Analysis of information sources in references of the Wikipedia article "Nordic Bronze Age" in English language version.
The northern Bronze Age may be said to begin shortly after 2000 BC with the introduction and use of simple bronze tools, especially axes. At the same time, huge longhouses for large (chiefly) households emerged. With the more systematic adoption of metalworking bronze technology after 1750 BC, a diversified use of new tools, weapons, and ornaments made of bronze appeared, together with a new warrior elite.
iron technology was practiced in the Nordic region from at least the ninth century BC (Hjärthner-Holdar 1993; Serning 1984)
From ca. 2300 to 1700 BC a new historical period of cultural integration prevailed in south Scandinavia. ... Large chiefly houses similar to those found in the Unetice Culture appears in south Scandinavia, and speaks of a radical reorganization of economy and social organization ... After 1500 BC a rapid internal social and cultural change transformed Scandinavia into a fully developed Bronze Age society with its own distinct Nordic cultural style. ... Chiefly halls were 8 to 10 meters wide and length could be from 30 to 50 meters.
Chariots are evidenced in Scandinavia almost exclusively in the form of rock art, represented as of period I to V/VI. The oldest representations, most likely dating already to ca. 1700 BCE, are found at the site of Simrishamn in southeast Scania. ... This very early date indicates that the Nordic chariot should not be interpreted as embodying Mycenaean influence, but instead traced back to chariots of the Eurasian steppe that arrived via the Carpathian Basin and central Europe. This concurs with the observation of H. Vandkilde (2014) that around 1700 BCE the first Carpathian influences are tangible in the north in the form of socketed lanceheads. Vandkilde traces the lanceheads to the Seima-Turbino complex, which likely played a role during the spread of the chariot to China in ca. 1600 BCE. ... Tracing the Scandinavian chariot back to the Mycenaean chariot, often favoured in older literature, must be dismissed in view of the present state of discussions on chronology, for the oldest Scandinavian chariots probably are 100 years older than those of Mycenae, or at least of the same age.
In the Carpathian Basin the spread of rod- or disc-shaped cheekpieces since ca. 2000 BCE could be proposed as an indication of the existence of the chariot.
... in light of their long experience dealing with horses and building earlier types of wheeled vehicles, the societies of the zone between the Carpathian Basin and the Ural may have played a key role in initiating a "quantum leap" in chariot technology as they possessed the capability to invent the spoked wheel and develop new forms of bridle-harnessing that allowed the horse to be employed as a draught animal, and were also in a position to transfer these innovations to the Near East ... recent research on the earliest phase of light chariots in Greece [suggests] the simultaneous appropriation of at least two different systems of bone or antler horse-bridle cheekpieces. The first, characterized by disc-shaped cheekpieces and represented by the four well-known examples from Shaft Grave IV of Mycenae, predominated in the vast area between the Southern Ural and the Lower Danube ... The second system of rod-shaped cheekpieces was typical of the Carpatho-Danubian zone" (p.512) "David Anthony recently reiterated the case for the light chariot's origins in the zone between the Southern Ural and Central Kazakhstan and its military function. To me it seems that Anthony is probably right in his geographical attribution of the development of key elements of the light chariot, though I would extend it to include the entire zone between the Carpathian Basin and the Southern Ural. (p.519)
Geographically, the closest parallels to the disk toggles from Shaft Grave IV derive from the area of the lower Danube … That all identifiable components of Shaft Grave–period horse harnesses can be linked to regions to the north or northeast of Greece corroborates Penner's conclusion that the two-wheeled chariot did not first reach Greece from the Near East.
The Early Bronze Age societies that evolved after 2000 BC thus inherited their basic social and cosmological order from the Beaker and Battle-Axe cultures of the third millennium BC.
In the Nordic Bronze Age of period 2 one finds more east Mediterranean and Mycenaean influences in metalwork, prestige goods and cosmology than in any other region in Europe.
Qualitatively the artistic and technical expressions [of the Nordic Bronze Age] are above anything in Europe except Minoan/Mycenaean culture; quantitatively there is no region in Europe with such an accumulation of high-quality weapons and ornaments during the period 1500–1000 BC, and that includes the Minoan/Mycenaean culture.
engraved seal images of vehicles with four-spoked wheels, pulled by equids (?) controlled with lip- or nose-rings from Karum Kanesh II, 1900 BCE.
Some evidence would seem to support Penner's argument, including the osteological determination of the skeletons in the B-circle (Angel 1972), where the male population is characterised as Nordic Caucasian (robust and tall), in some opposition to the female population, which is more Mediterranean. (…) More recently this problem has been critically analysed by Day (2001), within a broad comparative framework of Indo-European osteological data. Even here, the shaft grave osteological material shows connections to the steppe of eastern Europe/Romania.
The earliest known spoked wheel models from the Carpathian Basin are dated to the twentieth to nineteenth centuries BC (Mengyán et al. 2023).
Focusing on horse-tack, Maran (2020) and Makarowicz et al. (2023) have argued that chariots emerged at the same time in the Carpathian Basin as in the Sintashta-Petrovka cultural complex. Notably, the rod-shaped cheekpieces common to the Carpathian Basin are distinct from the disc-shaped early varieties of the Eurasian steppe, indicating coeval but distinct traditions.
The northern Bronze Age may be said to begin shortly after 2000 BC with the introduction and use of simple bronze tools, especially axes. At the same time, huge longhouses for large (chiefly) households emerged. With the more systematic adoption of metalworking bronze technology after 1750 BC, a diversified use of new tools, weapons, and ornaments made of bronze appeared, together with a new warrior elite.
As early as c. 4400 BC, there are signs of a faint awareness of copper technologies in Scandinavia in the form of rare imports of copper axes into the region's Late Mesolithic communities. A thousand years later, local metallurgy was likely practiced in the Middle Neolithic Funnelbeaker culture, only to disappear again subsequently. During most of the third millennium, metallurgy seems absent from the region, even if experiments with casting copper axes and hammering sheet ornaments reappear in Bell Beaker environments in Jutland, 2400–2100 BC. ... At 2000 BC, however, a copper-based technology begins to achieve full economic and social integration in Scandinavia simultaneously with the spread of bronze, or copper with similar properties, across Europe
iron technology was practiced in the Nordic region from at least the ninth century BC (Hjärthner-Holdar 1993; Serning 1984)
In NBA IB, the horse was not yet dominant within cultural expressions, but is nevertheless a candidate for inclusion among the list of novelties which originated from the Carpathian Basin (Kristiansen & Larsson 2005). Belt hooks are sometimes adorned with a horse head. The whip handles mentioned above in the burials at Strantved and Buddinge correspond with Carpathian bone versions. A pair of imported antler bridle cheek-pieces from a bog at Østrup near Roskilde in Zealand also testifies to horse handling. The Østrup cheek-pieces share the geometric zone-organized ornamentation with other Carpathian bone cheek-pieces and bone whip-handles ... These designs are typical of the Otomani-Fuzesabony-Gyolavársand culture and associated metalwork styles, and even adorn material culture inside and above the shaft graves in the two circles in Mycenae. It was precisely decorations like this that were translated to decorate locally made NBA IB metalwork
The earliest known spoked wheel models from the Carpathian Basin are dated to the twentieth to nineteenth centuries BC (Mengyán et al. 2023).
Geographically, the closest parallels to the disk toggles from Shaft Grave IV derive from the area of the lower Danube … That all identifiable components of Shaft Grave–period horse harnesses can be linked to regions to the north or northeast of Greece corroborates Penner's conclusion that the two-wheeled chariot did not first reach Greece from the Near East.
Focusing on horse-tack, Maran (2020) and Makarowicz et al. (2023) have argued that chariots emerged at the same time in the Carpathian Basin as in the Sintashta-Petrovka cultural complex. Notably, the rod-shaped cheekpieces common to the Carpathian Basin are distinct from the disc-shaped early varieties of the Eurasian steppe, indicating coeval but distinct traditions.
As early as c. 4400 BC, there are signs of a faint awareness of copper technologies in Scandinavia in the form of rare imports of copper axes into the region's Late Mesolithic communities. A thousand years later, local metallurgy was likely practiced in the Middle Neolithic Funnelbeaker culture, only to disappear again subsequently. During most of the third millennium, metallurgy seems absent from the region, even if experiments with casting copper axes and hammering sheet ornaments reappear in Bell Beaker environments in Jutland, 2400–2100 BC. ... At 2000 BC, however, a copper-based technology begins to achieve full economic and social integration in Scandinavia simultaneously with the spread of bronze, or copper with similar properties, across Europe
As early as c. 4400 BC, there are signs of a faint awareness of copper technologies in Scandinavia in the form of rare imports of copper axes into the region's Late Mesolithic communities. A thousand years later, local metallurgy was likely practiced in the Middle Neolithic Funnelbeaker culture, only to disappear again subsequently. During most of the third millennium, metallurgy seems absent from the region, even if experiments with casting copper axes and hammering sheet ornaments reappear in Bell Beaker environments in Jutland, 2400–2100 BC. ... At 2000 BC, however, a copper-based technology begins to achieve full economic and social integration in Scandinavia simultaneously with the spread of bronze, or copper with similar properties, across Europe
As early as c. 4400 BC, there are signs of a faint awareness of copper technologies in Scandinavia in the form of rare imports of copper axes into the region's Late Mesolithic communities. A thousand years later, local metallurgy was likely practiced in the Middle Neolithic Funnelbeaker culture, only to disappear again subsequently. During most of the third millennium, metallurgy seems absent from the region, even if experiments with casting copper axes and hammering sheet ornaments reappear in Bell Beaker environments in Jutland, 2400–2100 BC. ... At 2000 BC, however, a copper-based technology begins to achieve full economic and social integration in Scandinavia simultaneously with the spread of bronze, or copper with similar properties, across Europe
In NBA IB, the horse was not yet dominant within cultural expressions, but is nevertheless a candidate for inclusion among the list of novelties which originated from the Carpathian Basin (Kristiansen & Larsson 2005). Belt hooks are sometimes adorned with a horse head. The whip handles mentioned above in the burials at Strantved and Buddinge correspond with Carpathian bone versions. A pair of imported antler bridle cheek-pieces from a bog at Østrup near Roskilde in Zealand also testifies to horse handling. The Østrup cheek-pieces share the geometric zone-organized ornamentation with other Carpathian bone cheek-pieces and bone whip-handles ... These designs are typical of the Otomani-Fuzesabony-Gyolavársand culture and associated metalwork styles, and even adorn material culture inside and above the shaft graves in the two circles in Mycenae. It was precisely decorations like this that were translated to decorate locally made NBA IB metalwork
iron technology was practiced in the Nordic region from at least the ninth century BC (Hjärthner-Holdar 1993; Serning 1984)
In NBA IB, the horse was not yet dominant within cultural expressions, but is nevertheless a candidate for inclusion among the list of novelties which originated from the Carpathian Basin (Kristiansen & Larsson 2005). Belt hooks are sometimes adorned with a horse head. The whip handles mentioned above in the burials at Strantved and Buddinge correspond with Carpathian bone versions. A pair of imported antler bridle cheek-pieces from a bog at Østrup near Roskilde in Zealand also testifies to horse handling. The Østrup cheek-pieces share the geometric zone-organized ornamentation with other Carpathian bone cheek-pieces and bone whip-handles ... These designs are typical of the Otomani-Fuzesabony-Gyolavársand culture and associated metalwork styles, and even adorn material culture inside and above the shaft graves in the two circles in Mycenae. It was precisely decorations like this that were translated to decorate locally made NBA IB metalwork
Geographically, the closest parallels to the disk toggles from Shaft Grave IV derive from the area of the lower Danube … That all identifiable components of Shaft Grave–period horse harnesses can be linked to regions to the north or northeast of Greece corroborates Penner's conclusion that the two-wheeled chariot did not first reach Greece from the Near East.
Miniature golden boats bearing sun symbols were found in Thy [Nors], Denmark, and can be dated to c. 1700-1100 BC
The Early Bronze Age societies that evolved after 2000 BC thus inherited their basic social and cosmological order from the Beaker and Battle-Axe cultures of the third millennium BC.
The northern Bronze Age may be said to begin shortly after 2000 BC with the introduction and use of simple bronze tools, especially axes. At the same time, huge longhouses for large (chiefly) households emerged. With the more systematic adoption of metalworking bronze technology after 1750 BC, a diversified use of new tools, weapons, and ornaments made of bronze appeared, together with a new warrior elite.
In the Nordic Bronze Age of period 2 one finds more east Mediterranean and Mycenaean influences in metalwork, prestige goods and cosmology than in any other region in Europe.
Qualitatively the artistic and technical expressions [of the Nordic Bronze Age] are above anything in Europe except Minoan/Mycenaean culture; quantitatively there is no region in Europe with such an accumulation of high-quality weapons and ornaments during the period 1500–1000 BC, and that includes the Minoan/Mycenaean culture.
iron technology was practiced in the Nordic region from at least the ninth century BC (Hjärthner-Holdar 1993; Serning 1984)
Chariots are evidenced in Scandinavia almost exclusively in the form of rock art, represented as of period I to V/VI. The oldest representations, most likely dating already to ca. 1700 BCE, are found at the site of Simrishamn in southeast Scania. ... This very early date indicates that the Nordic chariot should not be interpreted as embodying Mycenaean influence, but instead traced back to chariots of the Eurasian steppe that arrived via the Carpathian Basin and central Europe. This concurs with the observation of H. Vandkilde (2014) that around 1700 BCE the first Carpathian influences are tangible in the north in the form of socketed lanceheads. Vandkilde traces the lanceheads to the Seima-Turbino complex, which likely played a role during the spread of the chariot to China in ca. 1600 BCE. ... Tracing the Scandinavian chariot back to the Mycenaean chariot, often favoured in older literature, must be dismissed in view of the present state of discussions on chronology, for the oldest Scandinavian chariots probably are 100 years older than those of Mycenae, or at least of the same age.
In NBA IB, the horse was not yet dominant within cultural expressions, but is nevertheless a candidate for inclusion among the list of novelties which originated from the Carpathian Basin (Kristiansen & Larsson 2005). Belt hooks are sometimes adorned with a horse head. The whip handles mentioned above in the burials at Strantved and Buddinge correspond with Carpathian bone versions. A pair of imported antler bridle cheek-pieces from a bog at Østrup near Roskilde in Zealand also testifies to horse handling. The Østrup cheek-pieces share the geometric zone-organized ornamentation with other Carpathian bone cheek-pieces and bone whip-handles ... These designs are typical of the Otomani-Fuzesabony-Gyolavársand culture and associated metalwork styles, and even adorn material culture inside and above the shaft graves in the two circles in Mycenae. It was precisely decorations like this that were translated to decorate locally made NBA IB metalwork
engraved seal images of vehicles with four-spoked wheels, pulled by equids (?) controlled with lip- or nose-rings from Karum Kanesh II, 1900 BCE.
In the Carpathian Basin the spread of rod- or disc-shaped cheekpieces since ca. 2000 BCE could be proposed as an indication of the existence of the chariot.
... in light of their long experience dealing with horses and building earlier types of wheeled vehicles, the societies of the zone between the Carpathian Basin and the Ural may have played a key role in initiating a "quantum leap" in chariot technology as they possessed the capability to invent the spoked wheel and develop new forms of bridle-harnessing that allowed the horse to be employed as a draught animal, and were also in a position to transfer these innovations to the Near East ... recent research on the earliest phase of light chariots in Greece [suggests] the simultaneous appropriation of at least two different systems of bone or antler horse-bridle cheekpieces. The first, characterized by disc-shaped cheekpieces and represented by the four well-known examples from Shaft Grave IV of Mycenae, predominated in the vast area between the Southern Ural and the Lower Danube ... The second system of rod-shaped cheekpieces was typical of the Carpatho-Danubian zone" (p.512) "David Anthony recently reiterated the case for the light chariot's origins in the zone between the Southern Ural and Central Kazakhstan and its military function. To me it seems that Anthony is probably right in his geographical attribution of the development of key elements of the light chariot, though I would extend it to include the entire zone between the Carpathian Basin and the Southern Ural. (p.519)
Geographically, the closest parallels to the disk toggles from Shaft Grave IV derive from the area of the lower Danube … That all identifiable components of Shaft Grave–period horse harnesses can be linked to regions to the north or northeast of Greece corroborates Penner's conclusion that the two-wheeled chariot did not first reach Greece from the Near East.
Some evidence would seem to support Penner's argument, including the osteological determination of the skeletons in the B-circle (Angel 1972), where the male population is characterised as Nordic Caucasian (robust and tall), in some opposition to the female population, which is more Mediterranean. (…) More recently this problem has been critically analysed by Day (2001), within a broad comparative framework of Indo-European osteological data. Even here, the shaft grave osteological material shows connections to the steppe of eastern Europe/Romania.
Miniature golden boats bearing sun symbols were found in Thy [Nors], Denmark, and can be dated to c. 1700-1100 BC
