Bronze Sickles

The term “terramare sickles” was introduced in 1971 by Amália Mozsolics for those sickles where the angle between the tang and blade is obtuse. She also compared the sickles from the Carpathian Basin that have more than two ribs on the tang to the Italian sickles, later pointing out that difference. Concern about the appropriateness of the term has already been expressed by Margarita Primas. Because of the characteristic saddle-shaped transition between the outer tang rib and dorsal rib the term saddle-shaped tanged sickles is instead proposed. This paper presents the typology, chronology, and distribution of saddle-shaped tanged sickles.
The typology is based on the form of the sickle, the number and direction of the tang ribs and blade ribs, the presence or absence of a hole in the tang, and the position of the casting point. So far only one saddle-shaped sickle with five tang ribs is known. Sickles with four tang ribs are less numerous as well. The most numerous are the groups with three and two tang ribs and the group with two ribs on the tang and a hole in it.
The first saddle-shaped tanged sickles appear in the middle Bronze Age (BA C2). They most frequently are from the earlier phase of the Urnfield period (Ha A1), while in the later phase (Ha B1) they represent an exception.
Saddle-shaped tanged sickles with three tang ribs are widespread throughout the Carpathian Basin with a concentration in its eastern section. Those with two ribs on the tang are widespread in its western part, in Slovenia and northeastern Italy, while sickles with two ribs on the tang and a hole in it are found mostly in northeastern Italy. On this basis, it is concluded that term terramare sickles would be proper only for the latter.

Keywords: Bronze Age, Urnfield period, Italy, Western Balcans, Carpathian Basin, terramare, sickles, typology, chronology, distribution

This study centers on the hand signs of the South Scandinavian Bronze Age and examines the multivocal nature of the iconography on a wider scale, in order to reach a better understanding of the symbol in question. Through an analysis of the 25 known hand stones, it aims to isolate a potential denotative meaning connected to the motif, which is subsequently tried on existing interpretations of its symbolism. The ambition of this approach is to uncover a basic structural logic between the proposed denotative meaning and potential connotative ones, which ultimately may aid in deducing the intent behind the placement of hand signs on stone slabs associated with graves. Finally, the hand motifs on the rear side of spectacle fibulae are included in the discussion and compared with their counterparts on slabs. This is done in an attempt to determine to what extent the two phenomena are related, if at all. In conclusion, this work seeks out to identify a pattern between potential meanings linked with the hand sign and, consequently, an underlying logic, through which a greater understanding of the symbol might be reached.

Rhetoric and Redundancy: Aspects of Hoard Deposition at the End of the Bronze Age
The article was inspired by ideas published by Stéphane Verger and Christoph Huth on Bronze Age hoard
deposition practices. The analysis concentrates on hoards with male panoply and metal stock, mainly dating
to the end of the Bronze Age (c. 11th-9th centuries BC). After establishing the frequent occurrence of this
kind of hoard composition, the author draws attention to the fact that the metal items belonging to the
metal stock, for example sickles and socketed axes, are often carelessly made or defective. In some cases,
artefacts and ingots are made of unsuitable or unusable metals or alloys. In the discussion, the author draws
on the work of Arjun Appadurai, who developed convincing arguments concerning the rhetorical and political use of particular artefacts in certain kinds of high-status consumption.

"In un articolo pubblicato nel 2009, Drago Svoljšak afferma che il ripostiglio di falci in bronzo di Grgar, scoperto nel 1889, non si trovava nella cava Kogoj (Kogojev kamnolom), in località Podklanc, come creduto fino ad allora in base a notizie risalenti agli anni subito dopo la scoperta e a ricerche topografiche effettuate nel 1972 o nel 1973 da Ugo Furlani. A dir suo, il ritrovamento sarebbe stato fatto dallo scalpellino Janez Kogoj sul maggese “v Renku”, situato sul pendio dell’insediamento fortificato dell’età del ferro di Grašišče, come riferito a Svoljšak nel 2008 da Štefka Pavlin, nipote del presunto rinvenitore.
Fonti scritte dell’anno 1890, tra cui una lettera non pubblicata dell’allora direttore del Museo provinciale di Gorizia, Enrico Maionica, al quale nello stesso anno furono consegnate 16 falci dal ripostiglio di Grgar, una nota in una rivista specialistica di Vienna e due cenni finora sconosciuti, apparsi su due giornali goriziani, provano invece che il ripostiglio delle 17 falci di bronzo era stato trovato già nel 1888 da uno scalpellino di Grgar, Andrej Miljavec, nella cava Kogoj sopra la strada che da Grgar conduce a Fobca.
"

In 2015 a hoard consisting of three objects was discovered in the cadastral area of Staré Město u Moravské Třebové (Svitavy District, Pardubice Region, Czech Republic). A Gamów-Práčov type fibula, a knife and a sickle help date the hoard to the Final Bronze Age, to the Boskovice horizon. Analogous to other Final Bronze Age hoards from this region, also this hoard was hidden on a prominent landscape feature.

The hoard was discovered in 2010 on the southern slope of the hill of Gradišče. It is composed of two tanged sickles. Comparable sickles are found almost exclusively in Ha B1 hoards. The sites where most of these hoards were discovered are widespread in the area between northeastern Italy and the Danube.
The article also presents the typology, chronology, and distribution of tanged sickles with two ribs on the unperforated tang, where the inner rib fluidly passes into the blade rib and the outer rib into the dorsal rib.

A total of 42 bronze sickle blades dating from the Middle Bronze Age-B (c. 1500-1000 cal. BC) to the Early Iron Age (c. 800-600 cal. BC) are known from the Netherlands, yet these have never been studied or published in full. In this contribution, we aim to determine the significance of Bronze Age sickles in both practical and symbolic terms. Did communities in later prehistory perceive sickles solely as functional tools for agricultural tasks such as reaping, pruning, coppicing or weeding, or did sickles obtain a particular symbolic significance that rendered them suitable for votive depositions in hoards, graves and settlements? To answer this question, first a status quaestionis of European Bronze Age sickle research is presented and the terminology and typology applied are explained. Following this, the Dutch corpus of
sickles with tangs, knobs (Groups 1-2), elongated knobs (Group 3) and peg holes (Group 4) is described, with particular attention to their dating, use-histories and the context of their deposition. Moreover, analysis of their alloy compositions was deployed to classify sickles of dubious “Dutch” provenance. For all proposed groups of sickles, their supra-regional affinities are discussed. From such supra-regional affinities it can be shown that communities in the Dutch later Bronze
Age were integrated into Nordic as well as Central European exchange networks. In addition to this supra-regional integration, distinctly regional types of bronze sickle can be identified as well.

There has recently been an increase in metal finds even from regions where has been a lack of archaeological finds. These are mainly Bronze Age items. This is the case with five artefacts (three axes or parts of axes, a sicle and the point of a spear) from the district of Ústí nad Orlicí and Chrudim (Pardubice region, Czech republic). These unique finds have potential in the future to help us understand how Bronze Age people behaved.

Under a working title, the author deals with Bronze Age sickles typified by a Y- shaped central rib on the handle.
The basic variant, variant a, has three handle ribs. The central rib splits into the form of the letter Y at the knob; one leg fuses with the back rib, another with the inner rib, which passes in an arc into a more or less pronounced blade rib (fig. 1: a).
Sickles of variant a were casted in two ways; in the first, the casting point is at the knob, and in the second on the back rib.
They were mainly in use in the second Urnfield period, and individual specimens in the third.
They are spreaded in Transdanubia, eastern Slovenia, Croatian Zagorje, Međimurje, Slavonia, Srem, south-western Bosnia and northern Serbia. Somewhat further removed are examples from Burgenland and Lower Austria, and a sickle from Romania is very distant (fig. 4).
A further 22 sickles, which differ in details from variant a, and are divided into a further 14 variants - presented in the appendix (fig. 1: b-o)

Keywords: Carpathian Basin, Late Bronze Age, tanged sickles, Y-motiv, typology, chronology, distribution

Prehistoric hoards—containing items such as precious metals, tools, ornaments, and weapons—have long fascinated archaeologists and the general public alike. The practice of intentional wealth deposition in hoards was particularly prolific during the European Bronze Age; however, the motivations behind this practice remain unclear. Comparisons of the contents of hoards through space and time can yield valuable data regarding the purpose and process of deposition, but one of the most common items found in Bronze Age hoards—bronze sickles—remains understudied. In order to generate a standardized approach to the comparative analysis of prehistoric sickles in a variety of contexts, I propose a protocol for measuring indications of use-wear, based on the results of experimental trials. Four bronze sickles were cast, hafted, and used in harvesting vegetation. After two harvesting trials, microscopic images were taken of the back and front of each cutting edge; use-wear maps were created identifying bluntness, abrasion, striations, and blade deformation. Similar use-wear maps were created for seven prehistoric bronze sickles in the collections of the Field Museum of Natural History, the Logan Museum of Anthropology, and the Milwaukee Public Museum. The data generated by comparing wear patterns on the experimental sickles with the working edges of the prehistoric sickles suggest that indications of use can be identified through specific patterns of abrasion and bluntness along a sickle’s cutting edge. These sickle-specific use-wear patterns and the process of producing and using the experimental sickles are described in detail to serve as a foundation for further systematic analysis of prehistoric bronze sickles and their depositional contexts.

The article discusses three bronze left-handed sickles and a sword that were found in the Ljubljanica River. The sickles can be distinguished typologically according to the transition from tang to blade, the width of the blade, and the cross-section of the blade. Good analogies can be found in the settlement finds in the Po valley and in Hungarian hoard from the middle Bronze Age. A mould from Italy indicates the origin of production of left-handed sickles.
The sword belongs to the short swords of the Sauerbrunn type.

Keywords: Slovenia, Ljubljanica River, Northern Italy, middle Bronze Age, river finds, sickles, moulds, Sauerbrunn type swords

Over the recent years, several new Bronze Age metal artefacts have been recovered from the Choceň region, including at least one hoard disturbed by ploughing. The archaeological finds made in this region convincingly prove that the vinicity of the town of Choceň was a standard settlement trgion during the Late and Final Bronze Age.

This paper provides new radiocarbon dates for preserved remains of broomcorn millet discovered in Bronze Age occupation layers at the Guamsky Grot rock shelter in the northwestern Caucasus. The millet grains directly date between the 12th–10th centuries BC, which complements dates obtained on wood and bone samples from the same layer. The pottery assemblage retrieved from layer 4/5 in Guamsky Grot where the millet was found has stylistic similarities with the Kobyakovo and proto-Maeotian cultures. Concentration of carbonized unhusked millet seeds in a fireplace together with fragments of flat calcined stones implies the seeds drying in the course of which the grains accidentally burned down. All Late Bronze Age sites in the West Caucasus where millet has been discovered represent kindred cultural traditions originating from the proto-Colchis, the Ochamchiri and the Dolmen cultures. Taking into account the finds of broomcorn millet in the Kobyakovo layer at the Safyanovo site (the Lower Don area), it may be suggested that the millet growing tradition north of the West Caucasus, probably , spread together with the West-Caucasian 'Kobyakovo' population, which were sedentary and established settlements in the Steppe: first in the Kuban River Region and then further northward – in the Lower Don River Region. It is precisely the region where the harvesting bronze sickles of the Kuban group came in to use in the second half of the second mill. BC.

Abstract: The article presents ten previously unpublished bronze sickles, which were found in the river Ljubljanica in recent decades. Six of the sickles come with a more precise findspot. All belong to the group of right-handed tanged sickles. Their state of preservations differs, from complete examples to fragments, whereby four sickles are preserved to the level that enables typological determination. The number of the ribs on the tang, their shape and course as well as the shape of the tang-to-blade transition constitutes criteria for distinguishing four variants. Best analogies are to be found in the hoard finds from the western Pannonian Basin, western Balkans and the south-eastern Alps, which date to the early part of the Urnfield Culture period, mostly Ha A1.

Keywords: Slovenia, Ljubljansko barje, Ljubljanica River,  Late Bronze Age, water finds, tanged sickles, typology, chronology, distribution

This paper provides new radiocarbon dates for preserved remains of broomcorn millet discovered in Bronze Age occupation layers at the Guamsky Grot rock shelter in the northwestern Caucasus. The millet grains directly date between the 12th–10th centuries BC, which complements dates obtained on wood and bone samples from the same layer. The pottery assemblage retrieved from layer 4/5 in Guamsky Grot where the millet was found has stylistic similarities with the Kobyakovo and proto-Maeotian cultures. Concentration of carbonized unhusked millet seeds in a fireplace together with fragments of flat calcined stones implies the seeds drying in the course of which the grains accidentally burned down. All Late Bronze Age sites in the West Caucasus where millet has been discovered represent kindred cultural traditions originating from the proto-Colchis, the Ochamchiri and the Dolmen cultures. Taking into account the finds of broomcorn millet in the Kobyakovo layer at the Safyanovo site (the Lower Don area), it may be suggested that the millet growing tradition north of the West Caucasus, probably , spread together with the West-Caucasian 'Kobyakovo' population, which were sedentary and established settlements in the Steppe: first in the Kuban River Region and then further northward – in the Lower Don River Region. It is precisely the region where the harvesting bronze sickles of the Kuban group came in to use in the second half of the second mill. BC.