Ancient Europe

By Stuart Piggott

1968

First Published

3.74

Average Rating

392

Number of Pages

11H58M

Audio Length

This book interprets the main lines of European prehistory from the first agricultural communities in the sixth or even seventh millennium B.C. until the incorporation of much of barbarian Europe within the Roman Empire. It traces the beginnings of animal domestication and plant cultivation in ancient Western Asia, and the transmission of these skills by movements of peoples or by assimilation, in the European continent. The early technology of working in copper, and later in bronze, is discussed. Metal winning and working, and trade in raw materials and finished products, brought social and political repercussions to barbarian and civilised peoples alike.The spread of the Indo-European languages is considered in its archaeological context, as is the formation of the Celtic peoples, soon to acquire iron technology and to become the main barbarian component in Europe, side-by-side with the civilised Mediterranean societies, Greek, Etruscan or Roman. The later Celtic world of Europe and the British Isles is examined, and an attempt made to estimate the contribution of the older barbarian world to the Europe, which emerged from the ruins of the Roman Empire, geographically, the book ranges over the whole European field, from the Atlantic shores to the Urals and the Caucasus. While it does not pretend to be a prehistory of Europe within the period chosen, the book does bring together and discuss for the first time much scattered and often little-known archaeological evidence.This book is organized in a manner that will permit it being read on two levels. For the general non-specialist reader, the text and illustrations should give a sufficient idea of the nature of the theme and of the evidence, and of the development of the barbarian cultures side-by-side with the civilizations of antiquity, as their precursors and their subsequent counterparts. For the archaeological student however the text is documented with rather full references and notes at the end of each chapter, and a select bibliography, which should facilitate access to the original sources.

Avg Rating

3.74

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4 STARS

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Author

Stuart Piggott

Author · 5 books

Stuart Ernest Piggott, CBE, FBA, FSA, FRSE FSA Scot was an English archaeologist, best known for his work on prehistoric Wessex. Piggott was born in Petersfield, Hampshire, the son of G. H. O. Piggott, and was educated there at Churcher's College. On leaving school in 1927 he took up a post as assistant at Reading Museum, where he developed an expertise in Neolithic pottery. In 1928 he joined the Royal Commission on the Ancient and Historical Monuments of Wales and spent the next five years producing a revolutionary study of the site of Butser Hill, near Petersfield. He also worked with Eliot Cecil Curwen on their excavations at The Trundle causewayed enclosure in Sussex. Still without any formal archaeological qualification, Piggott enrolled at Robert Eric Mortimer Wheeler's Institute of Archaeology, London, taking his diploma in 1936. In 1937 he published another seminal paper, The Early Bronze Age in Wessex. In 1958 Piggott published a survey of Scottish prehistory, Scotland before History, and in 1959 a popular introductory volume, Approach to Archaeology.