Selective Deposition

The Corded Ware culture (c. 2900-2450 BCE; CWC) was a prehistoric phenomenon encountered throughout Europe, characterized by standardized material culture and burial practices. Recent studies incorporating new scientific methods such as ancient DNA and stable isotopes suggest that this phenomenon was the result of mass migrations from the Pontic Caspian steppe, thus confirming traditional hypotheses regarding the origin and fast spread of this archaeological culture. Moreover, the grand narrative of this period includes a notion of a strict binary gender symbolism and even of a ‘male-dominant’, patriarchal society. Such an interpretation of CW gender is however largely rooted in andro- and ethnocentric, Western assumptions, in which biological sex is equated with gender, and weapons (i.e. the CW ‘battle-axe’) are associated with masculinity. This thesis aims to investigate to which extent the CWC indeed had a notion of binary gender, and to better understand how CW gender was expressed through material culture and its selective deposition in different contexts. A practical methodology with a comparative and multi-contextual approach is developed in order to study CW gender. Two case studies have been selected: the Danish administrative region of Southern Jutland, known for its very typical Single Grave practices, and the state of Bavaria in Germany, which is expected to be a focal point in the mobility of people and the exchange of raw materials. The emphasis is placed on the co-occurrences between different object categories and their ‘embodiment’, and different depositional contexts: the funerary context as well as depositions (i.e. buried objects without a body) and single finds. Strikingly, CW gender appears to have been constructed through an interplay of supra-regional and local burial styles and artefacts. The binary dichotomy seen in the funerary context is more likely the result of normative ideas regarding a supra-regional CW identity and – more idiosyncratic – local identities, although gender clearly played a role in these norms. The prehistoric reality of CW gender may thus have been more locally variable than the grand narrative would suggest.

The present article should be seen as an attempt of presenting several problems the archaeologists are confronted with in studying the depositional phenomenon. The concept of 'selective deposition' is analyzed, being discussed aspects regarding both the content and the context of deposition. The importance of taking a general view on such a complex subject is emphasized, and the attention is drawn to the multitude of factors involved in the creation of a deposit the way it presents itself in the archaeological record. Rezumat: Acest articol reprezintă o încercare de prezentare a câtorva probleme cu care se confruntă arheologii ce studiază problema depozitelor. Conceptul de "depunere selectivă" este analizat, luându-se în discuţie aspecte legate atât de conţinutul depozitelor, cât şi de contextul în care acestea sunt descoperite. Se subliniază importanţa unei priviri de ansamblu asupra acestui fenomen atât de complex, şi se atrage atenţia asupra multitudinii de factori ce au contribuit la crearea unui depozit aşa cum apare acesta în înregistrarea arheologică.

Selective deposition – the intentional deposition of specific objects at particular locations in the landscape without the aim to later retrieve these objects – is a widely studied phenomenon from the Neolithic until the Early Middle Ages in Europe. Apart from the study of the socio-cultural mechanisms and impacts of this practice, the siting of selective depositions in the (paleo)landscape has been studied in many recent publications from north-western and northern Europe.
In the Netherlands particularly the siting of selective depositions in the area of the Bourtanger Moor (a former raised bog landscape) and the adjacent Hondsrug (a subglacially-formed ridge from the Saalian glacial) was investigated meticulously for the Middle Neolithic (Wentink 2006) and the Iron Age (De Vries 2015; 2016). However, a landscape-scale analysis of the siting of selective depositions from the Late Neolithic and Bronze Age had not been conducted yet.
Hence, this thesis research was aimed at identifying spatio-temporal patterns in the siting of selective depositions in the Bourtanger Moor and adjacent Hondsrug from the Late Neolithic and Bronze Age and to examine how these patterns related to the physical and cultural characteristics of the landscape.

To conduct this research selective depositions from a dataset compiled by dr. Marieke Doorenbosch (postdoc at Leiden University) were plotted on national-scale palaeogeographic maps by Vos et al. (2020) and a local-scale palaeogeographic map by Casparie et al. (2008) to assess spatial relations between the selective depositions themselves and between the depositions and palaeogeographic landscape units (i.e. raised bogs, subglacially formed ridges, cover sands, and stream valleys). Different spatial data were considered to be ‘close’ to each other when they were within a 500 m range from each other. This distance was based on the ‘meso-scale’ for landscape context analyses of bog bodies proposed by Chapman et al. (2019) and the landscape-scale formulated by Rundkvist (2015).

Analysis of the patterns in the associations indicates that more selective depositions from the study area are associated with stream valleys and the Runde brook river than would be expected when a normal distribution of all selective depositions across all landscape types would be assumed.
Namely, the total area of the stream valleys on the 1500 BCE palaeogeographic map is much smaller than the total areas of the raised bog, subglacially-formed ridge and coversand landscape units, whilst the order of magnitude of the number of depositions that is associated with each unit is the same. Hence, the number of selective depositions associated with a given landscape unit is not proportional to that unit’s size, which implied that the depositions are not normally distributed across the landscape units.
Thus, it was found that selective depositions were intentionally deposited in or near (ephemeral) waterways within or close to the borders of the Bourtanger Moor from the Late Neolithic until the Late Bronze Age.

In addition, two distinct concentrations of selective depositions were identified. One in the area where a Middle Iron trackway crossed the Runde, the other at the location of a stream valley on the edge of the Hondsrug, where the same trackway entered the Bourtanger Moor just north of the Barger-Oosterveld ‘temple’ was found. Both deposition zones are argued to have been transition zones, as the stream valley and the Runde at the same time divided and connected different physical and socio-cultural domains. Moreover, the association with the same trackway (and potential older precursors), indicates that there was probably also a strong association between bog trackways and selective depositions. Not only were selective depositions found along these trackways, but the trackways also connected different deposition zones to each other. Hence, they probably had a special or ritual character for the inhabitants of the area.

The custom of selectively depositing objects near stream valleys was rooted in the preceding Middle Neolithic (Wentink 2006), continued into the Late Neolithic and Bronze Age (this thesis) and Iron Age (De Vries 2015; 2016). Deposition in or close to the Runde and other brook streams in the Bourtanger Moor had already been noted by Van der Sanden (2004), but was not identified by Wentink (2006), Fontijn (2012), or De Vries (2015; 2016). However, the maps of Iron Age selective depositions by De Vries (2016) seem to indicate that also during the Iron Age deposition took place in or close to the Runde. Deposition close to the bog trackways took place from the Late Neolithic to the Iron Age.
The identified associations between waterways and trackways and selective depositions in the study area are in line wider north-western and northern European traditions of depositing objects in or near (flowing) water. However, the association between waterways within bog and on their borders has not been investigated in other north-western and northern European bog landscapes yet, and thus deserves further attention in future research.

Finally, a new hypothesis is proposed for the preference behind the selective deposition in or near to stream valleys and brook streams in the Bourtanger Moor. It is argued that because of the relatively high morphodynamic activity of the stream valleys and brook streams (compared to e.g. raised bog domes), which induced relatively fast and frequent geomorphological change, these landscape units might have been preferred as locations for selective depositions.
To test this hypothesis, more study into the landscape siting of selective depositions in other north-western and northern European bog landscapes is needed. Such studies should ideally be carried out by applying a ‘best practice’ approach, in which a distinction is made between specific landscape units within bogs, rather than that selective depositions are merely associated with overarching categories such as ‘bog’ or ‘river’. By doing so, potential motivations behind the siting of selective depositions based on differences in temporal landscape change between landscape units can be assessed.

Throughout prehistory, axes played an important role in both ritual and domestic life. In fact, the axe is perhaps the implement par excellence to illustrate the interconnectedness of the two domains. However, by tracing the biographies of flint axes, it is possible to identify a variety in the ways that different blades were caught up in the flow of social life.

This paper draws together evidence from the northern Netherlands to track changes in the character, use and deposition of axes from the Funnelbeaker (TRB) Culture through to the appearance of Bell Beakers and the first metalwork.

Patterning in this evidence demonstrates that axe blades were pivotal in the representation of systems of meaning for well over a thousand years. They were prominent in traditions of selective deposition, traditions that differentiated blades on the basis of their biographies; their form, size, use and origins. Details on the character and chronology of these deposits suggest that these traditions underwent subtle changes with the passage of time.

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This paper deals with Dutch flint axe depositions associated with the Middle Neolithic Funnelbeaker Culture (Trichterbecher Kultur – TRB). Large flint axes were acquired as finished products from southern Scandinavia and were deposited in specific, waterlogged places in the landscape. The application of new empirical research techniques has revealed unexpected patterns of use and treatment of these axes. Moreover, contextual analysis shows significant differences in terms of size and wear patterns compared with axes retrieved from megalithic tombs. The evidence strongly suggests that the observed differences may have been linked to completely different use-lives between the two classes of axes. Drawing on ethnographic analogy, it will be argued that the large flint axes deposited in natural places in the landscape became animated with special powers through the act of production. Given the highly ritualized treatment that accompanied their exchange, they must have played an important role in TRB cosmology.

Keywords: Neolithic; selective deposition; craftsmanship; cosmology; megaliths

Prehistoric traffic geography in the Eastern Ore Mountains

Some new finds on the eastern edge of the Ore Mountains (Germany, Saxony) turn out to be archaeological tracers for using this landscape as a traffic route in Neolithic, Bronze Age and Iron Age. This tradition is documented at the earliest in the Middle Ages with the so called »Kulmer Steig«, an early connection between Bohemia and Saxony. Particular sections of him seems to be used already in premedieval time, shown by distribution patterns of the not numerous archaeological finds in these low mountain range landscape. The mentioned finds are predominantly stone axes. One new find of them is presented here. Another new find is a bronze flanged axe, dated in the transition from the Early to the Middle Bronze Age, in the initial phase of the Burial Mound Culture. This finds as well as the cultural connections between Bohemia and Saxony and the settlement distribution patterns on both sides of the Ore Mountains suggest, that the use of this traffic route began in the early Neolithic und never ends since that time.
The paper is written in German.