Mesetan Longhouse

This North Mesetan longhouse appears to have been built (possibly) first by Beakers using Ciempozuelos.  This is followed by a long period in the Bronze Age with pottery sherds of Protocogotas, which is one of the many derivatives of beaker-styled pottery, in this case probably with influences of the Argaric Bronze Age in the Southeast of the Peninsula.

The authors discuss this longhouse with surrounding structures, which were pits of some sort, and they invite further research to see if these differing structures were contemporary.  I believe the question of similar, richly-filled pits is gaining attention elsewhere, if I understand correctly (more below).


The authors here question the notion that these surrounding pits were for refuse or burial, even though the material is conglomerated, silty garbage-looking stuff, like orphan pottery fragments.  I believe this might be similar to a subject Blanco-Gonzales tackled in a paper earlier in 2014 [here], concerning the Central Meseta.  This again being what looked like burial cairns or trash pits, but for one, lack a body and two appear to have been re-used.  I speculated then that these might be silages, since winter haying does not appear to have existed before medieval times.

The issue of orphan pottery fragments in silages is something I speculated on [here], being that the farmer may have used pulverized pottery as supplements, which sounds crazy but has a practical value.  (Modern cattle are given licks.  Still they will eat rocks, presumably for minerals)  Whatever this main building was (i.e. tavern, house), it certainly had livestock there as well.

As a side note, I posted a study discussing the provenance of some of earlier bell beaker pottery near this area in Arlanzón [here].  This was done using chemical analysis and the authors concluded that some of the Bell Beaker pottery appears to have come from a potterhouse on the Guadiana in Southern Portugal or Spain.

MARTÍN, LUIS VILLANUEVA, EDUARDO CARMONA BALLESTERO, MIGUEL ÁNGEL ARNAIZ ALONSO, and MARÍA EUGENIA DELGADO ARCEO. "La articulación del espacio en el “campo de hoyos” de Manantial de Peñuelas (Celada del Camino, Burgos)." June, 2014 [Link]

Re-evaluating Beaker garbage

Blanco-Gonzalez continues to chip away at some of the older, prejudicial notions of Beaker life.  His new chapter kind of dovetails on a previous paper, the very first commented on by the new Beakerblog.

Rajasthani cattle (Marcin Białek)

The most intriguing part of his work is how he is re-interpreting orphan pottery fragments from fills in the Spanish Meseta to come to a more logical understanding of sites previously understood as habitations, burials and festival trash pits.  Apparently, there is a preponderance of orphan fragments weathered on one side (El Ventorro among others) indicating they were exposed by the elements for a period of time before being filled into a non-occupied structure (presumably).

Typical orphan from Los Tiesos. <1" (Evocative monuments, Blanco, 2014)

I speculated in the very first Beakerblog post that the shear volume of orphan fragments could be coming from cow poop, it being a plausible explanation for the many tiny, broken and orphaned fragments.  There is no doubt that Beakers, being agriculturalists, collected cow manure.  They may have used it for fertilizer, pig feed or for accelerating compost or silage.

If Beakers were anything like the American wildlife that throw their beer cans in their front yard, chances are Beakers had heaps of garbage scattered about or in the barnyard. 


Not picking on India here, but this Youtube clip exposes a common sight through most of Asia, Africa and the Middle East.  Understand also, they're not just picking through the garbage, they are actually eating inorganic materials such as plastic bags and metals. 


You may ask, 'why the heck would a cow eat rusty nails, rocks, glass or pottery?'
A lot of it has to do with the mineral requirements of cattle.  Modern ranchers supplement cows with licks, however range cattle or cattle in developing countries will either eat rocks or hang out at the local dumpster.  There's only 50,000 of these videos on youtube.  Half of these cows end up at McDonald's.  If this bothers you, don't google what pigs or chickens eat!

So while it may be a gross question, I have to ask.  What would we find in a manure heap in some of the cattle communities above?

These guys looked at the chemical content of Ciempozuelos Beaker pottery.  Meseta pottery seems to have had respectable levels of Fe (Iron), Na (Sodium), Mg (Magnesium) along with other trace elements, notably selenium and copper (important for cattle).  While I've added my own twist to this, and I'll admit I don't have first-hand experience with the evidence.  I do think, however, that Blanco-Gonzalez is heading in the right direction.  He is challenging the cartoonish notions of Beaker life and re-evaluating old sites more carefully.

 


Domestic chores or community feasts? A taphonomic and re-fitting
approach to the Chalcolithic ceramics from El Ventorro (Madrid, Spain) (2014)

Abstract: 
The understanding of how cultural remains entered the archaeological record has been a neglected topic in the research on later prehistory in Iberia, even though its discussion should be addressed in advance of any functional or spatial account. This paper presents an analytical protocol designed to characterize the patterns of breakage, abrasion and representation of prehistoric pottery. A taphonomic and re-itting operation has been carried out with the selected ceramic assemblage retrieved in 1981 from an unusual residue-rich context: the so-called ‘pit-hut 013’ and its annexed
pits at El Ventorro. This has allowed to test divergent hypotheses about its formation processes and meaning. This sunken feature has been interpreted either as a pithouse illed with domestic remains in primary context or as a gully quickly illed with bulky refuse as a result of repeated collective celebrations. The results are inconclusive, but allow to reject the idea of being dealing with fossilized occupation soils representative of house-loors and domestic activities. All lines of evidence point to this feature actually being a ditch segment illed with a very partial and cumulative aggregate of freshly discarded remains mixed with secondary residues exhibiting great variability in their temporalities and depositional histories.

[link]

Chemical Analysis of Beaker ceramics ("Campaniforme") from Northern Spain

Bell Beaker pottery (Campaniforme) appear in the Middle Chalcolithic Meseta (in Northern Spanish plateau) and very gradually replace the older pottery styles.  Ballestero, Diaz and Alonzo argue for a methodology of chemical analysis, which is really the main focus of the paper.

Chemical analysis has previously and very convincingly demonstrated that burial beaker cups were used for drinking wheat and barley beers, mead, possibly milk and less frequently, medicinal substances.  The authors argue that knowing the origin of the clay is critical to understanding alien pottery in a region.

Here, chemical analysis was used to determine that roughly 10% of the Late Chalcolithic (Beaker) pottery in the Arlanzon area came from out-of-town.  Pottery that came from outside the region was almost exclusively International Style Beakers.  A substantial portion of that they link to a known pottery studio on the Guadiana River (Southern Portugal).

Arlanzon River Valley pottery (Ballestero et al, 2014)

Of course, 90% of the Arlanzon pottery in the Late Chalcolithic was locally made which the authors leave as a discussion topic for others:  At what point did the Arlanzon region begin producing locally made 'alien beaker pottery' or did the alien potters slowly migrate to Arlanzon?

Chemical analysis of chalcolithic pottery from Arlanzón river middle basin (Burgos): a way to examine the origin and exchange (Ballestero, Diaz, Alonzo, 2014)

The study is aimed on pottery that it is recovered in Chalcolithic contexts from Arlanzón River Middle Basin. Within these sets of pottery there are similarities and differences —morpho-typological and technical—, which it is necessary to study in order to understand its significance in archaeological terms. To doing so, we need to use a different method than typology. In fact, we used chemical analysis of ceramic as a way to obtain less subjective observations. The results allow discussing about origin and exchange of Chalcolithic pottery in this zone of the Spanish North Plateau. Data show a mainly local origin of ceramics with some exchanged artifacts. In archaeological terms, the pattern may be related to a domestic model of production.

[link]