Aunjetitz Kultur

Introduction

  The proceedings before us, comprised of seven papers, are inspired by the subject of the almost completed CRAFTER programme Creative Europe project. The full title of the project is Crafting Europe in the Bronze Age and Today, and in brief, the idea was to draw inspiration from Europe’s Bronze Age pottery to help revive modern-day artisanship. The project targets the appreciation of Europe's cultural heritage as a shared resource and the reinforcement of a sense of belonging to a common European space. In particular, it hopes to make cultural heritage a source of inspiration for contemporary creation and innovation and strengthen the interaction between this sector and other cultural and creative sectors. The main framework of the project was the idea that four potters from Spain, Germany, Hungary, and Serbia will draw on their skills to (re)create ceramic vessels representative of some of the most outstanding Bronze Age cultures of Europe: El Argar (southeast Spain), Únětice (Central Europe), Füzesabony (eastern Hungary) and Vatin (Serbia).
  The papers published within these proceedings are not strictly related to the project itself, but the problems of Bronze Age pottery in Europe in general. The problems discussed in the presented papers and the inspirations are drawn from the CRAFTER project. The original idea was to delve into the content of the pottery and define its composition and quality. These are, in fact, the elements responsible for the final appearance of the ceramic vessel and its function. Considering that out of four editors, two have presented papers within the proceedings, I have been honoured to write this short introduction on their significance and essence. The thread that connects all of the papers, although their concepts do not seem similar at the first glance, since some of the papers are dwelling on interdisciplinarity while others deal with certain chronological and cultural-historical problems, is that the primary analytical material in all of the papers is Bronze Age pottery, from beyond the Pyrenees, across Central Europe, to the Balkans, which is not unexpected considering that a Serbian institution was credited for publishing. The positive aspect is that the pottery is Crafting pottery in Bronze Age Europe: the archaeological background of the CRAFTER project discussed in a manner uncommon for archaeology, while on the other hand pottery studies have been more and more neglected in the past few decades, as such subjects are considered as passé in archaeology. The ever-rising number of specializations and specialists have pushed the pottery and potters into an undeserved corner, even though without such a set of analytic work the past can not be completely and adequately perceived.
  The pottery is “slow-moving”. It changes, circulates, and exchanges at a slow pace and it enables the perception of the beginning, development, decadence, and the end of a certain society. The pottery has regional character and reflects the primary contacts, the esthetics of a community, and the inspiration of the artist. Certainly, this implies to prehistoric pottery and communities which do not function within centralized social systems, such as the Bronze Age beyond Mediterranean Europe, which is indeed in the focus of these proceedings. With the appearance of the potter’s wheel, the production and distribution of pottery merge with industry and economy, and at that moment a puzzle of a small man from the past loses a piece. A piece without which we are unable to perceive small communities through such an important, fruitful, and data-rich object such as pottery and which we often tend to neglect as a discipline. In order to identify the contacts, exchange, and trade or reconstruct the communication routes in past, we often reach to the so-called luxurious artifacts: metals, amber, glass, and artisan objects… Likewise, pottery could narrate a story of one meal, one house, one potter, one village, or one community in the past, which is, like it or not, a fact that will make the interdisciplinary and diverse analyses of prehistoric pottery one of the primary archaeological methods.

Vojislav Filipović
Institute of Archaeology, Belgrade

Im Rahmen der archäologischen Voruntersuchungen im Bereich der ICE-Neubaustrecke Erfurt-Leipzig/Halle wurden mehr als 550 Radiokohlenstoffdaten aus endneolithischen und frühbronzezeitlichen Befunden vorgelegt. Das entspricht einer Stichprobe von mehr als 100 radiometrischen Daten aus Gräbern der entsprechenden Kulturen. Die Modellierung der Daten auf Basis Bayesianischer Statistik in Hinblick auf die Laufzeiten der Kulturen bzw. deren Überschneidungsbereiche sowie die Resultate werden im Beitrag vorgestellt.

Die Gliederung der archäologischen Gruppen im 3. Jts. v. Chr. basiert immer häufiger auf der Interpretation radiometrischer Daten. Aufgrund dieser Interpretation werden nicht nur die Laufzeiten der Kulturen bestimmt, sondern vielmehr auch typochronologische Aussagen getroffen. Im ersten Teil des Beitrages soll darauf aufmerksam gemacht werden, dass die Nutzung eines Einzeldatums als Anzeiger für einen frühen Beginn bzw. ein spätes Ende einer Kultur oder für die Beschreibung einer kulturellen Erscheinung kritisch betrachtet werden muss. Im zweiten Teil werden typochronologische Aspekte in Bezug auf die Inventare der entsprechenden Kulturgruppen vorgestellt.

***This Poster was presented on the 2022 Advisory Board Retreat of the Cluster of Excellence ROOTS in Kiel***

The burial ground of Výčapy-Opatovce (Okr. Nitra) is considered as one of the important cemeteries of the Nitra culture. From a total of 317 graves, about 300 are assigned to the Nitra culture. Together with the cemeteries of Abrahám I, Branč and Jelšovce, Výčapy-Opatovce is the largest published assemblage of graves of the Nitra culture to date. Considering that there is an intensive ongoing discussion about the dating of the Early Bronze Age in southwestern Slovakia, it is surprising that until now no 14C-dates for Výčapy-Opatovce were available.


***Paper with detailed results published in the Slovenska Archaeologia 70.1 (2022)/ https://doi.org/10.31577/slovarch.2022.70.3 ***

Research carried out at Pömmelte and Schönebeck, Salzlandkreis district, over the past 15 years has significantly expanded our knowledge on roundels dating from the 3rd and 2nd millennia BC. Such circular sanctuaries were multi-layered metaphors which probably served as focal points within a more extensive sacred landscape. However, they were not isolated locations segregated from people’s everyday lives, but functioned as key sites for the activities that took place in the settlements of the period. Ground plans of Final Neolithic and Early Bronze Age houses were found in the immediate vicinity of both roundels presented here.
The example of Pömmelte suggests that the roundel and its associated settlement appeared and flourished around the same time. The multi-stage development began with a number of buildings dating from the Bell Beaker Culture and culminated in a hamlet or village comprised of several farmsteads in the beginning to early stages of the Early Bronze Age. Several centuries later, the settlement activities finally declined, probably in conjunction with the dwindling importance of the roundel and its ultimate dismantling around 2o5o BC. The site therefore apparently experienced continuity at two levels from the (Late) Bell Beaker Culture to the Early Únětice Culture, which lasted as long as the Early Bronze Age society remained rooted in Final Neolithic traditions.

In:
H. Meller / S. Friederich / M. Küßner / H. Stäuble / R. Risch (Hrsg.), Siedlungsarchäologie des Endneolithikums und der frühen Bronzezeit. Late Neolithic and Early Bronze Age Settlement Archaeology. 11. Mitteldeutscher Archäologentag vom 18. bis 20. Oktober 2018 in Halle (Saale). Tagungen des Landsmus. für Vorgesch. Halle 20 (Halle/Saale 2019), 289-317.

The eleven graves from Praha ‑Ruzyně presented in this paper were excavated 1999 in course of a brief res‑ cue excavation. The site history, topography, graves and their offerings, burial rites, as well as preliminary anthropological observations are all being discussed. Typological analysis indicated a date within the earlier, but not the earliest stages of the Únětice culture. This relatively limited assemblage, with only six offering bearing graves, still gave rise to a number of interesting questions. Special attention is given to the question of synchronisation with the Danubian Early Bronze Age and the applicability of Ruckdeschel's periodiza‑ tion to Central Bohemia.