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In archaeological research changes in material culture and the evolution of styles are taken as main indicators for socio-cultural transformation. They form the basis for typo-chronological classification and the establishment of phases and periods. Central European Bronze Age material culture reveals both quantitative and qualitative changes during the Bronze Age and represents a perfect case study for analysing phenomena of cultural change and adoption of innovation in societies of prehistoric Europe. Specifically, we focus on the large-scale change of material culture and the emergence of new burial rites in the second millennium BC: the shift from inhumation burials in flat graves to complex mounds and to simple cremation burials. The transition from the Late Neolithic (LN) to the Early Bronze Age (EBA) in Central Europe has long been considered as a linear evolutionary development that led to a growing mastery of the new technology. Paul Reinecke was the first to define the Central European EBA as Bz A1 and Bz A2 – which were seen as states of technical progress. Here, we adopt an innovative approach with the aim to quantify this phenomenon. Through regressive reciprocal averaging and the Bayesian analysis of radiocarbon-dated grave contexts located in Switzerland and Southern Germany, we modelled chronological changes in the material culture and the change of burial rites in these regions in a probabilistic way. For summarizing radiocarbon dates we use Kernel Density models with the aim to visualize cultural changes in the third and second millennium BC. Our study and the interpreation of radiocarbon data demonstrate a clear typological sequence of phases Bz A1, Bz A2 and BzB and disprove the postulated chronological overlap of phases. The linking of the archaeological relative-chronological system with absolute dates is of major importance to understand the temporal dimension of the EBA phases.

EAA2020: Abstract

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