Bronze Age Discoveries & Findings

[ramonmercado]

Wasn't that fish-eggs? Tasted very 'bitty' as I recall.

Nope!

White pudding is broadly similar to black pudding, but does not include blood. Modern recipes consist of suet or fat, oatmeal or barley, breadcrumbs and in some cases pork and pork liver, filled into a natural or cellulose sausage casing. Recipes in previous centuries included a wider range of ingredients.

 

[Erinaceus]

I don't think white pudding is fishy.

Are you thinking of hard cod or herring roe? They're grainy.

 

[JamesWhitehead]

I had a phase of buying white puddings, from an Irish make, I think. It was rich and savoury, the flavour mild but oniony and the nice mouth-feel was from suet.

Combine it with the black pudding, sausages, bacon and fried bread and you have a heart-stopping breakfast!

The fact that I had it for lunch did not much mitigate that!

 

[Sid]

I don't think white pudding is fishy.

Are you thinking of hard cod or herring roe? They're grainy.

Yes that was it, rounds of fish roe, yucky! I've Never had 'white pudding in that case.'

 

[ramonmercado]

How Bronze Age people lived - did they count their coppers?

We have no written evidence about how people lived in Europe during the Bronze Age (2300–800 BCE), so archaeologists piece together their world from the artifacts and materials they left behind. Unlike perishable materials such as wool or wood, it's the metal that has been well preserved.

Considerable archaeological attention focuses on elite members of society, largely because common people left fewer traces. A new study suggests we can learn something about these everyday people from buried hoards of metal—and that their economic lives were much like our own.

During the Bronze Age, it was a common practice across Europe to deposit hoards of metalwork in the ground. People would gather metal objects and then bury them together or place them at a special location, such as a bog or a boundary.

Sometimes these hoards included many objects, sometimes just a few. Sometimes they were composed of a single type of object—hoards of tens of axes of the same form are a well-known example. Sometimes they included a variety of objects, and even fragments of broken objects.

Despite their variety, the hoards show the Bronze Age world was interconnected across Europe, and that bronze objects had a special value throughout most of it. ...
.
https://phys.org/news/2024-07-bronze-age-people-revives-arguments.html

 

[ramonmercado]

It's yet to be determined as to what lies benrath,

'Stunning' burial chamber unearthed on Dartmoor

Alec Collyer​

The burial chamber is believed to be almost 4,000 years old

Archaeologists have unearthed a "stunning" Bronze Age burial chamber on one of Dartmoor’s most isolated hills. Experts discovered a stone-built box, sometimes known as a cist, at Cut Hill during a three-day dig earlier this month.

Radiocarbon dating of charcoal found inside suggests the chamber, used to bury the dead during prehistoric times, is about 3,900 years old.
Dartmoor National Park Authority (DNPA), which led the project, said the discovery had been prompted by reports of a feature being visible in the peat.

The authority said the find had parallels to the cist unearthed at Dartmoor's Whitehorse Hill in 2011, which uncovered items including cremated human bone, a woven bag and amber beads.

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cvg5pdv6v12o

 

[ramonmercado]

More findings from the Tollense battle site.

Bronze Age Europe was a violent place. But only recently have scientists uncovered the scope of the violence, at a 3000-year-old site in northern Germany where thousands of well-armed young men fought with sophisticated weapons in what appears to be an epic battle. Now, a bagful of bronze artifacts and tools found at the bottom of the river in the middle of the battlefield suggests some of these warriors traveled from hundreds of kilometers away to fight. That suggests that northern European societies were organized on such a large scale that leaders could call warriors to distant battlefields, long before modern communication systems and roads.

“It’s extremely rare to find a box or pouch [like this],” on an ancient battlefield, says Thomas Terberger, an archaeologist with the Lower Saxony State Office for Cultural Heritage in Hanover, Germany, who describes the find with colleagues in a paper published today in Antiquity. “Somebody lost it there.”

The battle raged in a narrow, swampy valley that runs along the Tollense River, in Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, 160 kilometers north of Berlin. Many of the artifacts sank below the water and were preserved in pristine condition. Since the site was discovered in 1996, archaeologists have uncovered metal and wooden weaponry and more than 12,000 pieces of human bone.

https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2019/10/3000-year-old-toolkit-suggests-skilled-warriors-crossed-europe-fight-epic-battle

Yet more discoveries at Tollense.

Archaeologists discover southern army fought at 'Europe's oldest battle'​

Bronze and flint arrowheads from Tollense Valley, sorted by types. Credit: Leif Inselmann

Archaeologists analyzed thirteenth century BC bronze and flint arrowheads from the Tollense Valley, north-east Germany, uncovering the earliest evidence for large-scale interregional conflict in Europe. The Tollense Valley in Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania is well-known as the site of a large conflict dating to c. 1250 BC.

The quantity of human remains found (more than 150 individuals) suggests over 2,000 people were involved, an amount unprecedented for the Nordic Bronze Age. First proposed to be a battlefield in Antiquity in 2011, nowadays the site is often referred to as "Europe's oldest known battlefield," since no other conflict of this scale has been discovered that dates earlier.

However, very little is known about the people who fought and died at Tollense over 3,000 years ago. Who was involved in the battle, and where did they come from? To answer these questions, a team of researchers from several German institutions compared bronze and flint arrowheads found in the valley with over 4,000 contemporary examples from across Europe.

Their results are published in the journal Antiquity. ...

https://phys.org/news/2024-09-archaeologists-southern-army-fought-europe.html

 

[Bad Bungle]

Oddly the image of a flint arrowhead embedded in a long bone popped into my head a few days ago - tracking down the battle and associated posts was on my to-do list. Thank you.

 

[maximus otter]

Yet more discoveries at Tollense.

Archaeologists discover southern army fought at 'Europe's oldest battle'​

Bronze and flint arrowheads from Tollense Valley, sorted by types. Credit: Leif Inselmann

Archaeologists analyzed thirteenth century BC bronze and flint arrowheads from the Tollense Valley, north-east Germany, uncovering the earliest evidence for large-scale interregional conflict in Europe. The Tollense Valley in Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania is well-known as the site of a large conflict dating to c. 1250 BC.

The quantity of human remains found (more than 150 individuals) suggests over 2,000 people were involved, an amount unprecedented for the Nordic Bronze Age. First proposed to be a battlefield in Antiquity in 2011, nowadays the site is often referred to as "Europe's oldest known battlefield," since no other conflict of this scale has been discovered that dates earlier.

However, very little is known about the people who fought and died at Tollense over 3,000 years ago. Who was involved in the battle, and where did they come from? To answer these questions, a team of researchers from several German institutions compared bronze and flint arrowheads found in the valley with over 4,000 contemporary examples from across Europe.

Their results are published in the journal Antiquity. ...

https://phys.org/news/2024-09-archaeologists-southern-army-fought-europe.html

Wikipedia on the battle:

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tollense_valley_battlefield

maximus otter

 

[ramonmercado]

New findings at site first discovered in 1899.

Archaeologists digging at the site of a bronze age kingdom in northern Germany have uncovered remains of what they say was a surprisingly densely populated community of farmers and traders whose lives were upended by climate change.

Traces of eight large houses have been laid bare in the sandy soil outside the village of Seddin, about 95 miles (150km) north-west of Berlin, near the spectacular “triple grave” of King Hinz, remembered as a kindly ruler, who was laid to rest, purportedly in a golden coffin, next to his wife and a loyal servant.

The discovery of their burial mound in 1899 prompted waves of scientific research and tourism at the site, which have continued off and on in the ensuing years.

Over the last year, the archaeologist Immo Heske and teams from the University of Göttingen and the Brandenburg state office for historical preservation have found the outlines of an imposing king’s meeting hall from about 900BC, believed to have been used for celebrations and trade fairs. Recently they uncovered a cluster of homes metres away that may have helped house a community of up to 300 people over two centuries under a succession of monarchs.

Heske called the discovery of a “sea of houses” in a 2,000 sq metre patch of land “extraordinary” and said it more than justified months of work at the remote site. He said their construction style mirrored that of the king’s meeting hall, also on a west-east axis, increasing the likelihood that the smaller homes went up at roughly the same time in an era of great expansion.

“It was intended as a permanent settlement. There were metalworkers living here, carpenters, women tending the stove, farmers and cattlemen,” Heske said. “People could expect to live until 50 or even 60 and there were many generations living together under one roof.” ...

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2...ng-hall-houses-bronze-age-site-seddin-germany

 

[maximus otter]

Rare tool dating back 3,500 years found in the UK

Archaeologists with Wessex Archaeology were working through an excavation ahead of a habitat project when they came across a wooden tool that turned out to be one of the oldest and most complete ever discovered in Britain.

During the early stages of the excavation near Poole Harbour at a construction site in a diverse wetlands habitat, there wasn't much to be found other than a few shards of pottery and some flint.

The finds weren't of much significance until the wooden tool was uncovered.

Preliminary scientific dating of the tool dated it to the Bronze Age, roughly between 1500 and 1400 B.C., according to Wessex Archaeology's Ed Treasure. [Bit of nominative determinism there? m.o.]

Radiocarbon dating was used to date the tool to between 3,400 and 3,500 years old.

The last time a Bronze Age wooden tool was discovered in Britain with similar qualities was when the Brynlow shovel was found in a Cheshire mine in 1875.

https://www.foxnews.com/world/rare-tool-dating-back-3500-years-found-uk

maximus otter

 

[ramonmercado]

Oasis makes comeback as small town unearthed.

A small 4,400-year-old town in the Khaybar Oasis of Saudi Arabia hints that Bronze Age people in this region were slow to urbanize, unlike their contemporaries in Egypt and Mesopotamia, a new study finds.

Archaeologists discovered the site near the city of Al-'Ula in the Hejaz region of western Saudi Arabia and called it "al-Natah." The settlement covered about 3.7 acres (1.5 hectares), "including a central district and nearby residential district surrounded by protective ramparts," the researchers said in a statement. But the town, which was occupied starting around 2400 B.C., was small, with a population of only around 500 people, the team noted in a study, published Wednesday (Oct. 30) in the journal PLOS One.

The residential area had a large amount of pottery and grinding stones, as well as the remains of at least 50 dwellings that may have been made of earthen materials. The central area had two buildings that may have been used as administrative areas, the team wrote in the paper. In the western part of the central area, a necropolis was found. It has large and high circular tombs that archaeologists call "stepped tower tombs."

https://www.livescience.com/archaeo...-age-settlement-hidden-in-saudi-arabian-oasis

 

[Sid]

Rare tool dating back 3,500 years found in the UK

Archaeologists with Wessex Archaeology were working through an excavation ahead of a habitat project when they came across a wooden tool that turned out to be one of the oldest and most complete ever discovered in Britain.

During the early stages of the excavation near Poole Harbour at a construction site in a diverse wetlands habitat, there wasn't much to be found other than a few shards of pottery and some flint.

The finds weren't of much significance until the wooden tool was uncovered.

Preliminary scientific dating of the tool dated it to the Bronze Age, roughly between 1500 and 1400 B.C., according to Wessex Archaeology's Ed Treasure. [Bit of nominative determinism there? m.o.]

Radiocarbon dating was used to date the tool to between 3,400 and 3,500 years old.

The last time a Bronze Age wooden tool was discovered in Britain with similar qualities was when the Brynlow shovel was found in a Cheshire mine in 1875.

https://www.foxnews.com/world/rare-tool-dating-back-3500-years-found-uk

maximus otter

The shape of it as it appears reminds me of a 'Tusker'. . . a peat cutting shovel. A great find!
*I'm wondering if they would have used this particular tool for to cut, and dry peat slices for firepits?

 

[ramonmercado]

Copper dagger unearthed in multi-use cave.

Archaeologists have unearthed a 4,000-year-old copper dagger and fragments of human skulls deep in a cave in Italy. The cave was clearly used for burials, but it also holds the remains of an ancient hearth.

"The moment we discovered the dagger was unforgettable," Federico Bernardini, an archaeologist at Ca' Foscari University in Venice, told Live Science. "We could hardly believe it — finding metal artifacts, especially a dagger, was completely unexpected in this context."

Burials in caves or rock shelters were common in this region at this time, between 4,500 and 4,000 years ago, during the late Copper Age (2750 to 2200 B.C.) and early Bronze Age (2200 to 950 B.C.). But the dagger discovery was unexpected because such rare finds from these periods are usually at places of worship, said Bernardini, who is leading the dig for the university in partnership with other Italian and Slovenian institutions and authorities.

https://www.livescience.com/archaeo...ar-old-dagger-discovered-deep-in-italian-cave