Feeling cut off

Would the 2,000 years old Ironage Melsonby (Yorkshire) hoard (over 800 items) be of interest? 

I found it interesting to learn that they had 4-wheeled carts and decorations demonstrating continental european techniques and red coral embellishments.

Both Durham University and Southampton University have been involved with the ongoing discovery and conservation studies.

www.yorkshiremuseum.org.uk/.../

How amazing that a hoard from one small site can change how we think about Iron Age Britain. I wonder if it’s significance is something other than a high status burial? There is no evidence of a grave or a cremation, yet the placement of the artefacts is similar to grave depositions in Denmark, France and Germany. So what was the significant event that led to this deposit? 

The artefact analysis reports that the burning of wealth as reflected in the hoard, could change how we think about wealth and status in Iron Age Britain. 

https://www.durham.ac.uk/departments/academic/archaeology/melsonby-hoard/artefacts/

I saw a report on the news regarding the find, didn’t know anything about it until seeing the posts here. Don’t really know much about Iron Age Britain. Strangely I’m listening to a fantasy book based on Iron Age Britain. 

I saw a report on the news regarding the find, didn’t know anything about it until seeing the posts here. Don’t really know much about Iron Age Britain. Strangely I’m listening to a fantasy book based on Iron Age Britain. 

I think archaeologists too are trying are trying to work out the culture.

There were some areas of Natufian culture spotted about the Levant prior to the Neolithic, but the period I am interested in 8300 - 4500BCE, generally hasn’t been defined by or named after one particular culture, it is only later that periods were defined by history in that part of the world, ie, Babylonian. The few earliest Neolithic farming settlements and villages share some similarities, but there are enough differences to make each unique. 

The chronology of the Near East doesn’t exactly match that of Northern Europe, so the Iron Age is about 1200 - 586BCE, just before the Babylonian and Persian periods, followed by the Greek and Roman periods. The Sumerian domination of Mesopotamia would have ended roughly around the end of the Iron Age.

Trying to think what cultures this could cover off? Not at all familiar with Neolithic era in the Levantt, I guess it was very tribal? Was the Iron Age before Romans, Greek? 

I am particularly interested in the material culture of Neolithic and Iron Age II Levant. Yes, I know I’ve left out large chunks of time between the two. The Neolithic was a time of early farming settlements in that part of the world and I am interested in how connections may have influenced things like the meaning and function of portable clay anthropomorphic figurines. Sites such as Catalhoyuk in Turkey, pose more questions around the theme of first settler communities than answers, and there are likely sites similar to it elsewhere. The Iron Age period of the Levant was beset by upheaval and changing influences from the expansion of the Assyrians, but clay figurines appeared to be relatively common in the domestic home. 

Thank you! I recognised that webpage as soon as it landed after clicking! I used to browse  all the university webpages on material culture, and I still do from time to time. It seems that material culture as a specialism of archaeology is becoming much more widespread in its own right, probably thanks to the advancement of scientific analysis. 

Do you have a particular interest in archaeology or in a specific area of archaeology? 

Maybe I’m learning a little through listening to the book but not sure what’s made up and what might be real? 
what kind of civilisations does that cover? Are you talking the Sumerians or later like the Persians? Maybe Assyrians or Hittites?

Good overview of archaeological material culture:

www.arch.cam.ac.uk/.../material-culture

What a coincidence! Maybe the hoard will change how you perceive the fantasy of Iron Age Britain. I don’t know much about British Iron Age history either,  but I am very interested in archaeological material culture, especially if it is of an ancient and Near Eastern nature!