Excerpt from The Rise of Bronze Age Society, by Kristian Kristiansen, 2005:
4.1 The Early Bronze Age of the third millennium
The beginning of the Bronze Age coincides with the formation of early states, writing and the consolidation of urban life from around 3000 BC in Mesopotamia, that is the beginning of the Early Dynastic period. …
In the Mediterranean, urban settlements were flourishing from Cyprus to the Cycladic islands (Renfrew 1973; Hockmann 1987; Broodbank 2000). This may have even influenced the rise of semi-urbanised settlements on the Iberian Peninsula, just as contacts were established along the Adriatic coast with the Balkans and further inland (Primas 1996; Hansen 2002).
However, from the Pontic region to the Balkans and central and northern Europe this was the period when new types of agro-pastoral economies expanded. They shared many traits in economy and burial ritual, such as the construction of tumuli over graves and the predominance of individual burials (Yamna, Corded Ware, Battle-Axe and Catacomb cultures). Recent pollen botanical evidence has made it clear that the third millennium BC represents the formation of open steppe-like environments for grazing animals from the Urals to northwestern Europe (Odgaard 1994; Andersen 1995 and 1998; Kremenetski 2003). The movable lifestyle is exemplified in the employment of mats, tents and wagons, sometimes found in burials (Ecsedy 1994). … It followed a period during the fifth-fourth millennia when stratified societies and copper metallurgy were developing in the Balkan-Carpathian region, only to collapse or be transformed during the later fourth millennium BC (Chernykh 1992; ch.2; Sherratt 2003b). Instead the Caucasian region rose to prominence as a metallurgical centre of production, and from 3200 to 1800 BC there developed a Circum-Pontic metallurgical province, including Anatolia, that received most of its metal form the huge Caucasian mines (Chernykh 1992; Chernykh, Avilova and Orlovsky 2002). Around the centres of production and distribution there emerged a series of stratified societies, burying their dead in impressive and richly furnished kurgans. Sometimes they would contain imports not even present in the centres, such as the famous Maikop burials from the late fourth-millenium Uruk expansion (Chernykh 1992, Sherratt 1997a).
… an almost simultaneous transfer took place over a vast geographical area when the shift from copper and/or arsenic alloys to tin bronzes occurred during a relatively short period. Between 2300 and 1800 BC metal smiths in all Europe and western Asia learned about and ‘converted’ to tin-bronze alloys in the manufacturing of ornaments, weapons and tools (Lasson 1997; Pare 2000). …
After a widespread setback in the Near East and Anatolia and in Greece during the later third millennium where many urban settlements were burned or left, a systematic use of tin bronzes took place between 2300 1800 BC. At the same time we witness the metallurgical expansion in central and western Europe of tin bronzes. … It seems clear that mobile Bell Beaker groups, forming specialised ethnic communities, helped to spread the new metallurgical skills in central and western Europe (Heyd 1998). …
Bertemes (2000), Strahm (2002) and Heyd (in press) have in recent works summarised the transformations in economy, technology and social organisation that led up to and characterise Europe after 2000 BC. The following is based on Bertemes 2000 (slightly modified):
Society: the introduction of new status and prestige goods (daggers/swords, lances, ornaments, metal cups, etc.), and the appearance of ‘princely graves'.
Religion: single graves and family groups in large cemeteries, aristocratic burials in barrows, new types of ritual depositions, new symbols and iconography.
Settlements: open villages in the lowlands and fortified hilltop settlements. Ritual sites appear. Economy: division of labour and specialisation, commodification of metal. weight and measuring systems, intensification of mining and long distance trade (both finished and unfinished products).
Technology: tin bronze appears, specialised workshops, complex casting techniques, specific alloys for specific artefacts.
Everything points to the emergence of a more complex and ranked society that penetrated all spheres from technology and economy to settlement, social organisation and religion. A new aristocratic leadership had emerged on top of the traditional clan-based organisation of farmsteads and hamlets. It went hand in hand with new perceptions of wealth and commodity exchange (Fig. 38). In the Unetice and related cultures a major expansion of production took place and ring ingots were exchanged widely (Figs. 39 and 40). And the same applies to Ireland, Scotland, Brittany and southern England (Eogan 1993; Cowie 1988; Ixer and Budd 1998; Needham 2000a and 2000b; O'Connor and Cowie 2001 ). These early metallurgical centres were all located close to resources of copper, and not least tin, and specific items such as halberds, daggers and pottery indicate that personal connections were maintained between them (Gerloff 1975: 214ff.; Schuhmacher 2002). From now on tin bronzes began to dominate and the central and western European metallurgical centres were increasingly drawn into trade relations with the palace cultures and city-states of the eastern Mediterranean and Anatolia, which reached a new flourishing after 2000 BC, when the early Minoan palaces were built (Fig. 41 ). The dominant trade routes were now turning westwards, in contrast to the third millennium (Fig. 30).
It seems clear that this new interest in the west was due to an increased need for tin, and in the process gold and amber were included. In this early phase we are talking about small quantities of high-value products, although quantities of tin could have been rather large. In the caravan trade between Assur and Kanesh in the early second millennium the documents mention the import of 100 tons of tin from Syria (Larsen 1987), from an unknown eastern source (but see Boroffka et al. 2002).
As the focus of this book is the second millennium BC, we shall describe the expansion of the metal trade during this period in a little more detail. It can be divided into three main periods: one of initial explorations and contacts from the late third millennium to around 1900/1800 BC, a second from 1900 BC to around 1600/1500 BC, and a third period from 1600/1500 to 1200 BC.
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4.3 The temporal sequence of the later third and second millennia BC
The first phase, 2300-1900 BC
Already from the later third millennium BC contacts were established between the east Mediterranean and central Europe (Gerloff 1993). So-called Schleifennadeln (Fig. 42) and the identical ring ingots from Moravia and citystates in the Levant bear witness to such early explorations.
As pins are personal dress items, the distribution suggests a rather direct contact between the east Mediterranean and central Europe, through a series of sea journeys and travels between major trade colonies and city-states, including Troy. It is characteristic of this early phase that very little exchange took place from the centre to the periphery, with the exception of a Cycladic lance (or rather a local imitation, Krause 1996), and a few other items, such as a silver ring. The line of exchange is mainly documented through local products from central Europe, and it thereby stands in some contrast to the pattern we see from the second phase onwards, where return products and influences from the centres play an important role. This may support earlier propositions that we are here seeing the results of migrating groups from central Europe, taking part in the raids in the later third millennium BC when major social and economic upheavals penetrated the Near East and Anatolia. Most of the burials and hoards from Troy to the Levant were found just over layers of destruction (Gerloff 1993). Otherwise we would have to assume that the ring ingots and the very specific pins (Schleifennadeln) were originally east Mediterranean and brought west by traders and adopted in the Unetice Culture. The evidence does not support this scenario. Gerloff would rather date the contact shown on Figure 42 to the late third millennium, closer to 2000 BC, and suggests it represents the opening of a more systematic trade with central Europe, which was also soon to include Wessex and Brittany. Soon after, Near Eastern metal forms found their way to central and western Europe, corresponding to the period of the karum trade, which seems to have had historical effects far beyond the Near East (Fig. 32). Datings of burials from the early metal cultures in central and western Europe all lie between 2300 and 1900 BC, corresponding to Troy IIgjEBA 3 (Gerloff 1993: Abb. 8). This period still defies a proper historical interpretation (for a historical scenario of Anatolia and the Pontic region, see Mallory 1998 and Tyborowski 2002).
Joseph Maran has provided a more complex explanation for some of these cultural exchanges in the Balkans. He demonstrates the existence of trade networks between late Early Helladic societies in Greece, the Adriatic and the Carpathian region from the mid-third millennium BC onwards. It was reflected in pottery forms and some prestige goods, perhaps linked to the early tin trade. With the decline of Helladic society around 2200 BC migrants from the Adriatic coast (Cetina Culture) moved south into Greece, and probably some migrants also from the Danube, as suggested by close similarities in pottery forms in the Mokrin and Nagyrev cultures (Maran 1997). One might propose to link the evidence of metal forms with the evidence of pottery and settlements. It would suggest directional movements of groups of traders and some whole communities from east central Europe and the Balkans into Greece and the east Mediterranean at the close of the third millennium BC along already established routes of contact. This formed the basis for the development of more extensive and stable contact from 2000 BC onwards.
From around 2000-1900 BC there emerged a series of richly furnished chiefly burials simultaneously in the Wessex Culture and the Unetice Culture. This represents the climax period of the early metallurgical centres and introduces the second phase.
The second phase, 1900-1600 BC
A new, more intensive exchange of goods between the Bronze Age communities of western Europe (Brittany and Wessex), central Europe (the 'classic' Unetice Culture, followed by the Ottomani Culture) and the east Mediterranean now began. It seems reasonable to assume palaces in the Levant and Crete as the organisers behind these early contacts, as other evidence supports it (Kristiansen 1998a: Fig. 196).
Early metal production in most of Europe was rather small scale during the late third millennium BC, but from around 2000 BC tin was increasingly employed in bronze production, earlier in England than on the continent (Pare 2000). As pointed out already by Gerloff (1975: 235), and confirmed by imported daggers and similarities in metalwork, the early centres of metal production were in contact with each other at least during the early phase. This is reflected in both pottery forms and metal forms such as halberds (Schuhmacher 2002). In the Erzgebirge in Germany production of axes, ring ingots and early metal daggers took off, and spread to neighbouring areas during Bronze A1b (1950-1750/1700 BC). The rich chiefly chamber burials of Leubingen belong here, when production in Brittany, Wessex and Ireland climaxed, as reflected in the early phase of east Mediterranean contacts. We may assume that tin, gold and amber were the major trade articles of these early connections, especially from Wessex and Brittany, which were situated at regional and interregional nodes of river communication (Sherratt 1996b). During this period Wessex was able to obtain amber from Denmark in exchange for metal in the form of English/Irish axes (Butler 1963 and 1986; Vandkilde 1996). From this period amber disappears from burials in Denmark, as it was now solely used in exchange for metal. Chiefdoms in Wessex and Brittany developed a highly organised cross-Channel network (Fig. 43a) that linked up with other central European and southern networks to the Mediterranean, that would bring tin, amber and probably gold south in exchange for foreign prestige goods and travelling specialists (Gerloff 1975; Needham 2001).
From the late eighteenth/early seventeenth centuries BC the shaft grave kings emerge, but with forerunners in Thebes and Aegina from MH II (Kilian-Dirlmeier 1997). In the burials we find a mix of influences primarily from Crete, mostly weapons and new pottery styles, perhaps made by imported smiths and craftsmen from Crete (Bloedow 1997), and foreign exotic goods, such as amber from northern Europe and horse gear from the Carpathians/Russia. It suggests that these new rulers were able to exploit a position as middlemen in the newly opened lines of contact with central and west European societies that provided gold, copper, tin, amber and probably also horses. Figure 44 demonstrates the new economic relationship that was established between the shaft grave kings and the Minoan rulers during the New Palace period. They now received copper and tin (or tin bronze) from the Mycenaeans in exchange for weapons and prestige goods. After the Mycenaean takeover the tin content rose further, demonstrating their access to tin sources in western Europe.
As we shall see later, the shaft grave kings were part of a trade network that included the west Anatolian city-states, village-based complex societies with fortified chiefly settlements of eastern Europe and the Carpathians, and the Pontic area. All of these contacts are evidenced in the grave goods. Especially, the Pontic and east European/Carpathian contacts and influences have turned out to be significant. In the Pontic/Ural region we find highly stratified societies with burial types resembling the shaft graves rather closely, implying close connections between the two regions (1) (Licharadus and Vladar 1996).
[ (1) This evidence may find some support in the anthropological analysis of the skeletons in the B-circ1e, which indicated a rather large difference between males and females (Angel 1972). ]
It is characteristic also of this second phase that influences between the east Mediterranean and central and western European metallurgical centres were reciprocal, at least when we speak about the early Mycenaean culture. The Minoans, who, as we shall see, were the real organisers of these longdistance trade adventures into distant lands, were much less influenced. Here we can speak about a transmission from centre towards periphery.
New metallurgical analyses, in combination with a re-evaluation of earlier analyses, have demonstrated a close correspondence between production and distribution of metal and trade and exchange relations as evidenced in other materials, such as amber, and the distribution of prestige goods. The early Unetice phase is characterised by the wide distribution of a homogeneous metal composition from one or a few sources. In the later phases more metal types emerge, corresponding to an expansion of mining and production, especially in the Carpathians and in the Alpine region (Liversage 1994; Krause 1998; Liversage and Northover 1998; Schalk 1998).
Contacts with east central Europe and the Carpathians deepened, especially during the period 1750/1700-1600/1500 BC (Br. A2/B1 corresponding to late MH IIIAB and LH r/IIA). From the Black Sea coast trade networks extended along the Danube into the Carpathians, where highly developed Bronze Age societies emerged during the earlier second millennium BC. Their expansion corresponds to a qualitative and quantitative leap in metal production centred in the Carpathians, beginning around 1750/1700 BC. This represents an indigenous production of metalwork of high standard. A whole series of new weapon and ornament types were introduced - long swords, lances, battle-axes, arm rings, ankle rings, pendants, etc., together with new casting technologies, and a new stable tin alloying, with a slightly lower percentage of tin than in the Unetice Culture (Livers age 1994, 2000). Ornaments and weapons both were heavier and display greater variety and higher technical and artistic skills than in the preceding period, where daggers and axes mostly were small and often quite worn before finally being deposited in the cemeteries. Large-scale metal production of a scale and quality hitherto unknown in central Europe had emerged.
A stratified settlement system with fortified central settlements for production and distribution allowed an organised and widespread distribution of this new metal industry, mainly prestige goods, weapons and ornaments.
Political territories, however, were marked by differences in pottery styles, giving names to local cultures such as Wietenberg, Vatya, Veterov, Ottomani and Madarovce, reflecting political entities generally 100-200 km in diameter (Fig. 45). For convenience we employ the term Ottomani Culture for all of them. These central European societies, which were probably no less organised than mainland Greek societies at the time (palaces and urban settlements only emerging much later on the Greek mainland), established regional exchange networks that linked Scandinavia and the Black Sea coast (Kristiansen 1998a: Fig. 191 ).
This represented the first phase of Baltic amber reaching the east Mediterranean, as well as gold and copper from the Carpathians. Several gold hoards from central settlements, such as Stvrtok and Barca, support such a proposition. Amber beads appear in burials and hoards (e.g. Barca), with types similar to those found, for example, in the A- and B-circles (Matthaus-Schumacher 1985; Mylonas 1972). Later, after 1500 BC, amber was channelled through the expanding Tumulus Culture of southern Germany, which linked Scandinavia and the central Mediterranean from the later sixteenth century onwards, while the Ottomani Culture and its international/interregional network declined (David 1998; Kristiansen 1998a: Fig. 192).
During this period contacts were still maintained with the Wessex Culture and the Armorican Culture, probably with trading stations or meeting places in southern France on the lower Rhone. Here amber and other finds point to a meeting place where goods were unloaded for river and land transport. […]
To support their west Mediterranean trade the Mycenaeans established colonies in Sicily and southern Italy, and probably also in Sardinia (Harding 1990: Fig. 11). The colonies in Sicily and southern Italy, including the Lipari Islands with the famous evidence of writing, were probably established already from the late MH and early LH (Marazzi and Tusa 1979; Marazzi 1997; Tusa 2000).
4.5 Conclusion: some historical long-term trends
When summarising the evidence for the expansion of bronze metallurgy in Europe and its social and economic impact, a certain geographical and chronological regularity can be observed: changes took place simultaneously over vast regions, suggesting that a new situation of interconnectivity and dependency in European history had emerged. This defines the Bronze Age as a world historical epoch that is qualitatively different from both the preceding Neolithic and the following Iron Age (good discussion in Pare 2000; for a global perspective, see Earle 2002). The third millennium BC formed a necessary historical prelude to this new social and economic environment, as it opened up the Eurasian continent by introducing a new extensive pastoral economy. Within a few hundred years, in some places within a few generations, it decimated the forests and created large pastures suited to a new mobile economy with a corresponding new social organisation (Yamna, Corded Ware and Single Grave cultures). […] Bell Beaker cultures and early Unetice Culture represented the first prospectors and metallurgists who travelled and traded their skills (Brodie 2001 ; Price et al. 2004; Heyd in press). By this time Europe and the Near East had entered into a closer relationship.
The third millennium BC was a period of expanding states and urbanism in the Near East, and the concomitant employment of copper and later bronze on a large scale, not least in the agrarian sector. Trade and economy had an eastern focus, including the Indus civilisation. After the crisis in the late third millennium BC interest is increasingly turning towards the north and west for high-value metals such as tin, gold, etc. The old Assyrian caravan trade may be taken to exemplifY the highly organised commercial nature of trade, where not least tin was in high demand. It should therefore come as no surprise that exploration in the western Mediterranean and through to Wessex and central Europe to the tin mines there was initiated around 2000 BC, although it is still difficult to describe the nature of these enterprises. The evidence from trace analysis points to the Mycenaeans as in command of this trade, delivering tin and copper to Crete from the New Palace period onwards.
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The Early Bronze Age societies that evolved after 2000 BC thus inherited their basic social and cosmological order from the Beaker and Battle-Axe cultures of the third millennium BC. Mter 2000 BC the social and economic potential of these Early Bronze Age cultures was released by the introduction of new skills in mining and bronze metallurgy and a corresponding new social and economic complexity. Metal was commodified and socialised, being employed in the sphere of power, prestige and rituals, but also in subsistence (Fig. 38). It allowed new types of value and exchange to emerge, leading to new forms of institutions. In this way bronze embodied both a new economy and a new social/religious order that gradually transformed Eurasia into an interconnected world that speeded up the transmission of people and knowledge across the continent.
5. Symbolic transmission and social transformation in Bronze Age Europe
5.1 The material culture of ruling elites: the Minoan connection (eighteenth to sixteenth centuries BC)
In a study of female ornament and dress in the Carpathians Gisela Schumacher-Matthaus (1985) analysed the different ornament combinations in burials and hoards, and their distribution and chronology. They basically span the same time period as the lily symbol in Minoan/Mycenaean culture. that is from the seventeenth to the fifteenth/fourteenth centuries BC (Reinecke A2-B2/C), 2 In the Carpathians. women occupied important positions in the stratified societies that emerged during this period: some of the richest burials belong to women. Here we find both gold and amber. but. not least, complex dress and hair styles where metal pendants and ornaments were integrated into the dress. forming a distinctive costume (S0rensen 1997b). Pendants of various types, including the heart-shaped ivy flower, were applied to the dress, but could also form part of complex bracelets, or head/hair ornaments, including golden earrings (Figs. 53 and 56). Earrings of the same or related types are also depicted on fresco paintings on Thera, and were recently cited by Stuart Manning in a discussion of chronology and cultural connections to Egypt (Manning 1999: Figs. 18-19). The lavish application of pendants and bracelets all over the body shared by Minoan/Mycenaean and Carpathian women represents a rather specific correspondence not found elsewhere in Europe. But links to the western Mediterranean and beyond are equally significant, both culturally and in terms of chronology (Eogan 1990: Fig. 3). Golden earrings of Carpathian type are also found in the shaft graves. together with central European spiral ornaments of Late Unetice type. once again stressing the role of international trade and communication during this period (Mylonas 1972: Plates 178-80).
In all this. the Carpathian female burials and hoards resemble the Minoan/Mycenaean dress tradition of high-ranking women/priestesses. But the parallelism goes further: in the Carpathians we find richly decorated female clay figures from the same periods. where the costumes are displayed. sometimes in great detail (Fig. S4a).
Although the costume belongs to a distinct Carpathian tradition. we also detect specific Minoan features. such as the opening of the dress to show the breasts. and the complex chessboard pattering of the long skirt (Fig. 54b). Note also that the sun symbol is employed to indicate the mouth and two breasts on the more elaborate clay figurines.
In terms of ritual functions. we can make direct comparisons with the famous Minoan terracotta figurines and the simpler. more common clay figurines employed in rituals. We may assume that the figurines of the Carpathians served similar functions. Their role was probably to take part in miniature performances of important rituals. One such example is the famous clay model from Duplje in Serbia. It shows a chariot drawn by swans. and the clay idol. representing a female goddess. was to be placed in the chariot standing on a wheel figure. representing the sun. Here the role is rather clear: it is the sun-goddess Eos who. according to myth. was riding a chariot drawn by white swans. and who is paralleled in other Indo-European myths. In the Rig-Veda her name is Usha. We will return to this myth and its interpretation in the chapter on Bronze Age cosmology.
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In addition, the characteristic large circular earrings from the wall paintings on Thera are echoed in the golden circular earrings/hair rings from central Europe in the Tufalau hoard (Figure 56). Also. a variety of complex hairstyles were characteristic of both regions. in east central Europe (as in some Minoan frescos) supported with complex ornaments and ponytails hanging from the neck and down the back. both in burials and on figurines (Schumacher-Matthaus 1985). Again we observe that complex female hairstyles in Scandinavian oak coffins and on bronze figurines share both general and specific similarities with Minoan frescos and terracotta figurines. as shown in Figure 57.
Certain highly specific Mycenaean ornaments. such as the mussel-shaped pendant and Mediterranean shells. are also found in burials in Hungary (Bona 1975: Taf. 86-87; Pioy 1985: 307). as well as double spirals and anchor-shaped pendants (Bona 1975: Abb. 22 and plates). Furmanek has further pointed to the similarity between wheel pendants in central Europe and Aegean seals (Furmanek 1997) from the Old Palace period on Crete.
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One may point to the occurrence of several objects in the B-circle at Mycenae with a central European origin, such as a rare wheel-headed pin (Fig. 59). It belongs to a group of wheel-headed pins characteristic of the northern Tumulus Culture, among them a rather similar pin found in a burial in Bohemia. These two pins - from Bohemia and Mycenae - stand out from the rest as being crude and badly executed. They share this similarity against other wheel-headed pins, which suggests a rather personal connection between the two regions, perhaps intermarriage. As pointed out by Kilian-Dirlmeier, sets of similar flint arrowheads for hunting are found in northern tumulus burials in Liineburg and in the shaft graves (Kilian 1995). It adds yet another small but significant detail of international connections and adaptations of elite behaviour and bodily culture.
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Rituals of drinking: cups for cheering
Cups for drinking played a vital role in the social and religious life of the palaces. 'Antonious had just reached for his fine cup to take a draught of wine, and the golden, two-handled beaker was balanced in his hands' (Odyssey Book 22, 10). They represented therefore an arena for craftsmanship and their status made them objects of trade and exchange between trading partners. It is therefore significant that the early distribution of metal cups and their local derivates links Crete to a central European line of exchange from the lower Danube, via the Carpathians to the Baltic and southern Scandinavia (Fig. 60). It covers the period Br. A2 to Br. B/C, corresponding to the Nordic periods I (late) and 11. The development from metal imports to local metal imitations to wooden cups with tin sprags can be traced in some detail (Fig. 62). And so too can the contexts, which are always rich chiefly burials in the north. In two Scandinavian graves the content of wooden cups has been determined as mead (Koch 2003). It is interesting to note that prestigious drinking cups have three centres: Crete/Mycenae, southern Scandinavia and Wessex/Armorica, and widespread similarities existed between the three regions, based upon common prototypes and local imitations.
A well-known imported Minoan Schnabeltasse from Dohnsen, northern Germany, represents the early phase of Minoan cups (Fig. 61 ). It remains unique. While the Dohnsen cup was a genuine import, later forms are rather imitations - or at least we do not know of east Mediterranean prototypes, although a cup from a Montelius period 2 burial in northern Germany could very well be an import, with its prototype in the grave A-circle (burial IV) at Mycenae (Struwe 1983).
However, the dominant type was probably based upon copying of Mycenaean pottery cups (skyphoi), though the the small axe-shaped handle on the metal cup on Figure 62 has a clear counterpart in Minoan pottery. The type materialised as 'shale cups' in Wessex, and as both cast and beaten metal cups in southern Scandinavia (fifteenth-fourteenth centuries BC) (Figure 62).
Locally the form was imitated in wood, but with tin nails to outline the decoration - horizontal bands, sometimes snake-like wavy lines, and star motives at the bottom, the sun symbol. The double axe form inspires the handle. Thus there existed a shared stylistic tradition from Wessex to Scandinavia, despite differences in material and size. The origin is supposedly Mycenaean, but no suitable prototypes can be pointed out. The beaten cups may have been produced in the Carpathians, but this is pure guesswork. We may here have an example of foreign imported prototypes that were not preserved archaeologically in their place of origin, as discussed in chapter 1.4. It lends social and ritual significance to the imported hammered metal cups that the only two known pieces were found in very rich chieftains' graves: one on Bornholm from the Montelius period 2, and one in the unique Kivik burial with other indications of long-distance travels and Mycenaean/Minoan connections, to be discussed below.
Also of some historical significance is the fact that this group of drinking cups demonstrates a close connection between Wessex and southern Scandinavia. This is manifested not only in form, but also in the occurrence of imported raw tin in Jutland, and imported raw amber in Wessex, the primary trade goods of the two regions. This connection could have been direct, along the Frisian coast, or it could have been channelled through southern Germany, as we shall see later. What was circulating inside these networks? From the north came amber. Shaft grave amber was Baltic. And in southern Scandinavia, amber disappeared from burials with the advent of metal shortly after 2000 BC. We have now even documented the context of amber collecting and hoarding during the Middle Bronze Age in Jutland, as an amber hoard has been found inside a chiefly house (Kristiansen 1998c; Bech and Mikkelsen 1999: Fig. 4b). We are thus being reminded that amber was perhaps more important and costly than commonly believed in Bronze Age research. We shall take up this question below, when discussing the unique character of the Nordic Bronze Age, as it unfolds after 1500 BC.
We thus see a long-distance exchange network linking the east Mediterranean and northern Europe at work during the period of the shaft graves and beyond. It transmitted a whole series of prestige goods, only some of which we have discussed here. The drinking cups are not enough to postulate the transmission of a Mediterranean ritual; this has to be qualified by a recurring set of items that define a specific context of meaning. These other aspects of a transmission of institutions in which the drinking cups find their place (chariots, architecture) and their implications for societies in central Europe and beyond will be discussed below.
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Life of the ruler: art, architecture and domestic rituals
There existed in the Early Bronze Age of the Carpathians and east central Europe a settlement tradition of villages, staying at the same place and forming a tell, from the mid to later third millennium BC (Nagyrev, Hatvan, Maros). This in itself does not imply a complex society. On the basis of burial analysis these Early Bronze Age societies have been described as autonomous communities governed by local chieftains without overarching political authority (Shennan 1978; O’Shea 1996). However, during the period Br. A2-Br. B1 (eighteenth to sixteenth centuries BC) most of the tell cultures underwent significant transformations that included both material culture and settlement organization, some of which we have already ddescribed above (for recent summaries, see Andretoiu 1992; Bona 1992; for dating Forenbaher 1993; Bader 1998; Gogaltan 2002). It included a general application of the spiral motif in decoration of pottery and metal forms, new sophisticated metal forms/casting methods, and a new type of settlement hierarchy. It centred around chiefly fortified settlements with metal workshops that functioned as centres of trade and redistribution (many hoards are buried on these sites). The sixteenth century especially was a flourishing period (Br. B1/LH 1) when the products from the metal workshops were spread to both the north and the west, and when many so-called Mycenaean swords bear witness to the expansion of warrior aristocracies, which we shall discuss later. But the tell cultures continue during Br. B2, and into C, especially in the more eastern part not affected by the expansion of the Tumulus Culture.
These basic changes were already outlined in the Istvan Bona’s classic work on the Middle Bronze Age (Bona 1975), where they were linked to the expansion of trade with the Aegean. the evidence for this was developed in a series of works by Vladar (1973 and Vladar and Bartonek 1975), and Bouzek (1985a, 1985b). We shall now reinterpret some of this evidence, with the addition of important new excavations, especially by Bernhard Hansel.
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In the following we suggest distinguishing between an early phase of Minoan influence in the eighteenth-seventeenth centuries, and a slightly later phase with increasing Mycenaean engagement from the seventeenth century BC linked to the shaft graves, which ended shortly after 1500 BC. It was resumed only from the late fourteenth century BC, with the expansion of Mycenaean influence along the Anatolian coast (the Trojan War, Iakovidis 1998) and the appearance of Aegean armour in rich central European burials around 1300 BC. This chronology is based upon a dating of the Thera eruption at 1628 BC, which implies that the the use of heart-shaped and lily-shaped pendants started no later than the seventeenth century BC in the Carpathians.
We suggest that the formation of fortified tell settlements with an acropolis and the concomitant developments in metallurgy and trade had already started under the influence of Middle Minoan culture, that is the Early Palace period. We further suggest that the metalwork of this early phase was decorated with broad-banded curved linear motifs of proto-spiral type, normally linked to the Hajdusamson group of metalwork (swords and axes). they share this decoration with Minoan seals, and from the same source we find wheel-shaped pendants of various types in the early phase of the tell settlements (Sbonias 1999: Fig. 7; also Furmanek 1997: Abb.5).
This represents the transition in time between Late Unetice and Early Middle Bronze Age (Late Reinecke A1 and A2). the period late Br. A2 and Br. B1 represents the classical tell settlements where contact with the east Mediterranean and Scandinavia was continuous and well organised, and when the spiral became the dominant decorative element on select types of material culture.
If we assign meaning to style, it follows also that we have to assign historical significance to the universal adoption in south-east Europe and Scandinavia of the spiral motif from Br. A2 onwards (c.1750 BC onwards). As the spiral was linked to foreign influences and high culture from Minoan Crete, we may assume that it reflected a wish to take on the civilisations’s identity, often demonstrating familiarity with Minoan/Mycenaean prototypes. If that is the case we should expect it to manifest itself in other areas of lifestyle, rituals and architecture.
Since the sensational excavations in Slovakia of the fortified settlements of Barca, Spissky Stvrrtok (Vladar 1973), Nitriansky Hradok-Zamecek (Tocik 1981) and Hradisko Vesele (Tocik 1964), it has been known that the architecture on several of these sites showed imitations of Minoan/Mycenaean architecture and domestic rituals. On the wall plaster, imitations of more complex house building techniques were symbolically added (Fig. 65), and at the site of Pebedim a column with clay capital moulding was found (Bouzek 166: Figs. 19-20).
inside houses altars and libation tables in Minoan/Mycenaean tradition were sometimes found. we may note that the Minoan ritual tradition of libation on to a portable stone with cupmarks, beginning during the Early Palace period or even earlier, was also employed in Scandinavia. The same patterned use of cupmarks in circles can be found here, both on portable stone and on rock art (Fig. 67), hardly accidental when considered in the context of the massive influences that reached Scandinavia from the east Mediterranean during this period
Also, the architecture on the tell settlements reveals similarities with the megaron with central hearth and altar (Fig 66). The use of drystone construction in the building of defence works is another new architectural feature (Jockenhovel 1990), most probably derived from the south-east (Fig 68). The recent excavation of a complex fortified settlement with acropolis at Monkodonja in Istria has exemplified this (Terzan, Mihovilic and Hasel 1999; Mihovilic et al 2002). Its beginning dates back to the eighteenth century and represented an early phase of east Mediterranean colonisation in the Adriatic region. This is demonstrated, among other things, by the importation of animals of east Mediterranean and Carpathian origin (deer and horse), as well as the stone architecture (Fig 68). From here, influences soon penetrated northwards and eastwards, as we shall discuss later. We predict that similar settlements are to be expected in the Black Sea region around the Danube and further south.
We wish to make it clear, however, that we consider that the tell settlements originate from an autonomous tradition, and we wish to stress the strong local and regional traditions. Against this background, the application of foreign symbolic elements in architecture and domestic rituals becomes even more striking. It demonstrates a wish to signal a culture identity in pottery style, house style and architecture for an emerging elite. Even the libation rituals were adapted and brought further north to Scandinavia, which suggests that a complex ritual and cosmological knowledge accompanied these adaptations at the chiefly settlements. But contacts were to some extent reciprocal. No doubt the Mycenaean culture took on many elements from the tell cultures, especially those linked to horse training and chariotry, but local aspects of ornaments, such as earrings, pins and bracelets were also sometimes brought back, as we have seen. In the Mycenaean context they were a testimony of successful long-distance explorations and perhaps even of marriage alliances.
This adaptation in the tell cultures of east central Europe of Minoan/Mycenaean institutions of ritual and religion, and more superficially of architecture, further implies that they were able to transmit them further on. Visitors to the chiefly courts in the northwestern Carpathians during the seventeenth and sixteenth centuries BC would have met a shining world of painted/decorated houses in east Mediterranean imitation, chariots, new weapons and new exotic rituals of drinking and feasting which a visiting northern chief could well employ at home. … The chiefly courts of the tell settlements combined a strong innovative local tradition in pottery and metalwork with exotic cultural traits from the Minoans and Mycenaeans, whom they met regularly at some of the trading points.
[…]
The Aegean impact on the ‘outer world’ is well documented in southern Italy from the time of the Mycenaeans in the form of imported pottery (von Hase 1982; Tusa 2000). from c.1500-1300 BC we have on the Lipari Islands (in the Tyrrhenian Sea) a locally produced pottery with engraved signs of a peculiar type (fig 69), showing that the islanders were in contact with written texts from the Aegean area (Haarmann 1996: 149).
The resemblance to Linear B is weak, but comparing the signs with the non-deciphered Linear A script, some of the Lipari signs show a close similarity. As Holloway (1991: 28) has remarked: ‘It may be debated whether these are distant relations of the so-called “Linear” scripts of the Aegean world: what is sure is that the islanders had come in contact with writing and now used written signs, even if in a limited way.’ Buchholz (1987:247) has pointed out the similarity between the Lipari signs and Hittite hieroglyphs (Fig 70).
Also in the Carpathians, signs reminiscent of script were sometimes employed (Vladar and Bartonek 1977). we may consider these sporadic uses of early signs as reflecting a wish to demonstrate familiarity with and perhaps long-distance travels to the centres of civilization in the east Mediterranean. They represented esoteric, foreign knowledge that could be manipulated locally…. More recently signs of Linear A have been recorded in Bulgaria (Fol and Schmitt 2000), which if accepted would tend to confirm a Minoan presence in the region, as we have already suggested.
A limited and local use of signs coming from abroad can probably be said to be characteristic of the rock art figures from Oppeby in central Sweden as well (Fig. 71a). …
When comparing the signs shown in Figures 69 and 71, we note that many of them are quite similar. The ‘closed’ signs, of quadrangular or rounded shape, and the dots (cupmarks) are present in both cases. Further, the quadrangular frames are divided by lines in different conformations (straight, zigzag, V-shaped, curved) and the frames are sometimes also filled with dots, and the rounded frames show a very simiar variation of infill. this observation is valid for both the Lipari signs and the rock art from Oppeby. … The Oppeby rock art is contemporary with the early Minoan Palace phase, which makes it older than Linear B but more or less contemporary with the Linear A script.
[…]
In Sweden the distant centre of origin for the new external impulses was the maritime chiefdoms on the east coats of southern Sweden (Kristiansen 2002a). In one of these - in Himmelstalund in Ostergotland - we find a series of rich rock carvings of ships, animals and weapons (swords) from the seventeenth to the fifteenth centuries BC. Spiral signs and imported swrods testify to long-distance connections with the outside world in central Europe, but among the carvings, which are very rare in Sweden, we also find the geometric signs of the type previously discussed. It is the Linear A sign for ‘cloth’ with parallels in the east Mediterranean.
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5.2 Horse Breeders and charioteers: from the Carpathians to Sintashta, Mycenae and Hattusha
In Homer’s epic Odyssey, the Kingly Hero Menelaus describes Argos as the place ‘where the horses graze’ (Odyssey,Book 4, 95-100) and Nestor is often referred to as ‘the tamer of horses’ or ‘the Gerenian charioteer’. The breeding of horses was a major elite activity at the palaces to ensure well-trained horses and charioteers for the war-chariots. Archaeology is now in a position to reconstruct the historical background to the role held by chariotry and war-horses in the Iliad and the Odyssey. But where did horses and chariots and the accompanying technological and horse training skills originate in the first place? Was this part of an east Mediterranean/Near Eastern military koine, or did part of this new military package of the early second millennium originate in the steppe region? These questions are part of an old discussion of relations between eastern/northeastern Europe and the Aegean/the Near East. To begin with we shall give an archaeological outline in brief of the problem.
The Bronze Age environments of the steppe region
Our understanding of the relationship between early Mycenaean culture and east central Europe and the steppe region has changed drastically in recent years. this is mainly due to new discoveries and research in three areas. East of the Volga, in the steppe zone of the Trans-Urals, Russian archaeologists have unearthed an impressive Bronze Age culture. Within an area some 400 km north to south and 200 km east to west twenty fortified centres have been documented, mainly by air photography, surrounded by hundreds of unfortified settlements (Zdanovich and Batanina 2002). Extensive excavations by Gening, Zdanovich and their colleagues have taken place at the sites of Arkaim and Sintashta. Burial mounds and cemeteries surround the central settlements, some with rich chariot burials. With the publication of the excavations at Sintashta in the Trans-Urals and its settlement system, we now have evidence of a highly developed warrior society - a complex chiefdom or an archaic state (Gening, Zdanovich and Gening 1992; Zdanovich 2002; Zdanovich and Zdanovich 2002). It was no less developed that its Mycenaean counterparts, with people living in heavily fortified settlements and burying their dead in shaft graves under elaborate tumuli with grave constructions like tholos tombs. (5)
The second area of new research concerns the ecological and economic transformations taking place in the steppe and forest steppe regions. Here new palaeobotanical research and C14 dating of buried soils under barrows have revealed the early formation of grasslands and steppe environments, and their systematic exploitation (Anthony 1998; Shislina 2001 and 2003; Kremenetski 2003). During the third millennium BC the Yamna tribal groups (2700-2350 BC) practised small-scale pastoral herding, moving locally between summer and winter grazing, using four-wheeled vehicles. Rich grasslands and higher humidity than today secured this economic transformation and its widespread geographical adaptation, even into the Balkans and the carpathians and Hungary, but also to the east (Ecsedy 1994; Kuzmina 1994). This was a pinoneering phase of expansion. Wooded areas were still preserved in the river valleys, evidenced in burials and wagons (Shislina 2001: 357ff.). The Catacomb Culture groups (2500-1900 BC) saw the further development of a pastoral economy based on sedentary settlements and long-distance herding and trade. It corresponds to the formation of a more hierarchical society, including metal production with a wide distribution (Gak 2000). Periodical ecological stress caused by overgrazing is evidenced, and some soil destruction. Seasonal migrations and herding now extended across the whole ecological zone (Shislina 2001: 259ff.). Although one can hardly generalise from these analyses in the Kalmyk steppe, they suggest a widespread development when we consider the similarity of the archaeological record through the steppe region. (6) It implies that by the beginning of the second millennium BC a pastoral economy was widespread in the central Eurasian zone (Anthony 1998), having acquired its final ecological boundaries (Demkin and Demkina 2002). The osteological evidence confirms that cattle were dominant (more than 50 per cent), especially big horned cattle, followed by horse and sheep. Pigs only played an insignificant role, as they need forests to roam in (Chernykh, Antipina and Lebedeva 1998: Abb. 10-11; Gayduchenko 2002; Morales Muniz and Antipina 2003: Table 22.3).
What we see is a development from localised herding/pastoralism to true pastoralism with sedentary centres of production that unfolded and reached a climax after 2000 BC, for example in the Sintashta/Andronovo Culture and the Srubnaya/Timber Grave Culture. They further represented a new level of political organisation, led by a warrior aristocracy. Agriculture played a minor but increasing role through time as supplementary production, probably a response to increasing aridisation from 2000 BC onwards (Matveev et al. 2002). For recent discussions on the complex issue of economic organization in the steppe during the early to mid-second millenium BC, see Bunyatyan 2003; Gershkovich 2003; Morales Muniz and Antipina 2003; Otrochschenko 2003; Pashkevich 2003.
The third area of new research is in the field of metallurgy and absolute chronology. Here E.N. Chernykh and his colleagues have carried out a long-term research project, which has made it possible to characterise different metallurgical provinces during the third and second millennia BC (Chernykh and Kuzminykh 1989; Chernykh 1992; Chernykh, Avilova and Orlovskaya 2000). In recent years work has been carried out in collaboration with Spanish colleagues to detail this evidence, especially the ecological impact of large-scale mining in the region (Chernykh, Antipina, Moskau and Lebedeva 1998; Vincent Garcia et al. 1999, 2000, n.d.). The mining area of Kargaly in the Urals produced a huge amount of copper during the Bronze Age (an estimated 150,000 tons), which was distributed to the whole steppe region. Deforestation was an immediate result, but must have been overcome by timber imports from further away, just as huge smelting and production sites in the mountains are packed with cattle bones from meat consumption. It suggests a widespread production and exchange of food and metal, that is a widespread division of labour between steppe societies and mining societies. Recent palaeobotanical research has demonstrated that the area was already completely deforested during the Bronze Age (Diaz-del-Rio et al. 2003). It is thus reasonable to assume that much of the copper was distributed in raw form and later remelted at centres like Sintashta.
At the beginning of the second millenium BC, from around 1800 BC, the Circum-Pontic metallurgical system expanded geographically to include the whole of Eurasia (Chernykh 1992: ch. 7; Chernykh, Avolova and Orlovskay 2002). It was based on the production and distribution from highly stratified centres such as Sintashta, with a ruling warrior elite using two-wheeled chariots and living inside heavily fortified settlements, from where they controlled the region. But it also included a widespread adoption of metallurgical know-how, and the opening of new mines. The Pontic/central Eurasian zone was thus at the beginning of the second millennium in a position to interact with the southern regions in Anatolia, Greece and the Iranian plateau on an equal basis. And there is much to suggest that these highly stratified societies had a surplus not only of metal and horses, but also of warriors.
‘The Country of Towns’: the formation of complex societies in the Trans-Urals and the steppe
We shall now describe the basic social, economic and religious component of the Sintashta Culture, based on the excellent monograph presentation in Gening, Zdanovich and Gening (1992), a useful summary in Zdanovich (2002) and articles in Jones-Bley and Zdanovich (2002). Economically the Sintashta/Arkaim Culture was based upon an integration of farming and animal husbandry. This allowed a complex sedentary society to develop, but situated in the Trans-Urals it was vulnerable to changing ecological conditions, as we shall see. The highly organised, proto-urban settlements demanded the production of an agrarian surplus, while large herds of cattle and sheep were grazing in the grasslands, organised from the many smaller outlying settlements, some of them probably seasonal. In the fortified settlements metalwork was a major concern, as was the production of chariots, and training of horses, warriors and charioteers by the ruling elites. the metallurgical activities demonstrate the importance of mining and metalwork, being under the control of the fortified settlements. From here the latter were able to establish far-reaching lines of trade and exchange towards the south-west, soon followed by conquest migrations.
Conditions of preservation were exceptionally good, so wooden logs from burials and human and animal skeletons have been well preserved. This offers a unique insight into burial rituals and animal sacrifice. the latter was a dominant part of burial ritual, horses being sacrificed and buried. Many burials were plundered in antiquity, but they reveal important aspects of religion and cosmology, just as the demonstrate an elaborate system of rituals. burial rituals and the construction of burial chambers and barrows reveal a hierarchical system, corresponding to a similar social hierarchy. Warrior chiefs were buried with chariots and horses in full horse gear (bits), ready for action in the otherworld. Sometimes only the skulls and hoofs were put down. Horse sacrifice was thus an important ritual activity, and linked to the chiefly or royal strata, something we come back to in a later chapter.
The tumulus burials employed an elaborate architecture based upon the Indo-European cosmology o quadrant, open circle and vaulted dome constructed of mud bricks. The use of mud bricks and the construction of tholos-like vaulted domes suggest a southern origin, as they were ill adapted to the climate in the Trans-urals. Southern links are also suggested by the circular architecture of the forts. Rather explicit similarities are found between Anatolian architecture of the later third millennium BC, here represented by Demircihuyuk (Korfmann 1983), and the wheel-shaped settlements of the Sintashta culture. Demircihuyuk and other similar settlements were abandoned by the late third millennium BC (Korfmann and Kromer 1993), and at the same time the Sintashta Culture appeared
Material culture shows a mix of regional traditions in pottery and larger interregional traits. These are mainly linked to weapons - lances, tanged knives, earrings, and not least horse gear. In this respect Sintashta was part of a shared warrior culture that stretched into the Carpathians, Anatolia and the Aegean. The tanged knives are thus also found in the shaft graves (B-circle), as are the lances (penner 1998: Tafel 60). To the south-east this warrior/chariot complex stretched into the Caucasus, the Iranian plateau and beyond, where it is documented on pottery and in rock art. It can also be documented by the distribution and expansion of the phallic and column-shaped stone sceptres from the early to mid-second millennium BC (Boroffka and Sava 1998: Abb. 32-39).
[…]
The ‘Country of Towns’ culture has been described as ‘a kind of quintessence of the Eurasian steppe world in the early Metal Ages. the ‘Country of Towns’ is not a special archaeological culture. It is a new stage in the development of the Eurasian steppe - a stage connected with the formation of hierarchical societies and proto-state structures (Zdanovich and Zdanovich 2002: 253).
From c.1800 BC this new military structure began to expand beyond its borders towards the south-west and east, apparently owing to changing ecological conditions that gradually undermined the economy. We must envisage this expansion as one of conquest migrations in combination with the gradual movement of groups of warriors and their attached specialists and families. this historical process may account for the formation of new intensive long-distance connections between the Trans-Urals, the western steppe and the danube and the Aegean, to be discussed next. it led to the expansion of the horse/chariot military package.
Mycenae and its northern connections
We shall now readdress the old question of the connections between Mycenae and northeastern Europe from the Carpathians to the Urals. We are mainly basing our interpretations on the world of Sylvia Penner (Penner 1998), David (1997, 2001 and 2002) and Boroffka et al. (2002). We have demonstrated that complex chiefdoms in command of a new military technology, specialists and well-trained horses were extending their social, military and commercial networks towards southeastern Europe, the Aegean and Anatolia during the eighteenth century BC, possibly even earlier. Similar expansions apparently took place to the south-east, into the Near East, northern Iran and later India, which we will not discuss (mallory 1998; Kuzmina 2001 and 2002). This archaeological picture of expanding networks between the steppe, the near East and the east Mediterranean is confirmed by textual evidence.
Whether or not one wishes to agree with Robert Drews about the coming of the Greeks (Drews 1988), he nonetheless points to a series of interrelated historical changes in the Near East during the eighteenth to sixteenth centuries BC. they were linked among other things to the spread and adoption of the Indo-European ‘chariot package’, which demanded both skilled specialists and the importation and training of horses from the steppe. this coincided with disruptions and social changes, including conquest migrations over large areas: the Kassits in Mesopotamia, the Aryans in India, the Hysos in Egypt and a new chiefly dynasty in Mycenae (the B-circle), just as Indo-European-speaking people were emerging in Mitanni texts and other sources from the Levant and Palestine. In all cases we are dealing with rather small groups linked to the ruling elite, being warriors and specialists, sometimes rulers. ‘The new rulers are in most cases a dominant minority, constituting only a tiny fragment of the population. This was especially true of the Aryan rulers in Mitanni and the Aryan and Hurrian princes in the Levant; it seems also true of the Kassites in Babylon and the Hyksos in Egypt. The Aryan speakers who ttok over Northwest India may have gone there en masse but were nontheless a minority in their newly acquired domain (Drews 1988: 63).
One can hardly overlook the interrelatedness of these major historical events, which also had far-reaching implications in central and northern Europe. In the Near East this period is considered by some scholars to be a ‘Dark Age’ (van de Mieroop 2004): 114ff.), just as in India (Fran-Vogt 2001) and Central Asia (Francfort 2001). Here calibrated C14 dates are pushing this transformation back into the period 1700-1500 BC or earlier. we thus find ourselves in general agreement with the historical scenario presented by Drews. In the following we shall present the archaeological evidence for the interrelations between the steppe societies, central Europe and the Aegean during the eighteenth to seventeenth centuries BC, and discuss their historical implications.
The recent works of penner, David, Boroffka and others allow the reconstruction of a series of long-distance exchange networks between the western steppe, the Carpathians, the Aegean and Anatolia. It is characterised by the following components: a specialised package of material culture linked to horses and chariots (especially bits and handles for whips), often in bone or antler; a specialised style fo decoration linked to these objects, which was mostly foreign to the local style traditions. This package is accompanied by new weapon types, especially lances, whose distribution extends into the east Mediterranean, and also by new burial rituals with shaft graves, sometimes covered by elaborate kurgans. The similarities between the burial ritual in Sintashta and the early Mycenaean culture cannot be overlooked. Another characteristic feature is the occurrence of identical pieces between these distant regions. It suggests far-reaching and direct personal connections.
How are we to understand these new networks linking the central Eurasian steppe with east central Europe, the Aegean and Anatolia? From a general historical perspective it represents the formation of the so-called steppe corridor linking the Altai with the Carpathians, and ultimately China with Europe. During the Iron Age and the early historical period it produced several major migrations, such as that of the Cimmerians/Scythians, the Sarmatians, the Huns, etc. Thus, the steppe corridor as an interaction zone between eastern and western Eurasia can now be demonstrated to originate 1000 years earlier, as can the social and political complexity accompanying it (Koryakova 2002). From a specific historical perspective, Sylvia Penner has recently proposed that the archaeological distributions of the early second millennium BC represent a conquest migration in the Aegean, leading to the formation of the shaft grave dynasty. This interpretation is not far from that of Robert Drews. Some evidence would seem to support Penner’s argument, including the osteological determination of the skeletons in the B-circle (Angel 1972), where the male population is characterised as Nordic Caucasian (robust and tall), in some opposition to the female population, which is more Mediterranean. The recently discovered shaft grave of a chiefly male warrior from Aegina from the LMH period belongs in the same groups as the male chieftans of the B-circle, and he had injuries and muscle insertions on the right arm from sword fighting (Manolis and Neroutsos 1997). This evidence may show the intrusion of a new ruling segment fo warriors and charioteers. they employed the specific wavy band decoration from antler, bone and ivory of the chariot complex on several of the grave stelae with horse and chariot motifs in the A- and B- circles at Mycenae (younger 1997). Other evidence, however, points to some continuity between MH [Middle Helladic period] and LH [Late Helladic period], although not in the settlement system (Maran 1995).
What can be inferred with some certainty is the importation of a new horse and chariot package, including steppe horses. This was recently verified by an analysis of the two horse burials of paired horses from Dendra from the late MH period, which showed they were of the larger steppe type (Payne 1990). they were well bred and out of an established breeding tradition. Thus, trade in horses, accompanied by new specialists in chariotry and horse dressage, would seem to be a necessary implication of the evidence. In addition our previous analyses of relations between the east Mediterranean and the Carpathians underpins this picture of well-organised long-distance trade connections and travels of chiefly retinues and specialists.
Concluding hypotheses: As the textual evidence of the Near East and Egypt describes conquest migrations and the influx of specialists, warriors and rulers of Aryan origin, it may seem justified to reassess some earlier interpretations of the shaft grave kings. So far the evidence is not conclusive (or our analyses are not conclusive); we therefore propose a minimal and a maximal hypothesis to inspire further research and discussion.
Hypothesis 1: Evidence: The material culture of chariotry belonged to the ruling elites, from the early Hittite kingdom in Anatolia to the chiefdoms in the Carpathians and the Aegean. it suggests elite interaction between these regions, including warriors and specialists in chariotry and horse dressage. Proposition: we thus propose that the distribution of horse gear during the shaft grave period was a result of trade in horse and craftsmanship linked to their training and breeding. it represents a systematic and institutionalised transmission of chariotry from the steppe region, originating in the highly developed fortified settlements such as Sintashta, which formed an archaic state or cheiedom during the earlier second millennium BC in the Urals. From here they controlled mining operations in the Urals, and the north-south trade to the Black Sea and further on to the shaft grave kings.
Hypothesis 2: Evidence: The material culture of chariotry in the Aegean was accompanied by new burial rituals exemplified by the shaft graves in the B- and A-circles, later followed by tholos tombs, all of which resemble the burial forms in Sintashta and the steppe region. In addition the physical anthropology of the male chiefs in the B-circle showed so-called Caucasian-Nordic traits, in opposition to the women buried there. Settlement evidence further shows a break or reorganisation on the mainland during this period (Maran 1995). Also, new foreign weapon types such as lances with split socket are spread along the same lines of communication, but extend further into the east Mediterranean. Proposition: this additional evidence suggests that we are dealing with a conquest migration in the Aegean penetrating further into the east Mediterranean to Crete (the end of the Old Palace period). from here they joined forces with the Hyksos in Egypt, as originally suggested by Mylonas (1972). We consider hypothesis 1 to be verified, whereas hypothesis 2 is possible but need more in-depth studies. Whatever interpretation one chooses, the effects of these historical processes became far reaching to both the east and the west.
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The Rise of Bronze Age Society, Kristian Kristiansen, 2005
