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In this gripping sequel to his bestselling 1177 B.C., Eric Cline tells the story of what happened after the Bronze Age collapsed—why some civilizations endured, why some gave way to new ones, and why some disappeared forever“A landmark book: lucid, deep, and insightful.... You cannot understand human civilization and self-organization without studying what happened on, before, and after 1177 B.C.”—Nassim Nicholas Taleb, bestselling author of The Black SwanAt the end of the acclaimed history 1177 B.C., many of the Late Bronze Age civilizations of the Aegean and Eastern Mediterranean lay in ruins, undone by invasion, revolt, natural disasters, famine, and the demise of international trade. An interconnected world that had boasted major empires and societies, relative peace, robust commerce, and monumental architecture was lost and the so-called First Dark Age had begun. Now, in After 1177 B.C., Eric Cline tells the compelling story of what happened next, over four centuries, across the Aegean and Eastern Mediterranean world. It is a story of resilience, transformation, and success, as well as failures, in an age of chaos and reconfiguration.After 1177 B.C. tells how the collapse of powerful Late Bronze Age civilizations created new circumstances to which people and societies had to adapt. Those that failed to adjust disappeared from the world stage, while others transformed themselves, resulting in a new world order that included Phoenicians, Philistines, Israelites, Neo-Hittites, Neo-Assyrians, and Neo-Babylonians. Taking the story up to the resurgence of Greece marked by the first Olympic Games in 776 B.C., the book also describes how world-changing innovations such as the use of iron and the alphabet emerged amid the chaos.Filled with lessons for today's world about why some societies survive massive shocks while others do not, After 1177 B.C. reveals why this period, far from being the First Dark Age, was a new age with new inventions and new opportunities.

Metalworkers and their Tools brings together 12 papers by 22 authors from the “Metools” international symposium organised in at Queens University, Belfast in June 2016 as part of the HardRock project “Between a Rock and a Hard Place: context, function, and choice of early metalworking tools on Europe's Atlantic façade” (Marie Skłodowska Curie, No. 623392) and the “Metal Ages in Europe” commission of the International Union of Pre- and Protohistoric Sciences (UISPP). Its aim was to shine a spotlight on the tools of the metalworker and to follow their evolution from the beginning of the Bronze Age through to the Iron Age, as well as the place held by metalworking and its artisans in the economic and social landscape of the period.

This volume honours Professor Aram Kosyan at the occasion of his 65th birthday and his academic career spanning over four decades. The twenty-eight essays by his colleagues from the international scientific community who contributed to this volume focus mostly on Bronze and Iron Age cultures of Anatolia and the Armenian Highlands, offering papers on history and archaeology, beliefs and religions of the Hittites, Luwians, and other ancient societies of these regions. A large group of papers deals with linguistics, onomastics, and writing culture, including textual studies of primary sources, Cuneiform Hittite and Luwian Hieroglyphic inscriptions in particular, as well as papers on ancient trade relations and modern trade in counterfeit antiquities.

This third volume of the BEFIM series addresses the life history of vessels from the Early Celtic hillfort settlements of Heuneburg and Vix-Mont Lassois, from a detailed examination of the manufacturing process to the use and modifications of the final products. Pivotal was an extensive experimental program of dozens of experiments directed at a better understanding of the way this pottery was made and used. The participation of an experienced potter allowed us to reproduce exact replicas of the different wares and explore in detail the traces of production and the effect of temper, baking temperature and so forth on the development of production traces and wear. Especially variations in the temper material, like the frequently observed addition of calcite in the archaeological pottery, strongly affected the characteristics of the use wear traces that subsequently developed from the preparation of different products (grape wine, honey wine, different kinds of porridge etc.). The effect of alcohol production, including fermentation, on the pottery was also explored. We also tested the effect of different gestures of preparing food and drink (mixing, stirring, pounding), different ways of storage and handling, and the manner of consumption like decanting using various kinds of utensils. The traces we observed on the experimental vessels, using an integrated low and high power approach, formed the basis for our interpretation of the archaeological wares from the Heuneburg and Vix-Mont Lassois. Our data on the life history of the pottery added to a more detailed insight into foodways, including drinking habits, of the Early Celtic communities of Central Europe. This book presents in detail the experimental program and the archaeological observations.

Los contenidos de este volumen son un reflejo de las diversas problemáticas relacionadas con el estudio arqueológico de los paisajes agrarios: los métodos de registro, la caracterización histórica y social de las comunidades rurales preindustriales, así como la problemática presente y las perspectivas de futuro en este ámbito. Un primer bloque presenta una serie de experiencias de investigación en diversas áreas de la Península en las que se muestra una convergencia en cuanto a los objetivos de investigación (estudios territoriales, análisis del poblamiento rural) y los procedimientos de registro. Un segundo bloque con una singularidad propia es el que se refiere a las investigaciones orientadas de manera preferente a la documentación física de los espacios agrarios antiguos. En tercer lugar, contamos con dos aportaciones que cubren otro aspecto fundamental dentro de esta temática, como es el de la ganadería, una actividad económica y una cultura si cabe más invisible aún que la de los trabajadores de la tierra. La monografía se cierra con unas conclusiones y una valoración de las perspectivas de futuro de este tipo de estudios.

The Bronze Age and Early Iron Age saw many developments in metalworking, social structure, food production, nutrition, and diet. At the same time, networks in Europe intensified and human impact on the environment changed in character. What influence did these transformations have on daily life? Which proxies can researchers use to study these topics? This volume presents scientific contributions from different fields of expertise within modern archaeology in order to investigate past living conditions through aspects of the archaeological record related to production (e.g. of food and metal), well-being (e.g. diet, health), human relations (e.g. violence), and the local environment (e.g. pollution, waste disposal, and water management). It also critically addresses contemporary graphic representations of Bronze Age living conditions. This volume compiles papers from a session with the same title organized for an international open workshop of the Graduate School ‘Human Development in Landscapes', entitled ‘Socio-Environmental Dynamics over the Last 12,000 Years: The Development of Landscapes IV', which took place in 2017, in Kiel, Germany. Publications detailing overarching core research on subsistence systems, societal transformations, and resilience versus rupture dynamics already exist. With this volume, we aim to provide a closer look at everyday life in past communities.

Deze bundel vormt de neerslag van de 6e metaaltijdendag, gehouden op 5 oktober te Amsersfoort. Het thema betrof het einde van de metaaltijden/begin van de Romeinse tijd (100 BC – 100 AD), met aandacht voor onderwerpen zoals oorlogsvoering, cultusplaatsen en het veranderende nederzettingspatroon. De lezingen toonden de blijvende interesse in het onderzoek naar samenlevingen uit de overgang van pre- naar protohistorie. Diverse lezingen van deze dagen hebben hun neerslag gevonden in deze zesde Metaaltijdenbundel. Zo is er in deze bundel aandacht voor een breed spectrum aan bijzondere voorwerpen, zoals een zwaarden, sieraden en voorbeelden van vroeg pseudo-schrift. De bijdragen beperken zich geenszins tot voorwerpen uit de metaaltijden, aangezien nederzettingen en grafvelden ook aan bod komen. De Metaaltijdendag is een initiatief van de Stichting Metaaltijdenonderzoek Nederland (SMON), die zo een breed platform wil bieden aan eenieder met belangstelling voor de laat-prehistorische samenlevingen. Om de verhalen zoveel mogelijk toegankelijk te maken, biedt de Stichting de gelegenheid de gehouden lezingen te publiceren in een bundel. In die zin vormt deze publicatie de verslaglegging van het jaarlijkse congres, maar ook andere bijdragen over de metaaltijden zijn welkom. Samengebracht in deze bundel raken de verhalen over, en interpretaties van, laat-prehistorische samenlevingen verbonden.

From the Archaeological Record to Virtual Reconstruction'describes the use of New Information Technologies (IT) for the analyses and interpretation of archaeological record of the San Chuis Hillfort (San Martín de Beduledo, Allande, Asturias, Spain). The data gathered during the eight excavation campaigns conducted by Francisco Jordá Cerdá in the sixties and eighties of the 20th century was mechanised and digitalised. Spatial Data Infrastructure (SDI) of the hillfort was performed, followed by a creation of spatial analysis through the establishment of relations between the elements of the archaeological record. At the end, having studied and investigated the site's urban evolution throughout its occupation period (890 cal. BP – 530 cal. AD), a virtual reconstruction of the hillfort in its different settlement phases, presenting various evolution scenarios, is presented. In the process a work methodology and a set of computer applications adapted for each step of this process have been estableshed, such as insertion of data records in a database, planimetry drawings, hillfort virtualization, etc.

The ancient Greek word koine was used to describe the new common language dialect that became widespread in the ancient Greek world after the conquests of Alexander the Great. Modern scholars have increasingly used the word to conceptualise regional homogeneities in the material culture of the ancient Mediterranean. In this volume, twenty scholars from various disciplines present case studies that focus on the fundamental question of how to perceive and the social and cultural mechanisms that led to the spread and consumption of material culture in the Greek early Iron Age. Combined the chapters provide a critical examination of the use of the koine concept as a heuristic tool in historical research and discuss to what degree similarities in material culture reflect cultural connections. The volume will be of interest scholars interested in archaeological theory and method, the social significance of material culture, and the history of the ancient Greek world in the first half of the first millennium BC.

Since its conception in 1998, the Iron Age Research Student Symposium (formerly ‘Seminar') has provided postgraduates in the archaeology of Iron Age Britain an opportunity to present their current research in a friendly atmosphere. During the course of both formal seminars and informal outings (such as field trips, dinners, and the traditional pub quiz), the Iron Age Research Student Symposium (IARSS) gives students the ability to discuss their research with colleagues and peers, in addition to a number of outstanding lecturers and professors in Iron Age studies. Previous proceedings volumes (Davis et al. 2006; Humphrey 2003; Sterry et al. 2010), also offered participants the prospect of publishing their seminar paper. As a result, IARSS has become a fixture in the development of new academics while at the same time contributing fresh perspectives to Iron Age dialogues. This proceedings volume, organised to reflect three general themes (migration/interaction, material culture and the built environment), accomplishes two things. First, it provides an accessible survey of emerging concepts, ideas, methods, and fieldwork that will shape future study of the Iron Age. Second, it is an outline, not just of what the 17th IARSS accomplished, but also of a broader scheme envisioned by the organisers for future events in this Symposium series. It is the (perhaps wide-eyed) expectation of the organisers that the IARSS can and should expand to offer further opportunities to research students of the Iron Age, and they firmly hope that this volume aids in the promotion of this annual Symposium, as well as the ideas of the contributing authors.

This volume focuses on the main methodological perspectives currently existing in studies on Iron Age fortified settlements. Current investigations can be characterised according to three methodological approaches: analytic, landscape and componential analysis. These approaches can be traced since the 70s and are found all around Europe from the Baltic regions to the Mediterranean coast. They are examples of diachronic and versatile methodological procedures in use today and applicable to different contexts of the European Iron Age. We introduce digital archaeology at the end of this paper. In each one of the chapters we shall focus not only on the theoretical perspective of the approach but also on its practical application to the study of actual fortified settlements from different geographic contexts. In conclusion, and despite the difficulties of using these methods when investigating Iron Age settlements, they seem to be as versatile as they are adaptable and they have evolved adopting new methods of tele-detection and geographic information systems which update and refresh them as current methodological approaches.

Was the purpose of an Iron Age hillfort to defend people and resources or was it there to show the power of the community and its leaders? Was the Middle Iron Age trend to large complex ‘defences'a response to developing tactics of assault or did the huge amounts of construction work serve the purpose of building community identity through shared labour? The name ‘hillfort'implies a defensive purpose, but in recent decades alternative interpretations have gained favour, based on analyses suggesting that hillforts are poorly suited to military purposes and on views of Iron Age society that emphasise the importance of boundaries, symbolic display and communitybuilding. Excavations of hillfort interiors reveal they were sites for many activities; large caches of stones suggest that sling warfare was one. This book reports an investigation of these issues. Sling accuracy at a hillfort was measured for the first time, in a controlled experiment comparing attack and defence across single and developed ramparts. Tactical scenarios modelled from the results showed that hillfort development gave defenders increased advantage. These results support defence as the explanation for the features of the enclosing works of hillforts. Full details of the method and analyses are included.

Widely regarded as major visible field monuments of the Iron Age, hillforts are central to an understanding of later prehistoric communities in Britain and Europe from the later Bronze Age. With such a range of variants represented, no single explanation of their function or social significance could satisfy all possible interpretations of their role. While they are conventionally viewed as defence settlements or regional centres controlled by a social elite, this role has been challenged in recent years, and instead hillforts are being considered primarily as expressions of social identity with strong ritual and cosmological associations. Current hillfort interpretations are in danger of reflecting contemporary social sensitivities more strongly than any recognizable Iron Age priorities, and the need for critical analysis of basic archaeological evidence is paramount. Critically reviewing the evidence of hillforts in Britain, in the wider context of Ireland and continental Europe, the volume focuses on their structural features, chronology, landscape context, and their social, economic and symbolic functions, and is well illustrated throughout with site plans, reconstruction drawings, and photographs. Harding reviews the changing perceptions of hillforts and the future prospects for hillfort research, highlighting aspects of contemporary investigation and interpretation.