EAA2020: Abstract

Establishing a chronological frame for any region, period or set of archaeological finds is imperative for the discussion of their agencies, directionalities and wider networking. Cherry picking single sites or contexts or finds has been a long established means of sampling, understandable, as funding is usually limited, as is access to finds. Nevertheless, the result of half of century of sampling in the Bronze Age Eastern Carpathian Basin is, that to lesser extent issues of chronology have been addressed, while questions of how to employ absolute dates and sampling on a comprehensive scale were neglected. Death Metals II employs radiocarbon dating on Bronze Age funerary contexts with metals in order to discuss lifespans of certain types, highlight directionalities of circulation of ideas and metal objects within the region, but also to and from it. Funerary contexts provide a means by which both, ceramic and metal, relative chronologies might be correlated, and if the organic materials are dated by radiocarbon dates a solid BCE date frame can be established. A comprehensive sampling strategy is developed, and implemented, while both older dates and newly sampled ones are employed. Lastly, such a systematic approach has the potential to shake previously held views on networking and directionalities of movement of metals, but also of their agencies, like warriorhood or womanhood, since metal objects are actively used in negotiating identity and social status.

Bronze Age, Eastern Carpathian Basin, graves, funerary archaeology, relative chronology of metals, radiocarbon chronology

 Abstract (PDF)

Tibor Tamás Daróczi¹