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Overton Period
The Overton Period is the name given by archaeologist Colin Burgess to a division of prehistory in Britain covering the period between 2000 BC and 1650 BC. It follows the Mount Pleasant Period and precedes the Bedd Branwen Period, and is named after the typesite of the West Overton barrow cemetery in Wiltshire. During the Overton Period the first signs of Bronze Age burial practices – urned cremations and food vessel burials – appear in the archaeological record, as well as the last stages of the use of Beaker pottery. Rich Wessex culture burials emerged during the period such as that at Bush Barrow near Stonehenge. Characteristic metalworking types include the Amorico-British dagger and the Falkland industries, which demonstrate influences from the continental Unetice culture The Únětice culture or Aunjetitz culture ( cs, Únětická kultura, german: Aunjetitzer Kultur, pl, Kultura unietycka) is an archaeological culture at the start of the Central European Bronz ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Colin Burgess (archaeologist)
Colin B Burgess (1938 - 2014) was an archaeologist specializing in the Bronze Age, especially in the north east of England and the Mediterranean. Biography Originally from London, Burgess studied at Cardiff University, where he wrote an undergraduate dissertation on bronze-age metalwork from the Thames. For most of his career, he worked at Newcastle University Newcastle University (legally the University of Newcastle upon Tyne) is a UK public university, public research university based in Newcastle upon Tyne, North East England. It has overseas campuses in Singapore and Malaysia. The university is ..., where he focused on the archaeology of north east of England, and formed relationships with both amateur archaeologists and international scholars. Sometime in or after the 1980s, Burgess moved to France, having grown "disillusioned" with trends in British archaeology. (This disillusionment is expressed most forcefully in a note published in the 2001 reissue of his textbook, ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Prehistory
Prehistory, also known as pre-literary history, is the period of human history between the use of the first stone tools by hominins 3.3 million years ago and the beginning of recorded history with the invention of writing systems. The use of symbols, marks, and images appears very early among humans, but the earliest known writing systems appeared 5000 years ago. It took thousands of years for writing systems to be widely adopted, with writing spreading to almost all cultures by the 19th century. The end of prehistory therefore came at very different times in different places, and the term is less often used in discussing societies where prehistory ended relatively recently. In the early Bronze Age, Sumer in Mesopotamia, the Indus Valley Civilisation, and ancient Egypt were the first civilizations to develop their own scripts and to keep historical records, with their neighbors following. Most other civilizations reached the end of prehistory during the following Iron Age. T ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Prehistoric Britain
Several species of humans have intermittently occupied Great Britain for almost a million years. The earliest evidence of human occupation around 900,000 years ago is at Happisburgh on the Norfolk coast, with stone tools and footprints probably made by ''Homo antecessor''. The oldest human fossils, around 500,000 years old, are of ''Homo heidelbergensis'' at Boxgrove in Sussex. Until this time Britain had been permanently connected to the Continent by a chalk ridge between South East England and northern France called the Weald-Artois Anticline, but during the Anglian Glaciation around 425,000 years ago a megaflood broke through the ridge, and Britain became an island when sea levels rose during the following Hoxnian interglacial. Fossils of very early Neanderthals dating to around 400,000 years ago have been found at Swanscombe in Kent, and of classic Neanderthals about 225,000 years old at Pontnewydd in Wales. Britain was unoccupied by humans between 180,000 and 60,000 yea ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Mount Pleasant Period
The Mount Pleasant Period is a phase of the later Neolithic in Britain dating to between c. 2750 BC and 2000 BC. It was so named by Colin Burgess in the 1970s using Mount Pleasant henge as its typesite. The period is divided into three phases, the Frankford industries, the Migdale-Marnoch industries and then the Ballyvalley-Aylesford industries. During this period, Beaker pottery appears in the archaeological record and metalworking, initially using copper and gold but with bronze working appearing at the end. It followed the Meldon Bridge Period and was superseded by the Overton Period. There are parallels with the Unetice culture The Únětice culture or Aunjetitz culture ( cs, Únětická kultura, german: Aunjetitzer Kultur, pl, Kultura unietycka) is an archaeological culture at the start of the Central European Bronze Age, dated roughly to about 2300–1600BC. The epon ... of continental Europe. Notes References Periods of the British Bronze Age {{UK-archa ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Bedd Branwen Period
The Bedd Branwen Period is the name given by Colin Burgess to a division of the early Bronze Age in Britain covering the period between 1650 BC and 1400 BC. It follows his Overton Period and is superseded by his Knighton Heath Period. It covers the period after the end of the Beaker tradition and the early Wessex culture, and was a time when cremation became an almost universal burial rite in Britain. Earlier round barrows were re-used for cremation cemeteries although new barrows were also still being built. The pottery of the Deverel-Rimbury culture appears alongside the earlier collared urns in the archaeological record during this period and metalworking developed through the Arreton Down and Acton Park industries. In his 1986 article Burgess acknowledged that the Bedd Branwen site was wrongly dated. Most of the burials actually date from a new period, the Fargo Phase c. 1800 - 1600 bc, (which used to be incorporated in the Overton Period The Overton Period is the n ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Typesite
In archaeology, a type site is the site used to define a particular archaeological culture or other typological unit, which is often named after it. For example, discoveries at La Tène and Hallstatt led scholars to divide the European Iron Age into the La Tène culture and Hallstatt culture, named after their respective type sites. The concept is similar to type localities in geology and type specimens in biology. Notable type sites East Asia *Banpo (Yangshao culture, Neolithic Yangshao culture, China) * Liangzhu Town, near Hangzhou (Liangzhu culture, Neolithic, China) *Songguk-ri (Middle Mumun culture, southern Korea) * Suemura cluster of kilns – Kilns of Sue pottery (Middle and Late Kofun period, Osaka, Japan) * Sanage cluster of kilns — Kilns of and (Nara and Heian period, Aichi Prefecture, Japan) Europe *a river terrace of the River Somme (Abbeville, France), of the Abbevillian culture *Aurignac (Haute Garonne, France), of the Aurignacian culture *Hallstatt (Salzk ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
West Overton
West Overton is a village and civil parish in the English county of Wiltshire, about west of Marlborough. The river Kennet runs immediately north of the village, separating it from the A4 road. The parish includes the village of Lockeridge, also near the river, further east (downstream). History The area has many prehistoric sites, and the Avebury section of the Stonehenge and Avebury World Heritage site extends into the northwest of the parish. Within that area, on the southern slopes of Overton Down, are seven Bronze Age round barrows, forming a cemetery which extends south onto Overton Hill, overlooking the river. In modern archaeology, this it the type site for the Overton Period of 2000–1650 BC. Also on Overton Hill, just over the parish boundary, is The Sanctuary, the site of a Neolithic monument which had two concentric circles of stones and four concentric circles of timber posts, and was linked to the stone circles at Avebury, 2.5km to the northwest, by two lines ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Barrow Burial
A tumulus (plural tumuli) is a mound of earth and stones raised over a grave or graves. Tumuli are also known as barrows, burial mounds or ''kurgans'', and may be found throughout much of the world. A cairn, which is a mound of stones built for various purposes, may also originally have been a tumulus. Tumuli are often categorised according to their external apparent shape. In this respect, a long barrow is a long tumulus, usually constructed on top of several burials, such as passage graves. A round barrow is a round tumulus, also commonly constructed on top of burials. The internal structure and architecture of both long and round barrows has a broad range; the categorization only refers to the external apparent shape. The method of may involve a dolmen, a cist, a mortuary enclosure, a mortuary house, or a chamber tomb. Examples of barrows include Duggleby Howe and Maeshowe. Etymology The word ''tumulus'' is Latin for 'mound' or 'small hill', which is derived from the P ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Wiltshire
Wiltshire (; abbreviated Wilts) is a historic and ceremonial county in South West England with an area of . It is landlocked and borders the counties of Dorset to the southwest, Somerset to the west, Hampshire to the southeast, Gloucestershire to the north, Oxfordshire to the northeast and Berkshire to the east. The county town was originally Wilton, after which the county is named, but Wiltshire Council is now based in the county town of Trowbridge. Within the county's boundary are two unitary authority areas, Wiltshire and Swindon, governed respectively by Wiltshire Council and Swindon Borough Council. Wiltshire is characterised by its high downland and wide valleys. Salisbury Plain is noted for being the location of the Stonehenge and Avebury stone circles (which together are a UNESCO Cultural and World Heritage site) and other ancient landmarks, and as a training area for the British Army. The city of Salisbury is notable for its medieval cathedral. Swindon is the ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Bronze Age Britain
Bronze Age Britain is an era of British history that spanned from until . Lasting for approximately 1,700 years, it was preceded by the era of Neolithic Britain and was in turn followed by the period of Iron Age Britain. Being categorised as the Bronze Age, it was marked by the use of copper and then bronze by the prehistoric Britons, who used such metals to fashion tools. Great Britain in the Bronze Age also saw the widespread adoption of agriculture. During the British Bronze Age, large megalithic monuments similar to those from the Late Neolithic continued to be constructed or modified, including such sites as Avebury, Stonehenge, Silbury Hill and Must Farm. That has been described as a time "when elaborate ceremonial practices emerged among some communities of subsistence agriculturalists of western Europe". History Early Bronze Age (EBA), c. 2500–1500 BC There is no clear consensus on the date for the beginning of the Bronze Age in Great Britain and Ireland. Some sou ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Beaker People
The Bell Beaker culture, also known as the Bell Beaker complex or Bell Beaker phenomenon, is an archaeological culture named after the inverted-bell beaker drinking vessel used at the very beginning of the European Bronze Age. Arising from around 2800 BC, it lasted in Britain until as late as 1800 BC but in continental Europe only until 2300 BC, when it was succeeded by the Unetice culture. The culture was widely dispersed throughout Western Europe, being present in many regions of Iberia and stretching eastward to the Danubian plains, and northward to the islands of Great Britain and Ireland, and was also present in the islands of Sicily and Sardinia and some small coastal areas in north-western Africa. The Bell Beaker phenomenon shows substantial regional variation, and a study from 2018 found that it was associated with genetically diverse populations. The Bell Beaker culture was partly preceded by and contemporaneous with the Corded Ware culture, and in north-central Eu ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Wessex Culture
The Wessex culture is the predominant prehistoric culture of central and southern Britain during the early Bronze Age, originally defined by the British archaeologist Stuart Piggott in 1938. The Concise Oxford Dictionary of Archaeology – Timothy Darvill, 2002, Wessex culture, p.464, Oxford University Press, The culture is related to the of the southern Netherlands, Belgium and northern France, and linked to the Armorican Tumulus culture in northern France and the |
