Europe In The First Millennium B C

This book is a cohesive overview of Central European prehistory from the introduction of agriculture around 6000 BC to the state-forming processes that began to emerge during the first millennium BC. A complex mosaic of culture, society and processes is mirrored in the material world and in certain periods involves a large part of the Eurasian continent. Culture and change must be understood as both localised and macro-regional: the book is a cultural-historical tale - inspired by, for example, the attempts of French historians to integrate different levels of history. Emphasis is laid on the eventful boom periods where innovations and cross-cultural interaction intensified in such a way that history's mainly reproductive pattern was broken. Important turning points are attached, among other things, to the first production of food, copper- and bronze metallurgy, and the sword as a weapon and symbol. These technical innovations were part of a complicated interaction with social and cultural processes, which in many cases are connected in a pattern that can be followed in time and space.

This volume of 33 papers on the Atlantic region of Western Europe in the first millennium BC reflects a diverse range of theoretical approaches, techniques, and methodologies across current research, and is an opportunity to compare approaches to the first millennium BC from different national and theoretical perspectives.

The first millennium BC is crucial for our understanding of Europe as it emerges from Prehistory. What were the processes that led to the emergence of the states, tribes and ethnic groupings which we encounter in the earliest historical sources? What techniques can we use to study these complex societies for which our main source of information is purely or largely archaeological? What results have the recent upsurge in information and new theoretical approaches produced? In this volume a group of European scholars discuss these and other theoretical and methodological questions, with a number of case studies taken from a wide range of areas and periods, extending from Iberia to Poland, from eastern Europe to Scandinavia.

Biddle Twenty-three wide-ranging contributions on Europe in the first millennium AD. One theme examines the interaction of Roman and native in Gaul, the Rhineland and Britain (6)

The volume celebrates the 75th birthday of Prof. Jan Bouzek, one of the leading specialists in Mediterranean, Black Sea, Anatolian and European archaeology. The chapters, written by leading specialists who are friends and colleagues of the dedicatee, address many of Prof. Bouzek's primary interests: Thrace, the Getae, the Persians in Europe, the impact of the Etruscans on ancient Europe, Black Sea archaeology, Hallstatt Europe, the Celts, the Scythians, the Iron Age in Central Anatolia, jewellery, etc. All chapters are substantial pieces that offer overviews of our present state of knowledge.

How do we understand the systemic interactions that took place in and between different regions of prehistoric Eurasia and their consequences for individuals, groups and regions on both a theoretical and empirical basis? Such interactions helped create economic and cultural spheres that were mutually dependent yet distinct. This volume, emerging from a conference hosted in memory of Professor Andrew Sherratt in Sheffield in April 2008 and in honour of his contributions to large-scale economic history, presents some diverse archaeological responses to this problem. These range from from "world-systems" through "ritual economies" to "textile rivalries" and address the challenge of documenting, explaining and understanding the progressively more interwoven worlds of prehistoric Eurasia.

The first millenium in British history, a period framed by two invasions and conquests from across the Channel, is given a fresh portrayal in this innovative new account. It is the first time that Britain has been studied over the entire first millenium--or what might be called the 'long'first millenium, from the middle of the first century B.C. until the end of the eleventh century A.D.It was a fundamental period for the historical and cultural develpment of Britain. The incomplete nature of the Roman Conquest lies behind the separate development of Ireland and northern Scotland, and perhaps Wales. The events of the fifth and sixth centuries, the so-called Migration Period, led tothe remaking of the linguistic map. The arrival of Christianity was a major unifying event of the period in cultural terms. But it was the Vikings who ultimately brought about the unification of the English kingdom, and aided in the unification of the kingdom of Scotland, the two most significantpolitical developments of the latter part of the period, while the Norman Conquest inextricably tied subsequent medieval English monarchs into the politics of France.