Artigos de revistas sobre o tema "Social archaeology – europe, northern"

During the past four decades, genetic information has played an increasingly important part in the study of the Mesolithic-Neolithic transition in Europe. However, there sometimes seems to be a degree of disjunction between the patterns revealed by genetic analysis and the increasingly complex social and economic processes that archaeology is starting to identify. In this contribution, I point to the multiplicity of identities, subsistence regimes and patterns of social interaction involved in the introduction of the Neolithic into northern and western Europe, and consider the implications for genetic research.

The interior of northern Sweden was thc last area in Europe to become icefree and pioneer settlers arrived soon aftcr deglaciation. Early Mesolithic settlement sites in the Arjeplog area, Sweden, provide evidence of rapid colonization. This paper highlights the significance of the overall site arena as an interpretative unit for analyses of social life among the pioneer settlers in interior Northern Sweden. Results from the excavation of the Dumpokjauratj site dating to c. 8,600 BP (9,600 cal BP) are presented. The distinct spatial outline implies conformity in cultural codes during the initial phase of occupation reflecting an underlying principle of duality.

Abstract The transition to agriculture in northern Europe around 4000 BC presents an unresolved question. Explanations have vacillated between the adoption of Neolithic things and practices by indigenous foragers to the displacement of Mesolithic populations by immigrant farmers. The goal of this article is to articulate some thoughts on this process. First, it would have been necessary to introduce food production practices, by acculturation or immigration, to disrupt not only the forager economy but also their values of sharing and social relations. The use of milk for dairy products is a prime candidate for such a disruptive technology. The attraction of Neolithic ways may have been initially concealed from others, and only the realization of their widespread appeal caused fellow foragers to change their preferences. Second, it was necessary for foragers to commit to these changes and for the changed values to spread through mechanisms of social contagion. Immigrant farmers may have been especially influential in this regard, with increased sedentism and interaction being catalysts for completing the transition to agriculture.

The increasingly punitive measures taken by European governments to deter people seeking asylum, including increased use of detention, internalised controls, reductions in in-country rights and procedural safeguards, have a hugely damaging impact on the lives and wellbeing of women survivors of torture, sexual and domestic violence. This article, based on a two-year research project examining Britain, Denmark and Sweden, involved more than 500 hours speaking with people seeking asylum, as well as interviews with practitioners. It highlights among other issues non-adherence to the Istanbul Convention (for Denmark and Sweden, who have ratified it); non-application of gender guidelines; and significant wholesale violations of refugee rights. It demonstrates some of the ways in which increasingly harsh policies impact on women seeking asylum and highlights the experiences relayed by some who are affected: those stuck in asylum systems and practitioners seeking to provide support. Indeed, it indicates that women seeking asylum in Britain, Denmark and Sweden are made more vulnerable to violence due to the actions or inactions of the states that are supposed to protect them.

Profound changes occurred in central and northern Europe towards the end of the 3rd millennium bcX, when a uniform pattern of settlement, burial and material culture-the Corded Ware complexreplaced the diversity of the middle neolithic groups of the TRB (or Funnel Beaker Culture). Collective graves and large settlement sites gave way to individual burials in a largely dispersed pattern of settlement based on small sites. This was accompanied by a spread of sites into hitherto uncolonized areas, and a greater variety of locations used for settlement. This major change might at first seem to indicate a complete collapse of the earlier system, with an undifferentiated pattern replacing the apparent beginnings of hierarchies indicated by the Middle Neolithic. Kristiansen ( I 982) has recently suggested for Denmark that the middle neolithic system disintegrated, fitting a model of cyclical tribal development. It is suggested here, however, that the transformation of the middle neolithic pattern is better seen as a changed structure, which does not involve concepts such as disintegration or collapse, but marks an important shift in the organization of neolithic societies.

The Hansa formed the principal agent of trade and cultural exchange in northern Europe and the Baltic during the late medieval to early modern periods. Hanseatic urban settlements in northern Europe shared many things in common. Their cultural ‘signature’ was articulated physically through a shared vocabulary of built heritage and domestic goods, from step-gabled brick architecture to clothing, diet, and domestic utensils. The redevelopment of towns on the Baltic littoral over the past 20+ years offers an archaeological opportunity to investigate key attributes of late medieval society on the micro-scale. Such attributes include the development of mercantile capitalism, colonialism, and proto-globalization. For instance, distributions of artefacts now point to the Hansa as an agent of the Reformation movement in northern and western Europe. Where they were once almost exclusively regarded as material evidence for long-distance commercial activity, domestic artefacts, such as table and heating ceramics, are now subject to scrutiny as media for social, cultural, ethnic, and confessional relationships, and combine to create a distinctive Hanseatic material signature. Ceramic case studies illustrate how the archaeology of the Hansa now intersects with the wider historical debate about Europeanisation and proto-globalization arising from the development of long-distance maritime trade from the thirteenth century onwards.

The breakthrough of the Nordic Bronze Age (NBA) c. 1600 BC as a koiné within Bronze Age Europe can be historically linked to the Carpathian Basin. Nordic distinctiveness entailed an entanglement of cosmology and warriorhood, albeit represented through different media in the hotspot zone (bronze) and in the northern zone (rock). In a Carpathian crossroad between the Eurasian Steppes, the Aegean world and temperate Europe during this time, a transcultural assemblage coalesced, fusing both tangible and intangible innovations from various different places. Superior warriorhood was coupled to beliefs in a tripartite cosmology, including a watery access to the netherworld while also exhibiting new fighting technologies and modes of social conduct. This transculture became creatively translated in a range of hot societies at the onset of the Middle Bronze Age. In southern Scandinavia, weaponry radiated momentous creativity that drew upon Carpathian originals, contacts and a pool of Carpathian ideas, but ultimately drawing on emergent Mycenaean hegemonies in the Aegean. This provided the incentive for a cosmology-rooted resource from which the NBA could take its starting point.

In this paper, I propose to contextualise the popular perception ofthe "fairy tale wolf" as a window into a normative past, by focusing on responses to this animal in Britain and southern Scandinavia from the 8th to the 14th centuries, drawing on archaeological, artistic and written sources. These responses are subsequently juxtaposed with the socio-ecological context of the concept of the "fairy tale wolf" in early modern France. At a time when folklore is being increasingly incorporated into archaeological interpretation, I suggest that alternative understandings ofhuman relations with animals must be rooted in specific ecological and social contexts.

This contribution explores an aspect of boat burials in the second half of the first millennium AD across Northern Europe, specifically boat burials that included equipment for board games (surviving variously as boards and playing pieces, playing pieces only, or dice and playing pieces). Entangled aspects of identity, gender, cosmogony, performance, and commemoration are considered within a framework of cultural citation and connection between death and play. The crux of this article's citational thrust is the notion of quoting life in the rituals surrounding death. This was done both in the service of the deceased and in the service of those wanting to remember the deceased, the argument distills around the biographical trajectories or the different social and individual uses to which people put ostensibly simple things such as gaming pieces.

This article deals with engravings depicting some­ times life­sized Bronze Age metal objects from “closed” burial contexts and “open­air” sites in northern Europe. These rock art images have mainly been used for comparative dating with the purpose of establishing rock art chronologies, or interpreted as a poor man’s” substitute for real ob­ jects that were sacrificed to immaterial gods and goddesses. In this article, these rock art images are pictured from a perspective that highlights the mu­ tual cultural biography of humans and objects. It is argued that the rare engravings of bronze ob­ jects at scale 1:1 are best explained as famous ani­ mated objects that could act as secondary agents, which sometimes allowed them to be depicted and remembered. Moreover, two different social set­ tings are distinguished for such memory practice: maritime nodes or third spaces where Bronze Age Argonauts met before, during or after their jour­ neys, e.g. places where novel technological and/or famous objects entered and re­entered the social realms, and burial contexts where animated objects sometimes was buried at the end of their life­course

The well-known Mesolithic cemeteries of Northern Europe have long been viewed as evidence of developing social complexity in those regions in the centuries immediately before the Neolithic transition. These sites also had important symbolic connotations. This study uses new and more detailed analysis of the burial practices in one of these cemeteries to argue that much more is involved than social differentiation. Repeated burial in the densely packed site of Zvejnieki entailed large-scale disturbance of earlier graves, and would have involved recurrent encounters with the remains of the ancestral dead. The intentional use of older settlement material in the grave fills may also have signified a symbolic link with the past. The specific identity of the dead is highlighted by the evidence for clay face masks and tight body wrappings in some cases.

An anonymous sixteenth-century painting of the King’s Fountain in the Lisbon Alfama, Chafariz d’el Rei, recently the subject of speculation over its provenance and date, has also been of interest because of its depiction of so many black and white figures together, from all social strata and walks of life and in many (often water-related) trades in a public square. It very obviously suggests that black residents of Lisbon at that time, if originating from the trade in slaves, had been able to make their way as freedmen and women into Portuguese society. With careful reading of the figures in the painting against other written and painted portrayals from the time, the author attempts to deduce if this was an accurate depiction of Lisbon in the 1500s, or whether the painter might have distorted reality to render Lisbon as a ludic or exotic space – or indeed to disparage it. The painter himself might well have come from northern Europe.

In the regions of southern Scandinavia and northern Germany, within the Neolithic ( c. 4100–1700 BCE), two episodes of intensified monumental burial construction are known: Funnel Beaker megaliths mainly from c. 3400–3100 BCE and Single Grave burial mounds from c. 2800–2500 BCE. So far, it remains unclear whether these boom phases of monumental construction were linked with phases of economic expansion, to phases of economic changes or to periods of economic crisis: do they precede and stimulate periods of economic growth? Or are they a social practice that results from social changes within the societies? To approach these research questions, we will use mainly information on the intensity of monumental construction phases, artefact depositions, environmental changes and changes in subsistence strategies as proxies for comparative studies. Our database comes from the southern Cimbrian Peninsula and adjacent areas. Being one of the most intensively archaeologically researched regions of Neolithic Europe, this region provides robust data sets. As a result, the study demonstrates that during the Funnel Beaker period, economy and ritual were closely interlinked, while disconnected in the Single Grave period.

Like any other living being, humans constantly influence their environment, be it intentionally or unintentionally. By extracting natural resources, they shape their environment and also that of plants and other animals. A great difference setting people apart from all other living beings is the ability to construct and develop their own niche intentionally, and the unique tool for this is cultural behaviour. Here, we discuss anthropogenic environmental changes of hunter-gatherers and present new palaeoecological and palynological data. The studies are framed with ethnoarchaeological data from Western Siberia to gain a better understanding of how different triggers lead to coping mechanisms. For archaeological implication, we use two Mesolithic case studies from Germany: One of them focuses on hazelnut economy around ancient Lake Duvensee, and the other broaches the issue of selective roe deer hunt and its consequences at the site of Friesack. We address the archaeological evidence from the perspective of active alteration and its consequences, starting our argumentation from a perspective of niche construction theory. This approach has rarely been applied to early Holocene hunter-gatherers in Northern Europe even though the available data render possible to discuss human–environment interaction from such a perspective. It is demonstrated that archaeological research has tools at hand that enables to detect anthropogenic niche construction. However, the ethnoarchaeological example shows limitations and archaeologically invisible triggers and consequent results of human adaptations. The critical revision of such perspectives based on empirical data provides a better understanding of social and environmental transformations in the early- and mid-Holocene.

RESUMENEl culto a los muertos es una práctica documentada en el ser humano desde tiempos prehistóricos. Uno de los fenómenos funerarios que revisten mayor popularidad dentro de la Prehistoria Reciente es el megalitismo, desarrollado en amplios territorios de Europa desde mediados del v milenio cal BC, y caracterizado por la construcción de grandes tumbas colectivas cuyo imaginario permanece en el folclore popular hasta nuestros días. En este trabajo se ofrece una interpretación de las prácticas funerarias que engloban dicho fenómeno a partir del estudio regional del conjunto megalítico de la Lora burgalesa, en el noreste de la Submeseta Norte española. Tras décadas de estudio, que en los últimos años se ha focalizado en el análisis de las colecciones esqueléticas, ha sido posible profundizar en el conocimiento de las sociedades que enterraban a sus muertos en estas tumbas. Palabras clave: megalitismo, prácticas funerarias, enterramientos colectivosTopónimos: Lora burgalesa, Submeseta Norte españolaPeriodo: Neolítico Final, Calcolítico ABSTRACTThe cult of the death has been a well-documented human activity since prehistoric times. A popular funerary phenomenon of Neolithic period is megalithism, developed in large areas of Europe from the mid-5th millennium BC. It is characterised by the construction of large collective tombs that have remained in popular folklore to the present day. This paper offers an interpretative approach to the funerary practices involved in this phenomenon from the regional study of the megalithic complex of la Lora burgalesa, in the northeast of the Spanish North Plateau. Decades of study, which in recent years focus on the analysis of skeletal collections, have provided us with a better knowledge of the societies that buried their ancestors in these tombs. Keywords: megalithism, funerary practices, collective tombsPlace names: Lora burgalesa, Spanish North PlateauPeriod: Late Neolithic, Chalcolithic REFERENCIASAcsádi, G. y Nemeskéri, J. (1970): History of Human Life, Span and Mortality. Budapest, Akadémiai Kiadó.Alesan, A., Malgosa, A. y Simó, C. (1999): “Looking into the demography of an Iron Age population in the Western Mediterranean. I. Mortality”. American Journal of Physical Anthropology, 110(3): 285-301.AlQahtani, S. J., Hector, M. P. y Liversidge, H. M. (2010): “Brief communication: The London atlas of human tooth development and eruption”. American Journal of Physical Anthropology, 142(3): 481-490. —(2014): “Accuracy of dental age estimation charts: Schour and Massler, Ubelaker and the London Atlas”. American Journal of Physical Anthropology, 154(1): 70-78.Alt, K. W., Zesch, S., Garrido-Pena, R., Knipper, C., Szécsényi-Nagy, A., Roth, C., … y Rojo-Guerra, M. A. (2016): “A community in life and death: The late neolithic megalithic tomb at Alto de Reinoso (Burgos, Spain)”. PLoS ONE, 11(1). Álvarez-Vidaurre, E. (2006): “Percepción y reutilización de monumentos durante la prehistoria reciente: El caso de Navarra”. Cuadernos de Arqueología de la Universidad de Navarra, 14: 117-150.Andrés-Rupérez, M. T. (2000): “El espacio funerario dolménico: abandono y clausura”. Saldvie, 1: 59-76.Aranda, G., Díaz-Zorita, M., Hamilton, D., Milesi, L. y Sánchez, M. (2020): “The radiocarbon chronology and temporality of the megalithic cemetery of Los Millares (Almería, Spain)”. Archaeological and Anthropological Sciences, 12(5): 1-17.Balzeau, A., Turq, A., Talamo, S. et al. (2020): “Pluridisciplinary evidence for burial for the La Ferrassie 8 Neandertal child”. Scientific Reports, 10, 21230. Barrett, J. C. (1988): “The living, the dead and the ancestors: Neolithic and Early Bronze Age mortuary practices”. En J. C. Barrett y A. Kinnes (eds.): The Archaeology of Context in the Neolithic and Bronze Age. Sheffield: Department of Prehistory Beckett, J. y Robb, J., (2006): “Neolithic Burial Taphonomy, Ritual and Interpretation in Britain and Ireland: A Review”. En R. Gowland y C. Knüsel, C. (Eds.): The Social Archaeology of Funerary Remains. Oxbow, Oxford. Bellido, A. y Gómez, J. L. (1996): “Megalitismo y rituales funerarios”. Complutum extra, 6(1): 141-152.Bello, S. y Andrews, P. (2006): “The intrinsic pattern of preservation of human skeletons and its influence on the interpretation of funerary behaviours”. En R. Gowland y C. Knüsel (Eds.): Social archaeology of funerary remains. Oxford, Oxbow: 1-13.Benet, N., Pérez, R. y Santonja M. (1997): “Evidencias campaniformes en el valle medio del Tormes.” En II Congreso de Arqueología Peninsular: Zamora 24-27 de septiembre de 1996. Fundación Afonso Henriques: 449-470.Binford, L. R. (1971): “Mortuary Practices: Their Study and Their Potential”. Memoirs of the Society for American Archaeology, 25: 6-29.Bocquet-Appel, J.P. y Masset, C. (1977) : “Estimateurs en paléodémographie”. L´Homme, 4: 65-90. Boz, B. y Hager, L. (2014): “Making sense of social behavior from disturbed and commingled skeletons: A case study from Çatalhöyük, Turkey”. En A. Osterholtz, K. Baustian y D. Martin (Eds.): Commingled and Disarticulated Human Remains. New York, Springer: 17-33.Bronk Ramsey, C. (2009): “Bayesian analysis of radiocarbon dates”. Radiocarbon, 51(1), 337-360.Brown, D. (1991): Human universals. New York, McGraw-Hill.Bueno, P., Barroso, R., y de Balbín, R. (2010): “Entre lo visible y lo invisible: registros funerarios de la Prehistoria reciente de la Meseta Sur”. En P. Bueno et al. (Eds.): Arqueología, Sociedad, Territorio y Paisaje. Estudios sobre Prehistoria Reciente, Protohistoria y transición al mundo romano en Homenaje a Mª. Dolores Fernández Posse. Madrid, CSIC: 53-74.—(2016): “Between east and west: megaliths in the centre of the Iberian Peninsula”. En Laporte L. y Scarre Ch. Eds.: The megalithic architectures of Europe. Oxford Oxbow books: 157-166. https://doi.org/10.2307/j.ctvh1dpw8.19Carbonell, E. y Mosquera, M. (2006): “The emergence of a symbolic behaviour: the sepulchral pit of Sima de los Huesos, Sierra de Atapuerca, Burgos, Spain”. Comptes Rendus Palevol, 5: 155-160.Carmona, E., Arnaiz, M. Á. y Alameda, M. C. (2014): “El dolmen de Arroyal I: usos y modificaciones durante el iii milenio cal A.C.”. En J. Honrado et al. (Eds.): II Jornadas de Jóvenes Investigadores del Valle del Duero. Del Neolítico a la Antigüedad Tardía (León 2012), 2. Valladolid, Glyphos: 41-54.Cauwe, N. (1997): “Les morts en mouvement. Essai sur l´origine des rites funeraires mégalithiques”. En A. Rodrígez Casal, (ed.): O Neolítico atlántico e as orixes do megalitismo. Santiago de Campostela, Universidad de Santiago: 719-737.Chamberlain, A. (2006): Demography in Archaeology. New York, Cambridge University Press.—(2009): “Archaeological Demography”. Human Biology, 81 (3): 275-286. Childe, V. G. (1958): Los orígenes de la sociedad europea. Madrid, Ciencia Nueva.Cintas-Peña, M. y Herrero-Corral, A. M. (2020). “Missing prehistoric women? Sex ratio as an indicator for analyzing the population of Iberia from the 8th to the 3rd millennia BC”. Archaeological and Anthropological Sciences, 12(11): 1-13.Clarke, D. L. (1978): Analytical archaeology (Second edition-original 1968). London, Methuen.Delibes, G. (1995): “Ritos funerarios, demografía y estructura social entre las comunidades neolíticas de la submeseta norte”. En R. Fábregas, F. Pérez y C. Fernández (coords.): Arqueoloxia da Morte na Peninsula Iberica desde as orixes ata o Medievo, Xinzo de Limia, Biblioteca Limiá: 61-94. —(2000): “Itinerario arqueológico de los dólmenes de Sedano (Burgos)”. Trabajos de Prehistoria, 57 (2): 89-103.—(2010): “La investigación de las sepulturas colectivas monumentales del iv milenio A.C. en la Submeseta Norte española. Horizonte 2007”. En J. Fernández-Eraso, J. y J. Mujika (Eds.): Actas del Congreso Internacional sobre Megalitismo y otras manifestaciones funerarias contemporáneas en su contexto social, económico y cultural. Munibe. Suplemento 32. Donostia, Sociedad de Ciencias Aranzadi: 12-56.Delibes, G. y Rojo, M. (1997): “C14 y secuencia megalítica en la Lora burgalesa: acotaciones a la problemática de las dataciones absolutas referentes a yacimientos dolménicos”. En A. Rodríguez Casal (ed.): O Neolítico atlántico e as orixes do megalitismo. Santiago de Campostela, Universidad de Santiago: 391–414.—(2002): “Reflexiones sobre el trasfondo cultural del polimorfismo megalítico en la Lora burgalesa”. Archivo Español de Arqueología, 75 (185-186): 21-35. Delibes, G., Rodríguez-Marcos, J. A., Sanz, C. y del Val, J. M. (1982): “Dólmenes de Sedano I. El sepulcro de corredor de Ciella”. Noticiario Arqueológico Hispanico, 14: 149–196.Delibes, G., Rojo, M. A. y Sanz, C. (1986): “Dólmenes de Sedano II. El sepulcro de corredor de Las Arnillas (Moradillo de Sedano, Burgos)”. Noticiario Arqueológico Hispanico, 27: 7–41.Delibes, G., Moreno, M. y Valle, A. del (2011): “Dólmenes de Sedano (Burgos) y criadero cuprífero de Huidobro: Una relación todavía posible”. En P. Bueno et al. (eds.): Arqueología, sociedad, territorio y paisaje. Estudios sobre Prehistoria Reciente, Protohistoria y transición al mundo romano en homenaje a M.ª Dolores Fernández Posse. Madrid, CSIC: 35-52. Delibes, G., Rojo, M. y Represa, I. (1993): Dólmenes de la Lora. Valladolid, Junta de Castilla y León.Delibes, G. y Santonja, M. (1987): “Anotaciones en torno al megalitismo del occidente de la Meseta (Salamanca y Zamora)”. En Megalitismo en la Península Ibérica, Madrid, Asociación de Amigos de la Arqueología: 200-210.Díaz-Zorita, M. (2013): The Copper Age in south-west Spain: A bioarchaeological approach to prehistoric social organisation. Doctoral dissertation, Durham University.Díaz-Zorita, M., Aranda, G., Escudero, J., Robles, S., Lozano, Á., Sánchez, M. y Alarcón, E. (2016): “Estudio bioarqueológico de la necrópolis megalítica de El Barranquete (Níjar, Almería)”. Menga, 7: 71-98.Díaz-Zorita, M., Aranda, G., Robles, S., Escudero, J., Sánchez, M. y Lozano, Á. (2017): “Estudio bioarqueológico de la necrópolis megalítica de Panoría (Darro, Granada)”. Menga, 8: 91-114.Dietrich, O., Köksal-Schmidt, Ç, Notroff, J. y Schmidt, K. (2013): “Establishing a Radiocarbon Sequence for Göbekli Tepe. State of Research and New Data”. Neo-Lithics, 1/13: 36-41.Duday, H. (1987): “Organisation et fonctionnement d’une sépulture collective néolithique. L’aven de la Boucle à Corconne (Gard)”. En Anthropologie physique et archéologie: méthodes d’étude des sépultures. Paris, CNRS: 89-104.—(2006): « L’Archéothanatologie ou l’archéologie de la mort. Translated by Knüsel”. En Gowland R.L. and Knüsel, C.J. (Eds.) Social Archaeology of Funerary Remains. Oxford, Oxbow Books: 30-56.Duday, H., Courtaud, P., Crubezy, É., Sellier, P. y Tillier, A. M. (1990): «L’Anthropologie «de terrain»: reconnaissance et interprétation des gestes funéraires”. Bulletins et Mémoires de La Société d’Anthropologie de Paris, 2(3): 29–49. Fabián, J. F. (1995): El aspecto funerario durante el Calcolítico y los inicios de la Edad del Bronce en la Meseta Norte. Salamanca, Universidad de Salamanca.Ferembach, D., Schwidetzky, I. y Stloukal, M. (1980). “Recommendations for Age and Sex Diagnoses of Skeletons”. Journal of Human Evolution, 9: 517–549.Fernández-Crespo, T. (2015): “Aportación de la Arqueoantropología a la interpretación de la dinámica sepulcral de las tumbas megalíticas de Cameros (La Rioja, España)”. Trabajos de Prehistoria, 72(2): 218–237. Fernández-Crespo, T. y de la Rúa, C. (2015): “Demographic evidence of selective burial in megalithic graves of northern Spain”. Journal of Archaeological Science, 53: 604-617. —(2016): “Demographic differences between funerary caves and megalithic graves of northern Spanish Late Neolithic/Early Chalcolithic”. American Journal of Physical Anthropology, 160(2): 284-297. Fernández-Eraso, J. y Mujica, J. A. (2013): “The megalithic station of the Rioja Alavesa: chronology, origins and utilisation cycles”. Zephyrus, 71: 89-106.Furholt, M. y Müller, J. (2011): “The earliest monuments in Europe: architecture and social structures (5000-3000 cal BC)”. En M. Furholt, F. Lüth y J. Müller (eds.): Megaliths and Identities. Early Monuments and Neolithic Societies from the Atlantic to the Baltic. Bonn: R. Habelt: 15-32.Gallay, A. (2006): Les sociétés megalithiques. Pouvoir des hommes, memoires des morts. Lausanne, Le savoir suisse.Garrido-Pena, R. (2000): El Campaniforme en la Meseta Central de la Península Ibérica (c. 2500-2000 AC.) (Vol. 892). BAR International Series, Oxford.Gil-Merino, R., Moreno, M., Delibes, G., Villalobos, R. (2018): “Luz para ver y ser vista: los efectos de la iluminación solar durante el solsticio de invierno en los dólmenes de corredor de la provincia de Burgos”. Munibe, 69: 157-175.Guerra, E., Delibes, G., Zapatero, P. y Villalobos, R. (2009): “Primus Inter Pares: Estrategias de diferenciación social en los sepulcros megalíticos de la Submeseta Norte española”. BSAA Arqueología, 75: 41-65.Hertz, R. (1990): La muerte y la mano derecha. Alianza Universidad n.º 637, Madrid.Huidobro, L. (1957): “Descubrimiento megalítico en Nocedo (Sedano)”. En Actas del IV Congreso Nacional de Arqueología. Zaragoza, Institución Fernando El Católico: 125-126.Larsen, C. (1995): “Biological Changes in Human Populations with Agriculture”. Annual Review of Anthropology, 24(1): 185-213. Leclerc, J. (1990) : « La notion de sépulture”. Bulletins et Mémoires de la Société d’Anthropologie de Paris, 2(3): 13-18.Ledermann, S. (1969): Nouvelles tables-types de mortalité. Paris, PUF (Travaux et Documents, 53).Livi-Bacci, M. (1990): Historia mínima de la población mundial. Ariel, Barcelona.Lyman, R. L. (1994): “Quantitative units and terminology”. Zooarchaeology, 59(1): 36-71.Maluquer de Motes, J. (1960): “Nuevos hallazgos de la cultura del vaso campaniforme en la Meseta”. Zephyrus, 11: 119-130.Martín-Vela, R., Delibes, G. y Municio, L. (2021): “Megalitos al norte de la Sierra de Guadarrama: primicias de la excavación del dolmen de Santa Inés en Bernardos (Segovia)”. CuPAUAM, 47(2): 11-38. Martinón-Torres, M., d’Errico, F., Santos, E. et al. (2021): “Earliest known human burial in Africa”. Nature, 593: 95–100. Masset, C. (1971): «Erreurs systématiques dans la détermination de l’âge par les sutures crâniennes”. Bulletins et Mémoires de la Société d›anthropologie de Paris, 7(1): 85-105.—(1972): “The megalithic tomb of la Chaussée-Tirancourt.” Antiquity, 46(184): 297-300.Masset, C. (1987): «Le recrutement d’un ensemble funéraire”. En H. Duday, H. y C. Masset (eds.): Anthropologie physique et archéologie: méthodes d’études des sépultures. Bordeaux, CNRS: 111-134.Moreno, M. (2004): Megalitismo y Geografía. Análisis de los factores de localización espacial de los dólmenes de la provincia de Burgos. Studia Archaeologica, n.º 93. Valladolid, Universidad de Valladolid. Moreno, M., Delibes, G., López-Sáez, J. A., Manzano, S., Villalobos, R., Fraile, A. y Basconcillos, J. (2010-2012): “Nuevos datos sobre una alineación de menhires en el norte de Burgos: el yacimiento de Las Atalayas, en Avellanosa del Páramo (Burgos)”. Sautuola, 16-17: 71-93.Moreno, M., Delibes, G. Villalobos, R. y Basconcillos, J. (2020): Tumbas de Gigantes. Dólmenes y túmulos en la provincia de Burgos. Diputación Provincial de Burgos.—(2021): Territorio Megalítico. Burgos, Agrupación de Municipios Territorio Megalítico. Reimer, P. J., Austin, W. E., Bard, E. y Talamo, S. (2020): “The IntCal20 Northern Hemisphere radiocarbon age calibration curve (0–55 cal kBP)”. Radiocarbon, 62(4): 725-757.Renfrew, C. (1972): The Emergence of Civilisation. The Cyclades and the Aegean in the Third Millennium B.C. London, Methuen.—(1976): “Megaliths, territories and populations”. En S. J. Laet (Ed.): Acculturation and continuity in Atlantic Europe Mainly during the Neolithic period and the Bronze Age. Papers presented at the IV Atlantic Colloquium. Brugge, De Tempel: 198-220.—(1983): “The social archaeology of megalithic monuments”. Scientific American, 249(5): 152-163.Robb, J. (2016): “What can we really say about skeletal part representation, MNI and funerary ritual? A simulation approach”. Journal of Archaeological Science: Reports, 10: 684-692. Rojo Guerra, M. Á. (1990): “Monumentos megalíticos de la Lora Burgalesa: Exégesis del emplazamiento”. Boletín Del Seminario de Estudios de Arte y arqueología: BSAA, 52: 53-63.—(1993): El fenómeno megalítico en la Lora burgalesa. Tesis doctoral mecanografiada. Universidad de Valladolid.Rojo, M.A., Delibes, G., Edo, M. y Fernández, J.L. (1995): “Adornos de calaíta en los ajuares dolménicos de la Provincia de Burgos: Apuntes sobre su composición y procedencia”. Rubricatum, 1: 239-250.Rojo, M., Kunst, M., Garrido, R., García, I. y Morán, G. (2005): Un desafío a la eternidad: tumbas monumentales en el valle de Ambrona. Arqueología en Castilla y León (Vol. 14). Valladolid, Junta de Castilla y León.Roksandic, M. (2002): “Position of skeletal remains as a key to understanding mortuary behavior”. En Haglund, W. D. y Sorg, M. H. (Eds.): Advances in forensic taphonomy: method, theory, and archaeological perspectives: 99-117.Sánchez-Quinto, F., Malmstrom, H., Fraser, M. y Jakobsson, M. (2019): “Megalithic tombs in western and northern Neolithic Europe were linked to a kindred society”, PNAS, 116 (19): 9469-9474. Santa Cruz, A. (2022): Caracterización antropológica y temporalidad de los sepulcros megalíticos de la Lora (Burgos). Tesis doctoral (inédita). Universidad de Valladolid. Santa Cruz, A., Delibes, G. y Villalobos, R. (2020a): “Sobre la impronta campaniforme en los dólmenes de la Lora (Burgos): dataciones de C-14 y naturaleza funeraria”. En Estudios In memoriam Prof. Emilio Illarregui. Segovia, IE Universidad: 23-39.—(2020b): “Nueva serie de dataciones radiocarbónicas sobre hueso humano para el dolmen de Los Zumacales (Simancas, Valladolid)”. Trabajos de Prehistoria, 77(1): 130-147.Schulting, R. J. (2015): “Mesolithic skull cults?”. En K. von Hackwitz y R. Peyroteo-Stjerna (eds.): Ancient Death Ways. Institutionen för arkeologi och antik historia, Uppsala: 19-46.Schulz Paulsson, B. (2019): “Radiocarbon dates and Bayesian modeling supportmaritime diffusion model for megaliths in Europe”. PNAS, 116, 9: 3460-3465.Séguy, I. y Buchet, L. (2013): Handbook of Palaeodemography. London: Springer.Sellier, P. (1996): “La mise en évidence d’anomalies demographiques et leur interprétatión: population, recrutement et práctiques funéraires de tumulus de Courtesoult”. En J. F. Piningre (ed.): Nécrópoles et société au première Âge du Fer: le tumulus de Courtesoult (Haute-Saône). Paris: Maison des Sciences d l’Homme, 54: 188-202.Sherratt, A. (1990): “The genesis of megaliths: Monumentality, ethnicity and social complexity in Neolithic north-west Europe”. World Archaeology, 22(2), 147-166.Silva, A. M. (2003): “Portuguese populations of late Neolithic and Chalcolithic periods exhumed from collective burials: an overview”. Anthropologie, 41(1-2): 55-64.Smith, M. y Brickley, M. (2009): People of the long barrows: life, death and burial in the earlier Neolithic. Stroud, History Press.Stloukal, M. (1974): “Recherches paléodémographiques en Tchécoslovaquie”. Historická demografie, 7: 5-28.Tejedor Rodríguez, C. (2014): “Reconstruyendo ‘biografías megalíticas’: algunos ejemplos de alteraciones estructurales en monumentos megalíticos del valle del Duero”. En Actas de Las II Jornadas de Jóvenes Investigadores del Valle del Duero. Glyphos: 67-86.Thomas, J. (1991): Rethinking the Neolithic. London, Cambridge University Press.Tilley, C. (1984): “Ideology and the legitimation of power in the middle neolithic of southern Sweden”. En D. Miller y C. Tilley (Eds.): Ideology, power and prehistory. New directions in archaeology. Cambridge university press, Nueva York: 111-146.Ucko, P. J. (1969): “Ethnography and archaeological interpretation of funerary remains”. World archaeology, 1(2): 262-280.Villalobos García, R. (2014): “The megalithic tombs of the Spanish Northern Meseta. Material, political and ideological ties between the Neolithic people and their territory”. Préhistoires Méditerranéennes, (Colloque), 1-17. http:// pm.revues.org/1047—(2015): Análisis de las transformaciones sociales en la Prehistoria Reciente de la Meseta Norte Española (milenios vi-iii cal a. C.) a través del empleo de la variscita y otros minerales verdes como artefactos sociotécnicos. [Universidad de Valladolid]. http://uvadoc.uva.es/handle/10324/16693—(2016): Análisis de las transformaciones sociales en la Prehistoria Reciente de la Meseta Norte Española (milenios vi-iii cal a.C.). Studia Archaeologica, 101. Universidad de Valladolid.—(2016): Una aproximación cuantitativa al trabajo destinado a la arquitectura monumental en la Prehistoria Reciente de la Meseta Norte Española. SPAL-Revista de Prehistoria y Arqueología, (25), 43-66.Zapatero, P. (2012): “El sepulcro de La Velilla, en Osorno (Palencia), dentro del marco del fenómeno megalítico de la Meseta Norte”. Patrimonio Histórico de Castilla y León, 46: 51-58.—(2015): El Neolítico en el Noroeste de la Cuenca del Duero: el yacimiento de La Velilla en el Valle del Valdivida (Palencia). Tesis doctoral mecanografiada: Universidad de Valladolid.

A primeval archaeologist (MA 1955, PhD 1971), an organiser of protection for monuments in the Białystok province (1954–1980), Director of the Regional Museum in Białystok (1974–1980) and the State Archaeological Museum in Warsaw (1980–2000). He dealt with archaeology, museology and the protection of monuments. He also popularised related knowledge and linguistic and religious issues. He established the provincial record of archaeological monuments as well as conservation archives, both of which were then developed at the museum. From 1959 to 1975 he was Scientific Secretary to the Yotvingia Scientific Expedition. He was a teacher, an editor and a social activist. He wrote over 200 publications, of which the most important are The funeral rite of the Western Balts at the end of antiquity (Warsaw, 1974); a critical study of Aleksander Brückner’s work Ancient Lithuania: tribes and gods: historical and mythological drafts (Olsztyn, 1979, 1984); Cecele. Ein Gräberfeld der Wielbark-Kultur in Ostpolen (Warsaw, 1996); Krupice. Ein Gräberfeld der Przeworsk- und Wielbark- Kultur in Ostpolen (Warsaw, 2005), Kurgans of leaders of the Wielbark culture at Podlachia (Białystok, 2012); and Switzerland. The cemetery of the Baltic Sudovian culture in north–eastern Poland (Warsaw, 2013). He specialised in researching Roman influence in Central Europe and the prehistory of north–eastern Poland, the culture of Baltic tribes (including the Yotvingians), Baltiysk and the Slavonic border, and in the Przeworsk and Wielbark cultures. He discovered and defined the Cecelska regional group, thus determining the late phase of the Wielbark culture, starting from the early period of Roman influence to its decline as a result of tribal migrations; their kurgans traced the areas of relocation of the Goths and the Gepids from the Baltic Sea to the Black Sea. His successful exhibitions included “The Balts – northern neighbours to the Slavs” (displayed in Austria, Bulgaria, Greece, Lithuania, Italy and Germany several times), “Treasures of primeval Poland” (in Padua, Turin, Aquileia, Schollach) and “The prehistory of Warsaw” (Berlin). He was a member of museum councils as well as the council for museums at the Ministry of Culture and National Heritage.

Medieval seals, traditionally considered from the perspective of their documentary function, may also be studied as archaeological artefacts. Pilgrim badges were seal-shaped, and seal matrices and seal impressions can be found on church bells, in altars, and in burial sites. The context in which matrices are excavated provides valuable information on the practices of sealing and on the values attached to seals. This article also reveals a hitherto undescribed late medieval practice whereby papal and Scandinavian royal correspondents exchanged seal matrices.

Comprehensieve lists of radiocarbon dates from key Early Neolithic sites in Central Europe belonging to the Linear pottery Ceramic Culture (LBK) and early pottery-bearing cultures in the East European Plain were analysed with the use of the x2 test. The dates from the LBK sites form a statistically homogeneous set, with a probability distribution similar to a single-date Gaussian curve. This implies the rate of expansion of the LBK in Central Europe being in excess of 4 km/yr. Early potter-bearing sites on the East European Plain exhibit a much broader probability distribution of dates, with a spatio-temporal trend directed from the south-east to the north-west. The rate of spread of pottery-making is in the order of 1 km/yr, i.e., comparable to the average expansion rate of the Neolithic in Western and Central Europe.

This three-volume publication presents an up-to-date overview on the human colonisation of Northern Europe across the Pleistocene–Holocene transition in Scandinavia, the Eastern Baltic and Great Britain. Volume 1, Ecology of early settlement in Northern Europe, is a collection of 17 articles focusing on subsistence strategies and technologies, ecology and resource availability and demography in relation to different ecological niches. It is structured according to three geographic regions, the Skagerrak-Kattegat, the Baltic Region and the North Sea/Norwegian Sea, while its temporal focus is Late Glacial and Postglacial archaeology, c. 11000–5000 cal BC. These regions are particularly interesting given the long research history, which goes back as far as the nineteenth century (see Gron & Rowley-Conwy 2018), and the numerous environmental changes that have taken place throughout the Holocene: the presence of ice until c. 7500 cal BC, isostatic rebound alongside sea-level rise and the formation of the Baltic Sea, all of which have contributed to the preservation of outstanding archaeology.

Farming can be shown to have spread very rapidly across the British Isles and southern Scandinavia around 6000 years ago, following a long period of stasis when the agricultural ‘frontier’ lay further south on the North European Plain between northern France and northern Poland. The reasons for the delay in the adoption of agriculture on the north-west fringe of Europe have been debated by archaeologists for decades. Here, we present fresh evidence that this renewed phase of agricultural expansion was triggered by a significant change in climate. This finding may also have implications for understanding the timing of the expansion of farming into some upland areas of southern and mid-latitude Europe.

The forms and processes of local-level social organisation seen today in fishing communities in northern Europe can be fully appreciated only after their history is recognized and explored. Until the middle of this century, the predominant form of organisation was the joint maritime household, which involved men and women in separate sets of collaborative activities. With changing technology, rising standards of living, and the intervention of the institutions of modernity, women everywhere in northern Europe have been able to disengage themselves from their former obligations, doing so largely in order to realise their aspirations for domestic independence. The men, however, continue to own their boats in partnerships and to pool their labour, drawing upon relationships of kinship, affinity, and neighbourhood as economic and social recnnrces

Making Archaeology Public. A View from the Mediterranean, Eastern Europe and Beyond The concept of Public Archaeology has profoundly changed since Mc Grimsey’s first formulation in the early 1970s, as it developed a solid conceptual and practical framework along the years that makes it now an independent branch of archaeology. However, in English-speaking and Northern European countries, the perception of archaeology as a common good was widely spread even before the actual formalization of Public Archaeology as a specific curriculum offered by several universities. Not surprisingly, such an earlier interest led to the development of a markedly North Europe-centric perspective on the topic, which keeps steering much of the current reflection on Public Archaeology despite the emergence of multiple and alternative standpoints on the matter, further deepening the great divide between the archaeologies of Northern and Southern European countries.

Monetary measures undertaken inside the Roman Empire might be responsible for the composition of finds of Roman coins made ontside the Empire. A possible link between the composition of the denarius finds in Barbarian Europe, on the one hand, and the monetary reforms of Nero (54—68) and Septimius Severus (193—211), on the other hand, has long been recognised. There is however a third Roman monetary reform which has put its imprint on the denorius finds in Central, Eastern and Northern Europe, the one of Domitian (81—96).

This paper discusses why large areas of the central and northern Balkans lack evidence of Mesolithic settlement and what implications this holds for future research into the Neolithization of the region. A marked shift in site distribution patterns between Upper Palaeolithic and Mesolithic is interpreted as a response to changing environmental conditions and resource availability. It is suggested that some important questions of the pattern, processes and timing of the transition to farming across the Balkan Peninsula may only be answered through new archaeological surveys of the Lower Danube valley and exploration of submerged landscapes along the Black Sea, Aegean and Adriatic coasts.

This review provides a road map through current trends and issues in archaeological studies of memory. Many scholars continue to draw on Halbwachs for collective memory studies, emphasizing how the past can legitimate political authority. Others are inspired by Bergson, focusing on the persistent material intrusion of the past into the present. “Past in the past” studies are particularly widespread in the Near East/Classical world, Europe, the Maya region, and Native North America. Archaeologists have viewed materialized memory in various ways: as passively continuous, discursively referenced, intentionally invented, obliterated. Key domains of inquiry include monuments, places, and lieux de mémoire; treatment and disposal of the dead; habitual practices and senses; the recent and contemporary past; and forgetting and erasure. Important contemporary work deploys archaeology as a tool of counter-memory in the aftermath of recent violence and trauma.

Abstract This chapter presents an overview of land cover and land use change in northern Europe, particularly during Late Antiquity (ca. 3rd–8th c. AD) based on fossil pollen preserved in sediments. We have transformed fossil pollen datasets from 462 sites into eight major land-cover classes using the pseudobiomisation method (PBM). Through using pollen-vegetation evidence, we show that north-central Europe, lying outside the Roman frontier (the so-called ‘Barbaricum’ region), remained predominantly forested until Medieval times, with the main clearance phase only starting from ca. AD 750. This stands in contrast to north-west Europe, both inside (France/England) and outside (Scotland/Ireland) the Roman imperial frontier; here a majority of forested land was already cleared prior to antiquity. The implications of this are that Roman expansion into the periphery of the empire largely took over existing intensive agrarian regions in the case of ‘Gaul’ (France) and ‘Britannia’ (England and Wales). Pre-existing land-use systems and levels of landscape openness may have played a role in directing the expansion of the Roman empire northwards into Gaul and Britannia, rather than eastwards into Germania. After the period of Roman occupation, partial reforestation is evident in some areas.

In this study, we aim to analyse the position of cultural Islam in Northern European countries. To this end, we examine publications in major print media. Content analysis of relevant publications gives a detailed picture of narratives produced in mass consciousness as a reaction to the presence of Islam at the local and regional level and makes it possible to identify individual trends in the evaluation of such narratives in both scientific and popular analytical literature. The growing secularization of Islamic communities in Northern Europe and changes in the value-driven behavioural algorithms of believers lead both to the polarization of Islam and changes in attitudes to Islam from outside the religion. Studies into the factors affecting the dynamics of this phenomenon have both theoretical and practical significance since they help to evaluate the most promising forms of cooperation within regional collaborations and national programmes for international partnership. The forces promoting the cultural Islam project position it as an antidote for political and radical Islam. At the same time, the main factor preventing the legitimation of cultural Islam across immigrant Moslem groups (or, more precisely, communities, i.e. associations of people originating from countries where Muslims predominate) is the relevant isolatedness of those groups and their commitment to the Ummah. The novelty of research into how Islam and culture interact within those groups is closely associated with the goal of establishing whether cultural Islam is viable as a phenomenon of collective consciousness and whether it meets the following requirements: 1) satisfying the essential need for preserving the tradition and 2) ensuring flexible adaptation to a foreign cultural context. Our analysis of the data obtained has led us to conclude that cultural Islam is gaining ground within immigrant communities and associations. This can be viewed as a practical contribution to studies into the dynamics and mechanisms of adaptation, acculturation, and, perhaps, integration of Muslims and corresponding social groups into the socio-cultural space of Northern European countries.

The Late Glacial, that is the period from the first pronounced warming after the Last Glacial Maximum to the beginning of the Holocene (c. 16,000–11,700 cal bp), is traditionally viewed as a time when northern Europe was being recolonized and Late Palaeolithic cultures diversified. These cultures are characterized by particular artefact types, or the co-occurrence or specific relative frequencies of these. In north-eastern Europe, numerous cultures have been proposed on the basis of supposedly different tanged points. This practice of naming new cultural units based on these perceived differences has been repeatedly critiqued, but robust alternatives have rarely been offered. Here, we review the taxonomic landscape of Late Palaeolithic large tanged point cultures in eastern Europe as currently envisaged, which leads us to be cautious about the epistemological validity of many of the constituent groups. This, in turn, motivates us to investigate the key artefact class, the large tanged point, using geometric morphometric methods. Using these methods, we show that distinct groups are difficult to recognize, with major implications for our understanding of patterns and processes of culture change in this period in north-eastern Europe and perhaps elsewhere.