Rune Iversen
My main research area concerns the Neolithic and Chalcolithic of northern Europe, in particular the 3rd millennium BC. My PhD was on the social and cultural transformations that ended the Funnel Beaker epoch and introduced Single Grave (Corded Ware) traditions, which lead to the Late Neolithic and finally the Bronze Age. The social transformation from segmentary Funnel Beaker societies to early Bronze Age elite cultures mainly took place during the 3rd millennium BC and caused great cultural heterogeneity.
I finished my M.A. (mag.art) in Prehistoric Archaeology in 2007 and was subsequently employed as a curator at Kroppedal Museum (2007-10). As a part of my employment I have managed and conducted archaeological excavations and worked with museum exhibitions and protected ancient monuments.
Address: University of Copenhagen
SAXO Institute
Dept. of Archaeology
Karen Blixensvej 4
DK-2300 Copenhagen S
Denmark
I finished my M.A. (mag.art) in Prehistoric Archaeology in 2007 and was subsequently employed as a curator at Kroppedal Museum (2007-10). As a part of my employment I have managed and conducted archaeological excavations and worked with museum exhibitions and protected ancient monuments.
Address: University of Copenhagen
SAXO Institute
Dept. of Archaeology
Karen Blixensvej 4
DK-2300 Copenhagen S
Denmark
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Books by Rune Iversen
This book is about socio-cultural developments in eastern Denmark (Zealand, Møn, Falster and Lolland) during the 3rd millennium BC, corresponding to the later Middle Neolithic and the Late Neolithic periods. Following the end of the Funnel Beaker culture, in the early 3rd millennium BC, eastern Denmark entered a culturally heterogeneous period displaying a mixture of various cultural elements usually ascribed to the so-called ‘Single Grave culture of the Danish islands’. This situation lasted until the end of the millennium and the beginning of the Late Neolithic around 2350 BC.
Research on the 3rd millennium BC has mainly centred on one of the many archaeologically defined cultures such as the Funnel Beaker culture, the Pitted Ware culture, the Single Grave culture, the Battle-Axe culture, the Late Neolithic culture or the Bell Beaker culture. In order to understand the culturally complex period in eastern Denmark at this time, I go beyond these defined cultural groups and instead explain the decisive changes that took place here as part of one extended transformation process. The aim is thereby to advance a new and coherent understanding of cultural and social developments as evident from the late Funnel Beaker period to the emergence of incipient Bronze Age societies at the onset of the 2nd millennium BC.
Traditionally, the Single Grave culture has been thought to have succeeded the Funnel Beaker culture around 2800 BC. However, material associated with the Single Grave culture did not appear in eastern Denmark before about 2600 BC. On the basis of a revision of new and existing radiocarbon dates from late Funnel Beaker contexts, I propose that the Funnel Beaker culture lasted until about 2600 BC in the eastern part of southern Scandinavia. Consequently, the late Funnel Beaker culture coexisted with the Single Grave and Pitted Ware cultures for more than 200 years.
Based on an analysis of the archaeological record from the entire 3rd millennium BC, including artefacts, settlements, graves and hoards, I have shown that a high degree of continuity existed throughout the millennium. Nevertheless, some significant changes coincided with the widespread use of flint daggers in the Late Neolithic. I explain the culturally diffuse period that emerged following the end of the Funnel Beaker culture in terms of a cultural creolisation process by which Single Grave, Battle-Axe and Pitted Ware cultural elements were adopted into a setting that basically consisted of a continuation of Funnel Beaker norms and traditions. This process arose from the combination of a strong local identity rooted in eastern Denmark’s position as a Funnel Beaker and megalithic heartland, together with new influences from the Single Grave culture. As a consequence, the term ‘Single Grave culture of the Danish islands’ is abandoned.
At the end of the culturally diversified Middle Neolithic, new material and cultural trends influenced southern Scandinavia, thereby creating, on a long-term basis, a new and far more homogeneous cultural expression as known from the Early Bronze Age. As eastern Denmark gradually became more and more involved in the European Bronze Age world, the old Funnel Beaker norms slowly vanished, and as contacts increased with the Únětice culture at the onset of the 2nd millennium BC, the flow of metal into Denmark reached levels that permitted the development of incipient hierarchies. The old kinship-based tribal Funnel Beaker communities focused on communal tombs and ancestor worship slowly changed and the way was laid open for the emergence of hierarchical Bronze Age societies.
Papers by Rune Iversen
This book is about socio-cultural developments in eastern Denmark (Zealand, Møn, Falster and Lolland) during the 3rd millennium BC, corresponding to the later Middle Neolithic and the Late Neolithic periods. Following the end of the Funnel Beaker culture, in the early 3rd millennium BC, eastern Denmark entered a culturally heterogeneous period displaying a mixture of various cultural elements usually ascribed to the so-called ‘Single Grave culture of the Danish islands’. This situation lasted until the end of the millennium and the beginning of the Late Neolithic around 2350 BC.
Research on the 3rd millennium BC has mainly centred on one of the many archaeologically defined cultures such as the Funnel Beaker culture, the Pitted Ware culture, the Single Grave culture, the Battle-Axe culture, the Late Neolithic culture or the Bell Beaker culture. In order to understand the culturally complex period in eastern Denmark at this time, I go beyond these defined cultural groups and instead explain the decisive changes that took place here as part of one extended transformation process. The aim is thereby to advance a new and coherent understanding of cultural and social developments as evident from the late Funnel Beaker period to the emergence of incipient Bronze Age societies at the onset of the 2nd millennium BC.
Traditionally, the Single Grave culture has been thought to have succeeded the Funnel Beaker culture around 2800 BC. However, material associated with the Single Grave culture did not appear in eastern Denmark before about 2600 BC. On the basis of a revision of new and existing radiocarbon dates from late Funnel Beaker contexts, I propose that the Funnel Beaker culture lasted until about 2600 BC in the eastern part of southern Scandinavia. Consequently, the late Funnel Beaker culture coexisted with the Single Grave and Pitted Ware cultures for more than 200 years.
Based on an analysis of the archaeological record from the entire 3rd millennium BC, including artefacts, settlements, graves and hoards, I have shown that a high degree of continuity existed throughout the millennium. Nevertheless, some significant changes coincided with the widespread use of flint daggers in the Late Neolithic. I explain the culturally diffuse period that emerged following the end of the Funnel Beaker culture in terms of a cultural creolisation process by which Single Grave, Battle-Axe and Pitted Ware cultural elements were adopted into a setting that basically consisted of a continuation of Funnel Beaker norms and traditions. This process arose from the combination of a strong local identity rooted in eastern Denmark’s position as a Funnel Beaker and megalithic heartland, together with new influences from the Single Grave culture. As a consequence, the term ‘Single Grave culture of the Danish islands’ is abandoned.
At the end of the culturally diversified Middle Neolithic, new material and cultural trends influenced southern Scandinavia, thereby creating, on a long-term basis, a new and far more homogeneous cultural expression as known from the Early Bronze Age. As eastern Denmark gradually became more and more involved in the European Bronze Age world, the old Funnel Beaker norms slowly vanished, and as contacts increased with the Únětice culture at the onset of the 2nd millennium BC, the flow of metal into Denmark reached levels that permitted the development of incipient hierarchies. The old kinship-based tribal Funnel Beaker communities focused on communal tombs and ancestor worship slowly changed and the way was laid open for the emergence of hierarchical Bronze Age societies.
Given these critiques, archaeologists and anthropologists must rethink how social inequality should be identified and approached by considering the specific circumstances and conditions under which fluid and flexible forms of hierarchy may emerge and how they may have become more permanent and lasting. The transition to agriculture in Southwest Asia and its arrival in Europe is still seen as a key moment that may have engendered the establishment of more permanent and strict social hierarchies. There is now increasing evidence, however, that various forms of social difference may have existed well before the emergence of fully sedentary agropastoralist societies.
This session invites papers focusing on a wide spectrum of material correlates associated with social inequality in the archaeological record between the Late Upper Paleolithic and Early Bronze Age such as funerary practices, resource abundance, demography, settlement patterns etc.