Bronze Age Connections: Cultural Contact in Prehistoric Europe

Peter Clark

Σεπ 2009 · Oxbow Books

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New and exciting discoveries on either side of the English Channel in recent years have begun to show that people living in the coastal zones of Belgium, southern Britain, northern France and the Netherlands shared a common material culture during the Bronze Age, between three and four thousand years ago. They used similar styles of pottery and metalwork, lived in the same kind of houses and buried their dead in the same kind of tombs, often quite different to those used by their neighbours further inland. The sea did not appear to be a barrier to these people but rather a highway, connecting communities in a unique cultural identity; the 'People of La Manche'. Symbolic of these maritime Bronze Age Connections is the iconic Dover Bronze Age boat, one of Europe's greatest prehistoric discoveries and testament to the skill and technical sophistication of our Bronze Age ancestors. This monograph presents papers from a conference held in Dover in 2006 organised by the Dover Bronze Age Boat Trust, which brought together scholars from many different countries to explore and celebrate these ancient seaborne contacts. Twelve wide-ranging chapters explore themes of travel, exchange, production, magic and ritual that throw new light on our understanding of the seafaring peoples of the second millennium BC.

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Dr Peter Clark, OBE is a writer, translator and a travel and cultural consultant. He has known, traveled, worked and lived in the Middle East for over 50 years, has translated eight books from the Arabic, and written and edited more than a dozen other books. An authority of the culture of all countries of the region, he has led cultural tours to Turkey, Syria, Lebanon, Egypt and Iran. His Marmaduke Pickthall: British Muslim, first published in 1986, was reissued in 2016 and has been translated into Arabic. Other books include Istanbul: A Cultural History, which has been translated into Italian, Thesiger’s Return and two books on places associated with the life and creations of Charles Dickens. Peter worked for over 30 years in seven Arab countries for the British Council, designed the International Prize for Arabic Literature and has been a Contributing Editor of Banipal, the Magazine of Arab Literature since 1998. Peter is married, has three grown up sons and a step-daughter and lives in Somerset. His hobbies are opera and marathon walking.