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11,000 – 3,000 years ago

Bronze Age Dagger

A quartz crystal dagger with ivory handle was recovered from a Copper-Age tomb in southern Spain in 2008 within a highly unusual grave assemblage, dominated by exotic Ivory objects. This unique object has a blade, around 18cm long, made from a single piece of quartz crystal that was mounted in a highly decorated ivory handle and found accompanied by a carved ivory plaque, probably part of its sheath. Continue reading →

Cheese

When archaeologists consider developments in food production, we tend to think first of the shift from hunting and gathering to the domestication of animals or cereal cultivation, both of which allow food resources to be stored and consumed when needed. Cheese production, however, is now known to date back to at least 7,500 years ago (the 6th millennium BC), suggesting that it too had an important role at this time in some societies. Continue reading →

Obsidian Mirror – Dora Moutsiou

by Dora Moutsiou The aesthetic value that obsidian enjoyed in the past reached its apotheosis in the Mesoamerican cultures whose economic and symbolic life it underwrote for ~3000 years. The symbolic importance and authority obsidian attained throughout that period is exemplified by the Aztecs’ respect towards their patron god Tezcatlipoca, Lord of the Smoking Mirror. Tezcatlipoca’ s eponymous possession, the obsidian mirror, was a metaphor for rulership and power. Continue reading →

Skara Brae House

The settlement at Skara Brae, Orkney dates to the Late Neolithic (3300-2500 BC). The site was discovered in a great sand storm in the mid-19th century and was excavated by Professor Gordon Childe of Edinburgh University in the 1920s (Childe 1931). It is remarkable as it is one of the few settlements dating from this period that are still up-standing. Continue reading →

Polished Axe

Human hands have made and used ground stone axes and adzes in all parts of globe, beginning around 30,000 years ago. Whereas the chipped stone axe of the Palaeolithic is the quintessential tool of the hunter and meat eater, the ground stone axe or adze is the Swiss army knife of early cultivators. It can be employed to facilitate almost any task in the management, collection, cultivation and processing of plants – whether cereals, roots, shoots, nuts or fruits. Continue reading →

Stonehenge Trilithon

The Stonehenge trilithon has become an iconic image of prehistory, but architecturally it is something of an aberration. Trilithons are only found at Stonehenge, and so are not representative of the architectural repertoire of Europe’s other megalithic monuments. Continue reading →

Varna Penis Sheath

The cemetery of Varna, Bulgaria is situated on the Black Sea coast. It dates to the Copper Age or Chalcolithic (late 6th millennium-5th millennium BC). The site was excavated in the 1970s and was immediately recognised as being significant as probably the earliest evidence for gold working in prehistoric Europe (Renfrew 1986). Continue reading →

Saddle Quern

Bread is perhaps the ultimate convenience food: a ready-prepared meal that can be carried on the person and eaten as hunger dictates without further preparation. Yet bread is not a self-evident food-stuff, as it is made from flour, and this requires a mill or quern to make it. In its simplest form, the saddle quern, two stones rubbing together, becomes a vital instrument supporting life. Continue reading →

Ceramics

A small ceramic figurine depicting a zoomorph was excavated in 2001 from Vela Spila, Croatia. Archaeologists typically associate the origins of ceramic technology with the first pots and vessels made by early sedentary, agricultural societies. However, this figurine was excavated from a horizon with typical late Upper Palaeolithic material culture, radiocarbon dated to c. 15,000 BP. Continue reading →

Obsidian Micro-core – Dora Moutsiou

by Dora Moutsiou Obsidian’s high quality for the manufacture of stone implements was recognised very early on by prehistoric tool-makers. Although the use of obsidian is more pronounced in late prehistoric times, particularly in the Neolithic, it is much earlier that the first archaeological evidence for the procurement of obsidian is recorded. Continue reading →

Introduction to module

Human history needs to be told through things. Texts help but they only reach back into the shallows of our past. In this module we go further to investigate deep human history through the wonderful things left behind. Our aim is to unite the entire span of our evolutionary history by investigating forty wonderful things described for you by experts. The story starts two and a half million years ago with the first stone tools. Continue reading →