Studies in Archaeometry

Studies in archaeometry Proceedings of the archaeometry symposium at NORM 2019, June 16-19, Portland, Oregon, Portland State University.Dedicated to the Rev. H. Richard Rutherford, C.S.C., Ph.D Edited by Mario Ramírez Galán Ronda Sandifer Bard Access Archaeology aeopr ch es r s A A y c g c e o l s o s e A a r c Ah Archaeopress Publishing Ltd Summertown Pavilion 18-24 Middle Way Summertown Oxford OX2 7LG www.archaeopress.com ISBN 978-1-78969-733-9 ISBN 978-1-78969-734-6 (e-Pdf) © the individual authors and Archaeopress 2020 All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the copyright owners. This book is available direct from Archaeopress or from our website www.archaeopress.com A mis padres y hermanos, por estar siempre ahí y apoyarme en mi sueño. Index of contents Identification of iron and wood through the effects of microstructures in timber-laced walls of the Celtic Iron Age of the Iberian Peninsula. Luis Berrocal-Rangel, Rosario García-Giménez, Raquel Vigil de la Villa, Carmen Gutiérrez-Sáez, Lucía Ruano & Marcos Osório .................................................................................... 1 Traction or hybrid trebuchet? The use of physical calculations to classify trebuchets. Mario Ramírez Galán, María Benítez Galán, Rafael Montalvo Laguna, Reina Inlow & Ronda S. Bard ................................ 23 Blue-and-white porcelain in early South Thailand maritime trade. Angelica Kneisly, William Ayres & Maury Morgenstein ............................................................................................................................................... 45 Archaeometallography: a new look at old issues in the history of the iron industry. N. N. Terekhova & V. I. Zavyalov ............................................................................................................................................................... 66 Falling from the sky. Aerial photogrammetry and LiDAR applied to the archaeology of architecture and landscape: two fortifications from the Alpujarra (Granada, Spain). Jorge Rouco Collazo, José Antonio Benavides López & José María Martín Civantos ............................................................................................... 87 Early Roman Iron Age jewellery in the Northern Barbaricum: between stylistic and technological simplicity and luxury. Audronė Bliujienė, Gediminas Petrauskas, Jurga Bagdzevičienė, Sergej Suzdalev & Evaldas Babenskas .......................................................................................................................................... 175 The application and evaluation of remote sensing techniques to household archaeology on the Northwest Coast. William T. D. Wadsworth, Andrew Martindale, Colin Grier & Kisha Supernant ............................ 218 Studies in archaeometry Identification of iron and wood through the effects of microstructures in timber-laced walls of the Celtic Iron Age of the Iberian Peninsula Luis Berrocal-Rangel (Autonomous University of Madrid), Rosario García-Giménez (Autonomous University of Madrid), Raquel Vigil de la Villa (Câmara Municipal de Sabugal), Carmen Gutiérrez-Sáez (Autonomous University of Madrid), Lucía Ruano (Autonomous University of Madrid), Marcos Osório (Câmara Municipal de Sabugal) Abstract Vitrified forts in the European Iron Age is a well-known phenomenon with different causes and interpretations but with a similar effect: the vitrification of an enormous amount of stones, used as masonry for the construction of the ramparts. Among the many causes, the most supported one is the fire of a wall which was built with an inner timber laced structure and a massive use of stones. This proposal can be defended by the construction systems of walls between the Gaullish peoples of Central Europe, such as murus gallicus. This system consisted in a combination of an armed wooden structure linked by iron nails and masonry. Thus, archaeological excavations of this type of walls provide vitrified stones beside iron nails and wood timber remains. Over the last two decades, several vitrified forts have been found in the Celtic territories of Western Iberia. Recently, we have studied these cases and we have been able to find evidences of the use of iron nails and wooden timbers, thanks to the analysis of microstructures in combination with microphotography of the vitrified stones. Keywords Vitrified forts; Ramparts; Fortification; Architectural Archaeology; Microstructures 1. Introduction The existence of a defensive architecture with timber laced structures and a massive use of stones in Celtic Iberia during the Iron Age has been discussed for decades, looking for the connection between some classical Greek and Roman written testimonies and archaeological remains, but without clear conclusions (Esparza 1982: 401-402; Moret 1996: 76; Berrocal-Rangel & Moret 2007: 24-26). To solve this polemical subject, we have included it in the objectives of a research project, supported by the Spanish 1 Studies in archaeometry Ministry of Science.1, which has allowed us to analyse it through archaeometry techniques, applied to the raw materials used to build the Iron Age ramparts of Spain and Portugal. We have studied a short number of archaeological sites, such as the hillfort of Chao Samartín, at the Asturias country, north-western Spain, and a growing number of vitrified ramparts that have been located along the Spanish and Portuguese frontier lands. In the last issue of the Journal of European Archaeology, we have published a synthesis with the first geochemical analyses and proposed a chronological context between the end of the Bronze Age and the end of the Iron Age for these archaeological remains (Berrocal-Rangel et al. 2019). In this paper, we have used the archaeological record not only to understand the causes of the vitrification of these ramparts in Western and Northern Europe, the subject that it is usually investigated, but mainly to advance our technical knowledge about the existence of an architecture with timber laced structures in Iberia, similar to the well-known ramparts of the Gaullish peoples (e.g., Fichtl 2010; Ralston 2006). With this target, we have face new facts that support the hypothesis of the existence of this type of architecture by proving the use of beams, timbers and nails that were burnt in a vitrification process. And these results, crossed with other analyses, are included in the historical context of the Roman Conquest of the Iberian Peninsula, during the last two centuries before Christ (Dobson 2008; Curchin 2014). This was a period in which the circumstances of the war forced the Celtic peoples of Iberia to use oppida-refuges, just as it would happen in Gaul a century later (Deyber 2013; Gruel and Buchsenschutz 2015; Moret 2017: 171-180). 2. The uncertainty of the Classical testimony Iberian building traditions were among those of the Mediterranean cultures, over a masonry architecture: the use of compartmented ramparts, built with mud bricks and, even, with earth-laying fills is well-known in the Mediterranean Spain, the land that was inhabited by the true Iberian people (Sanmartí 2009; Ruiz and Molino 1998; Moret 1996). But most of the Iberian Peninsula was not inhabited by Iberian but Celtic people, so architecture traditions could be very different (Almagro-Gorbea 2014). And the Classic testimonies, those ought to the Roman and Greek writers, support these differences, mainly by some few quotations about this use of a timber laced architecture in the northern and western Peninsula. For example, the text of the Greek historian Appian of Alexandria, in the First book of Roman Civil Wars, 112, says: While Pompey was laying 1 ‘Late Prehistory Architecture in the Western Spanish Plateau. Archaeotecture and Archaeometry about the built heritage of the Vettones hillforts’ (HAR2016-77739-P). Ministry of Economy, Industry and Competitiveness of the Kingdom of Spain. 2 Studies in archaeometry siege to Pallantia and underrunning the walls with wooden supports, Sertorius suddenly appeared on the scene and raised the siege. Pompey hastily set fire to the timbers and retreated to Metellus (Appian, The Civil Wars, I, 112)2. Pallantia was a celebrated oppidum of the strongest Celtic peoples of the Vaccei, located in Northern Castile, Spain (Balado and Martínez 2009; Sacristán 2011: 190). The site was a stronghold of Sertorius, the rebel Roman general who raised against Rome from 80 to 72 BC. He could have entrenched between the indigenous peoples of nowadays Celtic Spain and Portugal, peoples such as the Lusitanians and Vettones not even totally controlled by Roman legions. Therefore, the quote serves to characterize a timber defensive and indigenous architecture, because the Greek text refers literally destroyed the walls [built] with timbers… 3. The weakness of the Archaeological record The archaeological record provides few but clear evidences and remains, such as the quoted hillfort of Chao Samartín (Asturias, North-western Spain), the oldest testimony of the Spanish Archaeology dated in the Late Bronze Age. Chao Samartín is in the edge of a steep plateau, with a wall three metres wide, which was built with large upright timber beams in two parallel rows and a fill of stones (figure 1.1). This rampart was protected outside with a V profile ditch (Villa 2007). Both can be dated at the end of

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