Bronze Age Amber Trade

The transportation of Chalcolithic and Early Bronze Age ivory raw materials and artefacts across the Mediterranean has been in the focus of archaeological research for over a century now. However, tracing the flow of ivory has mostly been restricted to traditional theoretical models of raw materials distribution deriving from socio-culturally centred considerations. Environmental conditions, potential transportation networks and dissemination routes have not yet been considered decisive for the spread of ivory raw material from the African shores and the eastern Mediterranean towards the Iberian Peninsula. Implementing computational environmental and archaeological modelling, we present a fully reproducible quantitative approach to estimate potential communication and transportation networks based on environmental covariates. We deploy a Network Analysis model and a predictive model based on Least Cost Path density to propose a potential land-and sea-based movement corridor for the western Mediterranean Basin that could have enabled the cultural spread of resources during the 3rd and 2nd millennia BC. Using the presented model and the open-source data underlying the analyses, distribution patterns of multiple material resources from different chronological subsets or regions can be developed, which will contribute to understanding prehistoric human patterns across the Mediterranean.

This paper asks the question whether towns may be said to be visible in the archaeological record of northern Italy before the Iron Age. It argues that we should not use the forms of urbanism of the Greek, Etruscan, and Roman cities as criteria for identifying towns, but that the medieval town is a better comparator as it shows many elements of similarity with Iron Age forms of urbanism in Europe. Having established a selection of possible criteria for the identification of a town, it is argued that Final Bronze Age-Early Iron Age Frattesina is a good candidate for a town, as are the Recent Bronze Age terramare of the Po plain. The preconception that there cannot be towns in Bronze Age northern Italy is ‘primitivist’ and hinders a dispassionate assessment of the evidence.

We present 15 new 14C dates for copper smelting sites in the Trentino, together with 31 published dates for smelting sites in the region. Smelting may have already begun in the sixteenth century cal BC and continued until the ninth century cal BC. This suggests a new historical model, in which the twelfth-ninth centuries BC site of Frattesina, an important trans-shipment node between continental Europe and the Mediterranean and manufacturing site, is at the centre of the metals trade of the final Bronze Age and early Iron Age, rather than subsidiary to Etruria mineraria. Frattesina uses copper from the southern Alps, which is traded to peninsular Italy but also to Greece (probably as finished artefacts), while the metal production of Etruria mineraria is seen to be rather less important.

The study aims to establish several definite criteria which will differentiate Romanian amber and Baltic amber to certify the local or Baltic origin of the materials found in archaeological sites on the Romanian territory, by using light microscopy and performing analytical methods, such as Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy-variable angle reflectance and liquid chromatography with mass spectrometry detection. Experiments especially by Fourier transformed infrared spectroscopy, were applied to a wide range of samples with controlled origin. The methods were optimised and resulted in premises to apply the techniques to analysis of the archaeological material.

The preservation of organic and human remains in Early Nordic Bronze Age mounds (1700 BCE -1100 BCE) permits new provenance work on this important period. Studies have shown that different mobility/non-mobility patterns were exercised by elite women during this time. To extend the database, we conducted strontium isotope analyses of the enamel from the second and third molars from the elite female grave from Ginderup in Thisted County, Denmark. Among other items, this grave included the textile remains of a possible corded skirt or fringed blanket. We complemented analyses of this woman’s enamel with strontium isotope analyses of the first molar from Grave B as well as osteological analysis of the individuals from Early Nordic Bronze Age Graves A, B and C. Our results revealed that the strontium isotope ratios obtained from the woman wearing a possible corded skirt yielded one local ratio (M2) and one non-local ratio (M3). The results from Grave B yielded a ratio which falls within ...

PAOLO BELLINTANI, MATEUSZ CWALIŃSKI, IVANA ANGELINI, URSULA THUN HOHENSTEIN

Le ambre di Campestrin e l’origine della decorazione tipo Tirinto

Summary

This work is a synthesis (and expansion) of two pa¬pers presented at the “Frattesina fifty years later. The Po Delta between Europe and the Mediterranean in the centuries around 1000 BC” conference, held in Rovigo in 2018. The orginal presentations dealt with the am¬bers of the processing site of Campestrin di Grignano Polesine (Rovigo - Italy) and the chrono-typological evolution of the amber beads traditionally referred to as of “Tiryns type”.
The settlement of Campestrin was discovered in 2007 and four excavation seasons were conducted there between 2008 and 2011. The site is located in the low plain between the terminal sections of the Adige and Po rivers, close to the right bank of an ancient branch of the Po river known as “Po di Adria” and near its Delta. It seems to have had a relatively short life (Recent Bronze Age 2 and Final Bronze Age 1 - 12th century BC), therefore to have been coeval to the first phase Frattesina di Fratta Polesine, the well-known production and trading centre located about 8 km further on west along the same river course.
The news of the oldest known amber processing site south of the Baltic region has been welcomed by many scholars as proof of the active role of the North Adriatic region in the production and circulation of artifacts made with amber of North European (or “Baltic”) ori¬gin. This hypothesis had already been proposed by some scholars after the discovery, in 1967, of Frattesina, where specific evidence for amber processing was lacking. Processing is well documented in Campestrin, which also has “Tiryns-type” beads among its products. As is well known, the “Tiryns type” is mainly dated between the 13th / 12th and 11th centuries BC (but in Italy also up to the 9th century BC) and attested over a very wide range: from the central Mediterranean to the Aegean, with extremes in Sardinia, the Eastern Mediterranean and Ukraine. It is essentially one of the components of the so-called koiné of the late European and Mediterranean Bronze Age which coexists as a complex of weapons and ornamental elements and goes beyond the crisis of the 12th century BC.
The purpose of this paper is to present the currently identified finished artifacts found at Campestrin, as well as those unfinished finds which can be identified as belonging to the chaîne opèratoire of objects charac¬terized by the presence of a central rib (“Tiryns type”); the artefacts that relate to other chaînes opèratoires are still under study.
We also propose a new typological classification for the (finished and unfinished) specimens of the so-called “Tiryns type”, based on various formal parameters that have made it possible to distinguish several types. In this new proposal the presence of the central rib is seen as a decorative feature defined as “Tiryns-type decoration”.
We also discuss the analysis of traces of processing, in particular of the types with Tiryns-type decoration, and the investigation of the provenance of the raw material, characterized as succinite, the so-called “Baltic amber”.
Ample space is given to artefacts with Tiryns-type decoration: previous studies, distribution, chronology and new hypotheses on the origins and possible process¬ing centres, based on a model created with the Network Analysis. Although it is still too early to propose a precise reconstruction of the development of the Tiryns-type decoration (the chronology of many specimens is impre¬cise), the phases provisionally proposed in this work (phase 1 = RBA1 (?)/2-FBA1 and phase 2 ≥ FBA2), allow some more precise observations than has been made to date.
In the first phase, to which Campestrin is also dated, the “Tiryns type” decorative innovation, applied to different types of biconical, truncated and cylindrical amber beads, seems to be limited to the Adriatic and Ionian basins with a particular concentration in North central-eastern Italy and rarer finds along the coasts, as far as the extreme south of Greece. The first presence of this decoration on the northern Tyrrhenian side of the Italian peninsula should also be attributed to this phase. In these areas, the beads with “Tiryns-type decoration”, especially those of a cylindrical shape, show a certain morphological affinity, an indication of their origin from the production centre of Campestrin, or from other possible processing centres in the North-Ital¬ian area. Furthermore, it is possible to argue that, in the first phase, amber beads decorated with median ribs produced in central-eastern northern Italy reached the Mediterranean Levant, probably Bohemia and perhaps Ukraine. It has not yet been ascertained, however, whether the presumed Sardinian processing centres were already active at this stage.
Subsequently, that is from FBA2, the Tiryns-type decoration seems to have spread further in the areas previously affected by the phenomenon, apparently with more substantial attestations in areas where only single or a few examples were found in the first phase, as in the case of the central Tyrrhenian side and now also the southern Tyrrhenian (Lipari, Piazza Monfalcone). Even in the case of the exceptional complex of Hordeevka (Ukraine) - kurgan 38 it is possible to argue for an origin of the beads with Tiryns (and Allumiere) decorations from workshops in north-eastern Italy, also given that the ambers of Hordeevka are not the only elements that relate to northern Italian production traditions (such as glass beads) or costume (fibulae with raised violin bow) in the North Pontic territory, be¬tween Moldova and Ukraine.
After the end of Campestrin, in the second phase it is possible to hypothesize the birth (or development) of new centres specialized in the processing of amber that adapt the Tiryns-type decorative motif to new forms of bead or even elaborate it in new ways. For example, Frattesina, also in the Polesine area, as well as at least one currently unidentified centre in the Kvarner-Dal¬matia-Lika area, to which may be added, perhaps in a later moment of the BF, the presumed workshops operating in Sardinia. It is also in FBA2 that we can date the frequent association of beads with Tiryns-type dec¬oration with beads decorated in another style appears, with parallel incisions or grooves: the Allumiere-type decoration.
From FBA3, with only the possible exceptions of the Sardinian flattened beads and the presumable keimelia of Osteria dell’Osa, the “Allumiere type” decoration completely replaced the “Tiryns type” in the central Mediterranean, outside of which both types are no longer attested.

Při analýze pohřebiště ze starší doby bronzové ve Vliněvsi (střední Čechy, okr. Mělník) byla zkoumána variabilita typů milodarů v hrobech různého pohlaví a věku. Krom jiného se ukázalo téměř výhradní zastoupení tyčinkových náramků v dětských hrobech. Rozborem všech dostupných nálezů tyčinkových náramků v hrobech únětické kultury v Čechách se tato vazba ukázala jako nenáhodná. Autoři diskutují hypotézu o spojení náramků s obdobím nedospělosti a s ním souvisejícími přechodovými rituály, případně ochrannou funkci těchto předmětů.

Amber was one of the key raw materials distributed in Bronze Age Europe. One of its varieties-succinite-was exchanged over a vast area stretching from its sources on the southern shores of the Baltic Sea to the shores of the Mediterranean Sea. The chemical identification of Baltic amber significantly expands our knowledge of the dynamics and nature of the relationships connecting different regions of Europe in the first half of the second millennium BC. One of the most significant cultural-geographical areas reached by this amber was the Carpathian Basin. This text presents a summary of the current state of knowledge about the context, chronology, and the extent of amber occurrence in the Hungarian Bronze Age. At the same time, it supplements the catalogue of finds with artefacts acquired in recent years, providing new information regarding radiocarbon dating and spectral analysis of selected amber artifacts.

This chapter includes the analysis of most of the small finds collected during the survey and test excavations, conducted by the Projekti Arkeologjik i Shkodrës (PASH), in northwestern Albania. The majority of small finds were collected during the course of field surveys (n=270), whereas a smaller, but still, significant number of small finds was recovered from excavations (n=126) at both settlements (n=40) and tumuli (n=86).

Jochen Reinhard, X. Die Bernsteinartefakte. In: Annick de Capitani, Die Seeufersiedlungen von Cham-Bachgraben (Kanton Zug). Band 2: Funde aus dem Neolithikum und der Bronzezeit. Antiqua 57/2. Basel 2023, 308-315. <https://zg.ch/de/sport-kultur/archaeologisches-kulturgut/publikationen-archaeologie/antiqua>.

Amber comprises polymerized plant resins that have a remarkable capacity for survival in a range of geological environments. Most ambers can be traced to coniferous trees and typically combine a broad array of plant natural products including terpenoids, carboxylic acids, and associated alcohols. Because amber may entomb various organisms at the time of production and preserve them with unmatched fidelity, it has been studied for centuries. Despite extensive geochemical profiling of amber‐derived extracts using techniques such as gas‐chromatography mass spectrometry, to date amber compositional variability has not been investigated by time‐of‐flight secondary ion mass spectrometry (ToF‐SIMS). We conducted a series of scans on microtomed surfaces of Baltic and Bitterfeld ambers, representing two of Europe&#39;s major deposits, both of Palaeogene age. We exploited authentic standards of mono‐methyl succinate and diterpene resin acids to guide interpretation of the results. The ToF‐SIM...

L’articolo propone un modello predittivo per la simulazione del paesaggio in Lessinia Orientale (Italia nord-orientale) nell’eta del Bronzo e del Ferro. L’obbiettivo e quello di evidenziare, utilizzando operatori GIS, le aree a maggior vocazione insediativa considerando alcuni fattori ambientali che possono aver influenzato le scelte dell’attore antico. Tale metodologia e utile per l’amministrazione e il monitoraggio delle risorse culturali in quanto permette di calcolare la probabilita di presenza di siti non ancora scoperti

Several types of (mostly) blue-green glass beads from Iron-Age archaeological sites in Central Italy were studied using a range of spectroscopic techniques: portable X-Ray Fluorescence spectrometry, Fibre Optics Reflectance Spectroscopy, Scanning Electron Microscopy coupled with Energy Dispersive X-ray Spectrometry, micro-Raman spectroscopy and Laser Ablation Inductively Coupled Plasma Mass Spectrometry. Complementary information was gathered from each technique and discussed in the frame of the archaeological typology of the objects. The systematic evaluation of the results allowed us to draw some conclusions on the raw materials employed for primary production and to highlight some provenance indicators in the glass. Some of the beads found in the Iron Age (IA) contexts were preliminarily attributed to the Final Bronze Age (FBA) production based on their typology, and the compositional data obtained in this work confirmed that they were low magnesium high potassium (LMHK) glass, t...

Although scientific methods are frequently applied in archaeology and are often considered as indispensable, their results do not always agree with archaeological expectations. This can usually be resolved by detailed discussions and by acknowledging the potentials and limitations of the different approaches. To do this it is necessary to accept the competence and experience of each other and, foremost, accept and understand the different methodologies. Here a case is presented, in which such a  conundrum could in principle be solved but archaeological arguments are given a priori more weight and discomforting scientific results are thus suppressed. The case deals with a number of decorated gold foils and pieces of amber that were found near a Late Bronze Age structure at the hamlet of Bernstorf near the small town of Kranzberg, Lkr. Freising, in Bavaria. They were  interpreted as clear evidence for contacts between Mycenae and Bavaria in the Late Bronze Age and it was suggested tha...

The relationships between the polymerization related to structure and the composition of different types of natural resins were determined. Analyses were carried out by Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR), differential thermal analysis–thermogravimetry (DTA-TG) and hot stage microscopy (HSM). Copal specimens were collected from the Mai-Ndombe Lake, Democratic Republic of Congo, and amber pieces that came from Bitterfeld, Germany, and from Kaliningrad, Russia. FTIR spectra of copal show a vibrational band at 1643 cm−1 (C=O stretching) attributed to communic acids, while amber shows a band at 1735 cm−1 associated with ester-group vibrations and a shoulder at about 3340 cm−1, suggesting partial oxidization. DTA shows the main exothermic peak, related to the combustion, at 546–552 °C in amber and at 518 °C in copal. The derivative thermogravimetry (DTG) peaks vary in the different resin types; in amber, they occur at 333–335, 401–404 and 548–555 °C and are related to mass los...

L’articolo propone un modello predittivo per la simulazione del paesaggio in Lessinia Orientale (Italia nord-orientale) nell’eta del Bronzo e del Ferro. L’obbiettivo e quello di evidenziare, utilizzando operatori GIS, le aree a maggior vocazione insediativa considerando alcuni fattori ambientali che possono aver influenzato le scelte dell’attore antico. Tale metodologia e utile per l’amministrazione e il monitoraggio delle risorse culturali in quanto permette di calcolare la probabilita di presenza di siti non ancora scoperti

Principal component analysis (PCA) has been applied to FTIR and FTRaman data in order to determine the provenance of the amber used for an archaeological artefact discovered at Noslac (Alba county, Romania), now preserved in the Romanian National History Museum collection. As reference materials were used Romanian and Baltic amber from various locations. Similarities among the spectra displayed with PCA indicated a local origin for the archaeological amber beads.

Při analýze pohřebiště ze starší doby bronzové ve Vliněvsi (střední Čechy, okr. Mělník) byla zkoumána variabilita typů milodarů v hrobech různého pohlaví a věku. Krom jiného se ukázalo téměř výhradní zastoupení tyčinkových náramků v dětských hrobech. Rozborem všech dostupných nálezů tyčinkových náramků v hrobech únětické kultury v Čechách se tato vazba ukázala jako nenáhodná. Autoři diskutují hypotézu o spojení náramků s obdobím nedospělosti a s ním souvisejícími přechodovými rituály, případně ochrannou funkci těchto předmětů.

Das Thema der Mitteilung sind die neuen Erkenntnisse über das angebliche Skelett-Kindergrab der Knovizer Kultur, das neuerlich schon in die Stufe Ha A1 datiert wurde. Die Elementanalyse der beiden Armringe zeigte ungewöhnlich hohe Anteile an Blei in der Legierung. Zinn wurde nicht festgestellt, hoch sind allerdings auch die Anteile an Arsen, Antimon und Nickel (Tabela 1). Laut der technologischen Beurteilung wurden die Armringe wahrscheinlich nach der Methode der verlorenen Form hergestellt. Für die Interpretation der Funde können wir zwei ungleich
nachprüfbare Möglichkeiten anbieten:
1. Experiment, Anwendung von neuen Erkenntnissen. Der Bleigehalt in der Bronze ermöglichte eine bessere Vergießbarkeit und Kaltverarbeitung des Produktes. Die Armringe, wegen ihrer Ausführung, haben keinen Zusammenhang mit dem Kontext (Grab).
2. Die Armringe entsprechen einer „Kindergröße“, aber haben ein Gewicht der „Armringe für Erwachsene“, Abnutzungsspuren fehlen (vergleiche Neustupný 1965), einer der Armringe trägt offensichtliche Spuren weniger
sorgsamer Anfertigung (Einfluss des höheren Bleigehalt?, Eile?). In diesem Kontext (Kinderbestattung) bietet sich die Überlegung an, dass dieses Blei (mit einem höheren Gewicht als Zinn) ein gewisses zusätzliches „Hilfsmittel“ zum postumen Überspringen des vermutlichen Initiationsrituals zum Erwachsensein war, das aufgrund des Todes
des Kindes nicht stattfinden konnte.

During Later Prehistory, some minerals like salt, non-ferrous metals and amber, previously little known and of minor significancy, have become of great symbolic and/or material value. Central and SouthEastern Europe are quite rich in the sources of these minerals, which are unevenly distributed both in the region and around the world. Archaeological research has shown a consistent exploitation and use of these minerals from the Neolithic to the Early Iron Age. Moreover, the activity of some production centres was quite complex, large-scaled and aimed at long-distance exchange. On the one hand, the high complexity and large scale of production and consumption required considerable material and logistical resources, as well as high social complexity and the capacity to control resources and organize production chains and exchange networks. On the other hand, such production and exchange must have needed high-potential receivers, able to give in return for the goods received some benefits, be it various goods, services, protection or patronage, etc. Of course, the contexts were different in each case, and so the activities were different and followed different trajectories. Nevertheless, the procurement, handling and transformation of mineral resources will always draw economic and social consequences. They are dependent on socioeconomic, technological and environmental context, on the power bodies, and, in some cases, on the religious background.

Amber and glass beads from prehistoric sites in Kosovo have been published in this paper. In addition to a detailed analysis of the archaeological material, the majority of which is now being made public for the first time the place of amber in the prehistory of Kosovo and the importance of trade in the Iron Age of the central Balkans have also been discussed.Arheološki materijal sa važnih praistorijskih nalazišta na Kosovu nije još uvek u potpunosti objavljen. Priprema velike izložbe u SANU, &#39;Arheološko blago Kosova i Metohije&#39; - tokom 1997. godine - bila je prilika da se analizira i publikuje ćilibarski materijal sa nekih nalazišta na Kosovu. Ovo se u prvom redu odnosi na perle iz Iglareva, Pećke Banje i Rogova. Perle iz Romaje, Prčeva, Donje Bitinje i Karagača upotpunjuju sliku o praistorijskom ćilibaru na Kosovu, a obrađene su prema raspoloživoj objavljenoj literaturi. Osim ćilibarskih perli, ovde su prikazane i staklene perle i perle od gorskog kristala, koje su najčešć...

The aim of this paper is to reconstruct the costumes of high-ranking women and men in Middle Bronze Age society. Costumes are seen as a badge of social status, which, through jewellery, communicate affiliations to a social group. We believe that an analysis of grave goods can reveal jewellery sets associated with the Bronze Age elite. For women, the costume typically includes two pins, luxury bracelets, necklaces and rings on the feet and hands. Jewellery is worn mostly symmetrically. In contrast, the male costume is equipped with only one pin, and is sometimes accompanied by a rod-shaped bracelet. The arrangement of jewellery is asymmetric and the costume is usually accompanied by a weapon

Following a mailbox of comments concerning a letter sent by the Society of Vertebrate Paleontology to journal editors on “Fossils from conflict zones...” dated 21 April 2020 calling for a ban on publications on Burmese amber, it was felt necessary to air some concerns raised for further discussion.

The subject of the article is the “group” Unětice culture cemetery from the Early Bronze Age investigated in 2014 in Lovosice (Litoměřice district, northwest Bohemia). The cemetery’s dating to 2021–1751 BC corresponds to the mature stage of the Unětice culture in other parts of Bohemia (Moucha’s preclassical and classical stages). The cemetery is characterised by stone and apparently even wooden structures, multiple burials and the exclusive presence of miniature vessels. The population was composed primarily of old adults with the corresponding degenerative productive changes; only two non-adults were determined. Epigenetic marks on the skeletons testifying to a certain degree of kinship between the buried individuals were documented at the group cemetery and outside of it. New excavations have provided more detailed information on the spatial structure of burial grounds which, in addition to large cemeteries (of the Liběšovice, Březno near Louny, and Velke Žernoseky type), are com...

Professor Ryszard Szadziewski’s adventure with entomology started in 1968 with his participation in the “Wielka Gra” (The Great Game) Polish TV 1 game show. With his mathematics and physics background and mind, he took a part in this contest as an amateur (it was one of the rules of the show). Even though he did not win this contest, he won entomology as a passion and profession.

Die ungewohnlichen Funde von Goldblechen, verzierten Bernsteinen und einem Bernsteinsiegel mit Linear B-Schrift im Bereich der grosen bronzezeitlichen Befestigung auf dem Bernstorfer Berg in Oberbayern hat seit 1998 und insbesondere seit 2014 zum Vorwurf gefuhrt, die Objekte seien gefalscht oder untergeschoben worden. Die Vorlage von naturwissenschaftlichen Daten, 14C-Datierungen, Goldanalysen und anorganischen Daten zu unterschiedlichen Materialien hat zu ungewohnlichen Formen der fachlichen Auseinandersetzung gefuhrt. Unterstellungen, Verzerrungen, Zerwurfnisse und Falschdarstellungen fuhrten zu Narrativen und Gegennarrativen, die grostenteils die Ebene sachlicher Diskussionen verlassen haben und alternative Fakten geschaffen haben. Diese wieder aufzulosen, ist das Ziel der Autoren.