- Title Pages
- Acknowledgements
- Preface
- Part I A Credo
- Chapter 1 Archaeology
- Chapter 2 Greek Archaeology and Greek History
- Chapter 3 The New Archaeology and the Classical Archaeologist
- Chapter 4 A Paradigm Shift in Classical Archaeology?
- Chapter 5 Separate Tables? A Story of Two Traditions within One Discipline
- Part II The Early Iron Age in Greece
- Chapter 6 Metalwork as Evidence for Immigration in the Late Bronze Age
- Chapter 7 The Coming of the Iron Age in Greece: Europe's Earliest Bronze / Iron Transition
- Chapter 8 The Euboeans in Macedonia: A New Precedent for Westward Expansion?
- Chapter 9 The Rejection of Mycenaean Culture and the Oriental Connection
- Chapter 10 An Historical Homeric Society?
- Part III The Early Polis at Home and Abroad
- Chapter 11 Archaeology and the Rise of the Greek State
- Chapter 12 Heavy Freight in Archaic Greece
- Chapter 13 Interaction by Design: The Greek City State
- Chapter 14 The Economics of Dedication at Greek Sanctuaries
- Chapter 15 Archaeology and the Study of the Greek City
- Chapter 16 The Nature and Standing of the Early Western Colonies
- Part IV The Early Polis at War
- Chapter 17 The Hoplite Reform and History
- Chapter 18 The Historical Significance of Fortification in Archaic Greece
- Chapter 19 The ‘Hoplite Reform’ Revisited
- Part V Early Greek Art
- Chapter 20 Poet and Painter in Eighth-century Greece
- Chapter 21 Narration and Allusion in Archaic Greek Art
- Chapter 22 The Uses of Writing on Early Greek Painted Pottery
- Chapter 23 Pausanias and the Chest of Kypselos
- Part VI Archaeological Survey
- Chapter 24 Survey Archaeology and the Rural Landscape of the Greek City
- Chapter 25 Rural Burial in the World of Cities
- Index
The Coming of the Iron Age in Greece: Europe's Earliest Bronze / Iron Transition
The Coming of the Iron Age in Greece: Europe's Earliest Bronze / Iron Transition
- Chapter:
- (p.126) Chapter 7 The Coming of the Iron Age in Greece: Europe's Earliest Bronze / Iron Transition
- Source:
- Archaeology and the Emergence of Greece
- Author(s):
Anthony Snodgrass
- Publisher:
- Edinburgh University Press
When the evidence is so rich in paradox and complexity, it is hardly surprising that the implications of the transition from Bronze Age to Iron Age have been imperfectly understood. This chapter contains a series of propositions about the nature of the bronze/iron transition in Greece. Ian Morris offers a different explanation for the apparently abrupt switch to the economic use of iron in the Aegean area. Morris proposes what he calls the ‘deposition model’ for the prevalence of iron, in preference to the ‘circulation model’. According to the deposition model, the prime factor which lies behind the temporary but apparently intense recourse to iron during the eleventh and tenth centuries BC was not that bronze and its vital component, tin, were in short supply (‘circulation model’), but that iron had suddenly acquired a new prestige which made it the metal of choice for deposition in graves (‘deposition model’). This counter-argument exemplifies the many correctives which, in prehistoric circles, ‘Post-Processual’ archaeology was just then offering to the work of the Processualists.
Keywords: Greece, bronze, iron, Iron Age, Ian Morris, deposition model, circulation model, archaeology, Bronze Age
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- Title Pages
- Acknowledgements
- Preface
- Part I A Credo
- Chapter 1 Archaeology
- Chapter 2 Greek Archaeology and Greek History
- Chapter 3 The New Archaeology and the Classical Archaeologist
- Chapter 4 A Paradigm Shift in Classical Archaeology?
- Chapter 5 Separate Tables? A Story of Two Traditions within One Discipline
- Part II The Early Iron Age in Greece
- Chapter 6 Metalwork as Evidence for Immigration in the Late Bronze Age
- Chapter 7 The Coming of the Iron Age in Greece: Europe's Earliest Bronze / Iron Transition
- Chapter 8 The Euboeans in Macedonia: A New Precedent for Westward Expansion?
- Chapter 9 The Rejection of Mycenaean Culture and the Oriental Connection
- Chapter 10 An Historical Homeric Society?
- Part III The Early Polis at Home and Abroad
- Chapter 11 Archaeology and the Rise of the Greek State
- Chapter 12 Heavy Freight in Archaic Greece
- Chapter 13 Interaction by Design: The Greek City State
- Chapter 14 The Economics of Dedication at Greek Sanctuaries
- Chapter 15 Archaeology and the Study of the Greek City
- Chapter 16 The Nature and Standing of the Early Western Colonies
- Part IV The Early Polis at War
- Chapter 17 The Hoplite Reform and History
- Chapter 18 The Historical Significance of Fortification in Archaic Greece
- Chapter 19 The ‘Hoplite Reform’ Revisited
- Part V Early Greek Art
- Chapter 20 Poet and Painter in Eighth-century Greece
- Chapter 21 Narration and Allusion in Archaic Greek Art
- Chapter 22 The Uses of Writing on Early Greek Painted Pottery
- Chapter 23 Pausanias and the Chest of Kypselos
- Part VI Archaeological Survey
- Chapter 24 Survey Archaeology and the Rural Landscape of the Greek City
- Chapter 25 Rural Burial in the World of Cities
- Index