B009 – Bell Beaker Culture Pottery Sherd (British Find)

Description

The Bell Beaker culture (or, in short, Beaker culture) is an archaeological culture named after the inverted-bell beaker drinking vessel used at the very beginning of the European Bronze Age. Arising from around 2800 BC, it lasted in Britain until as late as 1800 BC but in continental Europe only until 2300 BC, when it was succeeded by the Unetice culture. The culture was widely dispersed throughout Western Europe, from various regions in Iberia and spots facing northern Africa to the Danubian plains, the islands of Great Britain and Ireland, and also the islands of Sicily and Sardinia.

An example of Bell Beaker Culture Pottery, This is a relatively good sized pottery sherd.

Provenance: Found Close to the River Ter Valley, Essex, England

Age: c. 2800–1800 BC

Period : Chalcolithic Europe – Bronze Age Europe

Size: L: 3.9 cm / W: 2.9 cm

Weight: 4g


Bronze Age

The Bronze Age is a prehistoric period that was characterised by the use of bronze, in some areas proto-writing, and other early features of urban civilisation. The Bronze Age is the second principal period of the three-age Stone-Bronze-Iron system, as proposed in modern times by Christian Jürgensen Thomsen, for classifying and studying ancient societies.

An ancient civilisation is defined to be in the Bronze Age either by producing bronze by smelting its own copper and alloying with tin, arsenic, or other metals, or by trading for bronze from production areas elsewhere. Bronze is harder and more durable than other metals available at the time, allowing Bronze Age civilisation’s to gain a technological advantage.

Chalcolithic Europe

The Chalcolithic (also Aeneolithic, Copper Age) period of Prehistoric Europe, lasted roughly from 3500 to 1700 BC.

It was a period of Megalithic culture, the appearance of the first significant economic stratification, and probably the earliest presence of Indo-European speakers.

The economy of the Chalcolithic, even in the regions where copper was not yet used, was no longer that of peasant communities and tribes: some materials began to be produced in specific locations and distributed to wide regions. Mining of metal and stone was particularly developed in some areas, along with the processing of those materials into valuable goods.



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