Atlantic Bronze Age

The Atlantic Bronze Age is a cultural complex of the Bronze Age period of approximately 1300–700 BC that includes different cultures in Portugal, Andalusia, Galicia, Armorica and the British Isles.

Trade

The Atlantic Bronze Age is marked by economic and cultural exchange, which lead to the high degree of cultural similarity exhibited by the coastal communities from Galicia to Scotland, including the frequent use of stones as chevaux-de-frise, the establishment of cliff castles, or the domestic architecture sometimes characterized by the round houses.^[1] Commercial contacts extend from Denmark to the Mediterranean.^[1] The period was defined by a number of distinct regional centres of metal production, unified by a regular maritime exchange of some of their products. The major centres were southern England and Ireland, north-western France, and north-western Iberia.^[2]

The items related to this culture are frequently found forming hoards, or either they are deposited in ritual areas,^[3][4] usually watery contexts: rivers, lakes and bogs. Among the more noted items belonging to this cultural complex we can count the socketed and double ring bronze axes, sometimes buried forming large hoards in Brittany and Galicia; war gear, as lunate spearheads, V-notched shields, and a variety of bronze swords —among them carp's-tongue ones— usually found deposited in lakes, rivers or rocky outcrops;^[5] and the elites feasting gear: articulated roasting spits, cauldrons, and flesh hooks,^[6][4] found from central Portugal to Scotland.^[1]

The origins of the Celts were attributed to this Age in 2008 by Professor John Koch^[7] and supported by Oxford Professor Emeritus Sir Barry Cunliffe,^[8] who argued for the past development of Celtic as an Atlantic lingua franca, later spreading into mainland Europe,^[4] but this stands in contrast to the more generally accepted view that Celtic origins lie with the Hallstatt culture.

See also

• Atlantic Europe
• Bronze Age Britain
• Bronze Age Europe
• Castro Culture
• Cogotas
• Early history of Ireland
• Haplogroup R1b (Y-DNA) subclade R1b1b2 (R-M269)
• Haplogroup I (Y-DNA) subclade I-M26
• Haplogroup E (Y-DNA) subclade E1b1b1a (formerly E3b1a2)
• Megaliths
• Prehistoric Iberia
• Vasconic substratum theory

References

1. ^ ^{a b c} Cunliffe, Barry (1999). "Atlantic Sea-ways". Revista de Guimarães Especial (I): 93–105. http://www.csarmento.uminho.pt/docs/ndat/rg/RGVE1999_005.pdf. 
2. ^ Europe Before History by Kristian Kristiansen
3. ^ Comendador Rey, Beatriz. "SPACE AND MEMORY AT THE MOUTH OF THE RIVER ULLA (GALICIA, SPAIN)". Conceptualising Space and Place: On the role of agency, memory and identity in the construction of space from the Upper Palaeolithic to the Iron Age in Europe. Archaeopress. http://webs.uvigo.es/beacomendador/index_archivos/2010_UISPP.pdf. Retrieved 26 April 2011. 
4. ^ ^{a b c} Cunliffe, Barry (2008). Europe between the oceans : themes and variations, 9000 BC-AD 1000 (First printed in paperback 2011. ed.). New Haven: Yale University Press. pp. 254-258. ISBN 978-0-300-17086-3. 
5. ^ Quilliec, Bénédicte T. (2007). "Life and death of an Atlantic sword: Reconstruction of the processes of fabrication, use wear and destruction". Complutum 18: 93–107. http://www.ucm.es/BUCM/revistas/ghi/11316993/articulos/CMPL0707110093A.PDF. Retrieved 22 September 2011. 
6. ^ Bowman, Sheridan; Stuart Needham (2007). "THE DUNAVERNEY AND LITTLE THETFORD FLESH-HOOKS: HISTORY, TECHNOLOGY AND THEIR POSITION WITHIN THE LATER BRONZE AGE ATLANTIC ZONE FEASTING COMPLEX". The Antiquaries Journal 87: 53–108. http://www.littlethetford.org/archaeology/Bowman-and-Needham.pdf. Retrieved 22 September 2011. 
7. ^ Koch, John (2009). Tartessian: Celtic from the Southwest at the Dawn of History in Acta Palaeohispanica X Palaeohispanica 9 (2009). Palaeohispanica. pp. 339–351. ISSN 1578-5386. http://ifc.dpz.es/recursos/publicaciones/29/54/26koch.pdf. Retrieved 2010-05-17. 
8. ^ Cunliffe, Barry (2008). A Race Apart: Insularity and Connectivity in Proceedings of the Prehistoric Society 75, 2009, pp. 55–64. The Prehistoric Society. pp. 61. 

External links

• Spaniards search for legendary Tartessos in a marsh
• Divers unearth Bronze Age hoard off the coast of Devon
• Moor Sands finds, including a remarkably well preserved and complete sword which has parallels with material from the Seine basin of northern France
• 3000 year old shipwreck shows European trade was thriving in Bronze Age