Dirk Brandherm

The Warriors’ New Headgear

The important paper by S. Celestino Perez and C. Lopez-Ruiz that we published in 2006 (Antiquity 80: 89-101) suggested that the warrior slabs (stelae) with their horned-helmet motifs found in Iberia show iconographical influence from the bull-figures seen in the Levant in the early first millennium BC. This of course has important implications for the development of belief systems at either end of the Mediterranean. It was not to the taste of Dirk Brandherm who claims that the Iberian motifs are both different and earlier than any pre-echoes from the east. In a brief response the authors hold firmly to their thesis.

Knocking Vessels into Shape in Bronze Age Europe

∗ School of Geography, Archaeology and Palaeoecology, Queen’s University Belfast. Belfast BT7 1NN, Northern Ireland, UK (Email: d.brandherm@qub.ac.uk) considered are depicted in high-standard technical drawings as well as in monochrome photographs. It comes as no surprise then that the forte of this study clearly lies with the technical aspects of the manufacture of Atlantic sheet-bronze vessels and with a revised typo-chronology that rests on the meticulous analysis of these aspects.

Un depósito de armas del Bronce Final de la cuenca media del Tajo: La Era, Lanzahíta (Ávila) / A Late Bronze Age Weapon Hoard From The Middle Tagus Basin: La Era, Lanzahíta (Ávila)

El deposito del Bronce Final de Lanzahita (Avila) es importante por la presencia de una posible panoplia de guerrero de la fase Huerta de Arriba, compuesta por una espada del tipo Vilar Maior, dos puntas de lanza y un punal. Este deposito complementa al conjunto eponimo de Huerta de Arriba (Burgos) que presentaba fragmentos de al menos un posible caldero, una punta de lanza, tres punales, tres hachas de talon, dos brazaletes, un punzon y cinco navajas de afeitar. Este deposito seria contemporaneo a otros britanicos de la fase Penard. Palabras clave: Deposito, Bronce Final, espada, punta de lanza, panoplia de guerrero Abstract The Late Bronze Age hoard from Lanzahita (Avila) contains a warrior´s personal panoply from the Huerta de Arriba phase, comprising a Vilar Maior type sword, two spearheads and a dagger. This find complements the eponymous assemblage from Huerta de Arriba (Burgos) which contained sheet-bronze fragments from at least one cauldron, a spearhead, three daggers, three palstaves, two bracelets, one awl and five razors. This assemblage can be considered contemporaneous with the hoards of the British Penard phase. Keywords: Hoard, Late Bronze Age, sword, spearhead, warrior panoply

Roland Gauss. Früher Bergbau und Metallurgie auf der Iberischen Halbinsel 1: Zambujal und die Anfänge der Metallurgie in der Estremadura (Portugal). Technologie der Kupfergewinnung, Herkunft des Metalls und soziokulturelle Bedeutung der Innovation (Iberia Archaeologica 15.1). 2016. 332 pages, 111 figures, 39 plates. Tübingen: Wasmuth; 978-3-8030-0241-9 hardback €99.

The major architectural feature of Levels 4–3 is a substantial ‘Round Building’ with walls preserved up to 4m in height, whose function is interpreted as that of a series of massive grain (barley) silos, protected by a thick circular wall. Schwartz and his team excavated the remains of small-scale rectilinear structures radiating from the Round Building and interpreted as residences and a small temple. Amongst the small finds, several clay sealings with cylinder seal impressions, along with a numerical tablet and clay tokens, indicate the presence of an administrative bureaucracy that parallels that attested at major thirdmillennium BC Mesopotamian urban sites of the north (e.g. Tell Brak, Leilan, Ebla) and of the south (e.g. Abu Salabikh, Ur, Fara), further strengthening the argument of a continuum in urban and rural complexity and activity.

Here, there and everywhere?

Ling and Stos-Gale (above) present some hitherto little-known rock art motifs from various locations in Sweden, and offer an intriguing interpretation for them that ties in with the recent realisation that some of the copper used in the earlier Bronze Age of southern Scandinavia may have originated from Cyprus.

Book reviews. Alberto J. Lorrio. Qurénima: el Bronce Final del sureste de la Península Ibérica (Bibliotheca Archaeologica Hispana 27, Anejo a la Revista Lucentum 17). 598 pages, 281 illustrations, 64 tables. 2008. Madrid: Real Academia de la Historia; 978-84-96849-41-9 paperback.

Lichardus-Itten calls for a socio-economic definition of the ‘Chalcolithic’ analogous to the traditional definition of the ‘Neolithic’. It is evident, however, that the model, combined with theories of migration from the North Pontic steppes, is meant to apply exclusively to a ‘pan-European’ context. This narrowing down of the concept appears to violate the ‘global’ claim of a terminology derived from the Three Age System. Strahm, on the other hand, paints a much broader picture which relates the changes seen at the end of the Neolithic period to developments in technology ultimately deriving from the Near East. The driving force at work here is ‘non-linear stimulus diffusion’. This model appears almost ‘Childean’ in its approach although Strahm rather refers to LeroiGourhan for its theoretical inspiration. Several other of the European papers centre on social development rather than technology. Here, the focus of discussion, affirmative or otherwise, is on the emergence of elites – often in the shape of chiefdom societies, thus referring to the anthropological model formulated by Service and introduced into archaeology by Renfrew and others. Sherratt’s ‘secondary products revolution’ appears to establish itself as part of a ‘Chalcolithic package’. In contrast, the Near Eastern papers are mainly concerned with the emergence of urbanism; they therefore refer to a different intellectual tradition of Childean origin. The question of how far general developments in this area are structurally comparable with the situation further to the west is not addressed. The comparative aspect is fully lost with the American and African papers that are left to speak for themselves and serve mainly as an illustration of alternative paths. Some cross-regional or cross-cultural treatment of recurring themes may have been enlightening here, especially since economic and social aspects like secondary products exploitation, the social function of incipient metal use and – especially – the emergence of formal hierarchies play such important roles in most of the articles.