A cautious start. A pottery study on ceramics from Oss-North as a means to date features, define distribution of habitation and examine models for Bronze Age pottery sequences.

The municipality of Oss (Noord-Brabant, the Netherlands) is one of the most archaeologically heavily researched areas of the Netherland and maybe even Europe. While the Iron Age, Roman period and Middle Ages are well represented in the publications concerning Oss, the Bronze Age has been scarcely researched. This main goal of this thesis is to shed a light on this period by means of dating features using ceramics as a dating method and thereby sketching a brief picture of the habitation of the area during the Bronze Age. At the same time the ceramics research is used to take a closer look at what is known about Bronze Age pottery sequences and to demonstrate any falsehoods, if there are any. Features containing more than ten fragments of pottery (not including grit) were described, divided per excavation and per feature type. Extra attention was given to structures of a datable type and features of which a C14 date was available. During the research it became clear that the...Show moreThe municipality of Oss (Noord-Brabant, the Netherlands) is one of the most archaeologically heavily researched areas of the Netherland and maybe even Europe. While the Iron Age, Roman period and Middle Ages are well represented in the publications concerning Oss, the Bronze Age has been scarcely researched. This main goal of this thesis is to shed a light on this period by means of dating features using ceramics as a dating method and thereby sketching a brief picture of the habitation of the area during the Bronze Age. At the same time the ceramics research is used to take a closer look at what is known about Bronze Age pottery sequences and to demonstrate any falsehoods, if there are any. Features containing more than ten fragments of pottery (not including grit) were described, divided per excavation and per feature type. Extra attention was given to structures of a datable type and features of which a C14 date was available. During the research it became clear that the traditional division of the Bronze Age in ‘early’, ‘middle’ and ‘late’ would not suffice as a partition. In the end there were four distinct periods to examine: ‘late’ Early Bronze Age and Middle Bronze Age A, Middle Bronze Age B and ‘early’ Late Bronze Age, Late Bronze Age and ‘late’ Late Bronze Age or Early Iron Age. In years this would respectively be: ±1850 BC – 1500 BC, 1500 BC – ±1075 BC, ±1075 BC - ±875 BC, ±875 BC – 500 BC. The ‘early’ and ‘late’ Late Bronze Age are assumed to be periods of about 75 years. The features of the examined ceramics matched up quite well to the proposed model. Some variables did not accord to the model but, in general, the model as proposed suited this research quite well. The ‘late’ Early Bronze Age and the Middle Bronze Age A are a period of relatively low amounts of features. This could mean that habitation levels were low in this period but, as structures from this period are badly recognized, there could have been more habitation then expected from the numbers of features. In the Middle Bronze Age B a rise in feature numbers is apparent as is the number in houses. As features from this period are recognized as such it seems habitation peaks at this period of the Bronze Age. There are only three features recognized as Late Bronze Age. Again there is a problem with recognisability of features from this period. It is assumed that habitation levels stagnated and people moved closer to the river Meuse, which was further away from Oss-North in this period than in the previous or following periods. In the ‘late’ Late Bronze Age and Early Iron Age all researched excavations were again inhabited, very similar to the image one gets from the Middle Bronze Age B.Show less

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A cautious start. A pottery study on ceramics from Oss-North as a means to date features, define distribution of habitation and examine models for Bronze Age pottery sequences.