 Parducs, , ‘Das bronzezeitliche Gräberfeld von Szöreg,’ Dolg, XVII, 1941 Google Scholar.

page 192 note 3 From Deszk grave 24 which seems to belong here; Dolg., VII, 1931, 34 Google Scholar.

page 192 note 4 Szöreg grave 190; Willvonseder, , Die mittlere Bronzezeit in Österreich, 74 Google Scholar, assigns a similar axe to phase A2.

page 192 note 5 Some of the urnfields in the Alföld and northwestern Pannonia may really at least begin earlier than Tószeg C as Patay, Frühbronzezeitliche Kulturen in Ungarn, 1938, contends. On the other hand, in Yugoslavia and, below the Iron Gates, in Oltenia the urnfields of the Kličevac group contain bird chariots that can hardly be earlier than phase F ( Rosetti, , Rivista Muzeului Municip. Bucuresti, III, 1937, 12 Google Scholar; cf. Préhistoire, I, 1932, 39 Google Scholar) while the ornament on the urns not only seems to reproduce that of the gold discs from Otlaca that are also classed as F, but is absurdly like that on the hand-made vases from proto-Geometric graves in the Kerameikos ( Kubler, , Kerameikos IV, 1943, pl. 31Google Scholar). The next definable group in Oltenia is constituted by the Bordei-Herǎstrǎu culture that can be only just pre-La Tène ( Rosetti, , Publ. Muzeului Municip. Bucuresti, II, 1935, 51–5Google Scholar; Parducs, , Dolg. XVI, 1940, 96–8Google Scholar.

page 192 note 6 Gallus and Horvath, op. cit., pl. 11.

page 194 note 1 cf. Copus Vasorum Antiquorum, Yugoslavie, Zagreb, 2, Dalj.

page 194 note 2 Scythian remains are confined to eastern Hungary and Transylvania and are not very numerous; cf. Nestor, B.R.G.K., l.c.; Rostovcev, , Skythien und der Bosphorus, vol. I, pt. 2 (Berlin, 1931)Google Scholar; Roska, , E.S.A., XI, 1937, 167–202 Google Scholar.

page 194 note 3 Medd. Lunds Universitets Hist. Museum, 1942, 190–204 Google Scholar.

page 194 note 4 Arne, and Hančar, in E.S.A., IX Google Scholar.

page 194 note 5 Piotrovskiǐ, and Jessen, (‘Mozdokskiǐ Mogilnik’ Arkh. Expeditsiǐ Ermitazha, I, 1940, 31–52), date these graves to 7th–6th centuriesGoogle Scholar.

page 194 note 6 Hančar, , ‘Hallstatt-Kaukasus,’ M.A.G.W., LXXIII, 1947, 162–3Google Scholar points out that analogies to ‘Villanovan,’ urns appear earlier south, than north, of the Causasus, but rightly refuses to draw any chronological inferences from this fact.

page 194 note 7 The survival of something allied to the Koban culture till the late 6th century B.C., may be inferred from the Caucasian bells found in Samos; cf. Mobius, in Marburger Studien, 1938, 158–9Google Scholar.