Ancient Europe

TRADE AND EXCHANGE (DISCOVERING BARBARIAN EUROPE)

In modern economics, trade is defined as the mutual movement of goods between hands, but in the archaeological record, it is only the movement of the goods themselves, rather than their ownership or possession, which is easily recognizable. Anthropologists ultimately seek to establish a cultural biography for these goods, starting with the procurement of their […]

STATUS AND WEALTH (DISCOVERING BARBARIAN EUROPE)

In the later prehistory of Europe, archaeological indicators of status and wealth disclose a profusion of differences among individuals. While differences can be recognized as early as Upper Palaeolithic times, it is with the food production economy, settled village life, and the beginnings of the accumulation of quantities of materials that archaeological signs of differentiation […]

HOCHDORF (DISCOVERING BARBARIAN EUROPE)

In the village of Hochdorf, north of Stuttgart in southwest Germany, a richly outfitted Early Iron Age burial was discovered in 1977 and excavated in 1978 and 1979. Excavation revealed one of the best-preserved Early Iron Age burials in Europe. The great majority of rich graves of this period had been robbed in ancient times […]

GENDER (DISCOVERING BARBARIAN EUROPE)

Archaeologists have long been interested in the lives of prehistoric women and men. Many of these discussions are based, however, on uncritical generalizations, such as the idea that men make stone tools and women weave cloth. A surprising amount of archaeological literature is vague about the actual people using stone tools, building houses and tombs, […]

RITUAL AND IDEOLOGY (DISCOVERING BARBARIAN EUROPE)

The study of prehistoric religion and ideology emerged as part of a reaction against the emphasis on "hard" facts, environmental reconstructions, settlement patterns, and subsistence data prevalent in archaeology beginning in the early 1960s. This newfound interest in the meaning of the past led to attempts to understand the cognitive basis for social action—the mental […]

HJORTSPRING (DISCOVERING BARBARIAN EUROPE)

In a bog just 50 meters across on the island of Als in southern Denmark, peat diggers discovered well-preserved remains of a wooden boat and spears in the 1880s. In 1921 excavations began that uncovered most of the boat and a large assemblage of weapons, all deposited in about 350-300 b.c. The practice of depositing […]

ARCHAEOLOGY AND LANGUAGE (DISCOVERING BARBARIAN EUROPE)

Sir William Jones, a British judge in India, first defined the Indo-European language problem in one famous sentence in 1786. Jones had arrived in Calcutta in 1783 to establish the rule of British law over both the excesses of the English merchants and the rights of their Indian subjects, who obeyed an already functioning and […]

WARFARE AND CONQUEST (DISCOVERING BARBARIAN EUROPE)

When these stigmata co-occur, warfare was the certain cause. For example, more than 6,000 years ago, at the Early Neolithic site of Herxheim, Germany, more than three hundred people died violent deaths. Crania from these individuals were discovered at regular intervals in the two defensive ditches enclosing the site, indicating that victims were decapitated and […]

MAIDEN CASTLE (DISCOVERING BARBARIAN EUROPE)

Maiden Castle is one of the largest and most impressive of the British hillforts. The site has considerable importance in the history of British archaeology, as it was originally excavated in the 1930s by Sir Mortimer Wheeler, one of the key figures in the development of British archaeology. His excavations were among the most extensive […]

INTRODUCTION (POSTGLACIAL FORAGERS, 8000–4000 B.C.) (Ancient Europe)

By about ten thousand years ago, the Pleistocene glaciers in Scandinavia and the Alps had retreated more or less to their current locations. The warmer climate allowed forests to arise over much of Europe that previously had been covered by ice and tundra. Rivers, lakes, and seas teemed with fish, while forests were full of […]