Bringing Down the Iron Curtain: Paradigmatic Change in Research on the Bronze Age in Central and Eastern Europe?

Bringing down the Iron Curtain: Paradigmatic changes in research on the Bronze Age in Central and Eastern Europe? presents the researches of scholars of different generations from twelve countries (Hungary, Romania, Czech Republic, Slovakia, Serbia, Croatia, Ukraine, United Kingdom, Germany, USA, Canada, Austria) who participated in a session of the same title at the 20th Meeting of the European Association of Archaeologists in Istanbul, 2014. The papers addressed the question of change in the approaches to Bronze Age research in the Central and Eastern European countries from different points of view. It has been a quarter of a century since the fall of communism in Central and Eastern Europe and the opening up of these areas to the West. With this process, archaeology saw a large influx of new projects and ideas. Bilateral contacts, Europe-wide circulation of scholars and access to research literature has fuelled the transformation processes. This volume is the first study which relates these issues specifically to Bronze Age Archaeology. The contributions discuss not only theoretical issues, but also current developments in all aspects of archaeological practice.

Table of Contents:
Bringing down the Iron Curtain: paradigmatic changes in research on the Bronze Age in Central and Eastern Europe? Introductory thoughts – Oliver Dietrich, Laura Dietrich, Anthony Harding, Viktória Kiss, Klara Šabatová ; Part 1: Paradigmatic change? Views from the subdisciplines of Bronze Age studies ; The Hajdúsámson hoard – revisited – János Dani, Ernst Pernicka, Gábor Márkus ; Culture or ceramic style? On a long-lived and widely distributed paradigm in Romanian archaeology – Laura Dietrich ; Paradigm change, the Iron Curtain, and bronze artefacts. A view from Romania - Oliver Dietrich ; Cultural layers on lowland settlement sites – accepted or ignored? The case of Bohemia. Remarks on discussions regarding the ‘new paradigm’ – Michal Ernée ; Research on the Early Iron Age hillfort of Smolenice-Molpír in the Western Carpathians – Michal Felcan, Roman Pašteka, Susanne Stegmann-Rajtár ; From typochronology to postprocessualism: regional settlement research in the northern part of the Carpathian Basin – Klára P. Fischl, Tamás Pusztai ; Methodological changes in and new approaches to research on the Bronze Age in Bohemia since 1990 – Luboš Jiráň, Ondřej Chvojka, Tereza Šálková ; On the interpretation of Bronze Age tell settlement in the Carpathian Basin. The Borsod example – Tobias L. Kienlin, Klára P. Fischl ; ‘Europe without walls’: new directions of Bronze Age research in Hungary – Viktória Kiss, Gabriella Kulcsár ; Change or no change? Archaeology of the Middle and Late Bronze Age in Moravia, Czech Republic – Klára Šabatová ; Paradigm shift? Bronze Age tell archaeology after 1989. Reflections from the Százhalombatta-Földvár Excavation Project – Marie-Louise Stig Sørensen, Magdolna Vicze, Joanna Sofaer ; Part 2: Change or no change – experiences of working in Eastern Central Europe before and after 1989 ; Zeitgeist – David J. Breeze ; 1989 and all that – John Chapman ; Flying behind the curtain: establishing an aerial reconnaissance programme in Romania – W. S. Hanson, I. A. Oltean ; Romania and Bulgaria: transition or continuity? Changes in attitudes and methods before and after the fall of the Iron Curtain – A. G. Poulter

About the Author :
Klára Šabatová studied archaeology at Masaryk University, Brno, Czech Republic, and teaches prehistory there. Her research focuses on Bronze Age and landscape archaeology in Central Europe. ; Laura Dietrich studied prehistoric archaeology in Bucharest and Berlin. She has worked on projects from south-eastern Europe to the Levant, and since 2011 has been a Research Assistant at the German Archaeological Institute. Her research focuses on the archaeology of food and conflict. ; Oliver Dietrich studied prehistoric archaeology in Berlin and works at the German Archaeological Institute. His research focus is the Neolithic and Bronze Age between south-eastern Europe and the Near East. ; Anthony Harding is Emeritus Professor of Archaeology at the University of Exeter, UK, and an Affiliate of the Philosophical Faculty of Charles University, Prague. He specialises in European Bronze Age archaeology and has written several books and many articles on various aspects of the Bronze Age. ; Viktória Kiss is a senior research fellow of the Institute of Archaeology, Research Centre for the Humanities of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences. She specialises in Central European Bronze Age archaeology.