Metals, Minds and Mobility

Integrating Scientific Data with Archaeological Theory

Xosé-Lois Armada, Mercedes Murillo-Barroso, Mike Charlton (Herausgeber)

Buch | Hardcover

200 Seiten

2018
Oxbow Books (Verlag)
978-1-78570-905-0 (ISBN)

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This new collection of papers combines the latest developments in archaeometallurgical techniques with archaeological theory to explore the complexities of early metallurgy and its social and economic implications for societies across Europe in later prehistory, with a particular emphasis on mobility.

Metals, Minds and Mobility seeks to integrate archaeometallurgical data with archaeological theory to address longstanding questions about mechanisms of exchange, mobility and social complexity in prehistory. The circulation of metal has long been viewed as a catalyst for social, economic and population changes in Europe. New techniques and perspectives derived from archaeological science can shed new light on the understanding of the movement of people, materials and technological knowledge. In recent years these science-based approaches have situated mobility at the forefront of the archaeological debate. Advances in the characterisation of metals and metallurgical residues combined with more sophisticated approaches to data analysis add greater resolution to provenance studies.

Though offering better pictures of artefact source, the explanation of artefact distribution across geographic space requires the use of theoretically informed models and solid archaeological evidence to discern differences between the circulation of raw materials, ingots, objects, craftspeople and populations. Bringing together many leading expert contributions address topics that include the invention, innovation and transmission of metallurgical knowledge; archaeometric based models of exchange; characterization and discrimination of different modes of material circulation; and the impact of metals on social complexity.

The 13 papers are organised in three main sections dealing with key debates in archaeology: transmission of metallurgical technologies, knowledge and ideas; prestige economies and exchange; and circulation of metal as commodities and concludes with a review current approaches, situating the volume in a broader context and identifying future research directions.

Xosé-Lois Armada is a researcher at the Spanish National Research Council, Santiago de Compostela. His research interests are in protohistoric metallurgy and its social interpretation, prestige objects and metals as an expression of power; ancient mining and metal as a motivating factor for interactions and social change on a regional scale. Mercedes Murillo-Barroso is a Marie Curie IE Fellow based at the UCL Institute of Archaeology. her research interests focus on social archaeology especially concerning the debates about the origins of metallurgy and its relationship with social inequality. Mike Charlton is a Marie Curie Research Fellow at the UCL Institute of Archaeology, having received his PhD from the same in 2007. His research focuses on the integration of materials characterisation (especially analytical chemistry) with Darwinian approaches to archaeology in an effort to better understand the evolution of craft production and exchange systems as well as their interrelationships with other aspects of the social and natural environments.

Contributors

1. Metals, minds and mobility: An introduction

Xosé-Lois Armada, Mercedes Murillo-Barroso and Mike Charlton

PART 1: TRANSMISSION OF METALLURGICAL TECHNOLOGIES, KNOWLEDGE AND IDEAS

2. On Europe, the Mediterranean and the myth of passive peripheries

Tobias L. Kienlin

3. Metal artefacts circulation in the Eneolithic period from southeastern Romania. A case study

Catalin Lazar, Adelina Darie, Gheorghe Niculescu and Migdonia Georgescu

4. On Quimbaya goldwork (Colombia), lost wax casting and ritual practice in America and Europe

Alicia Perea

5. Bronze production and tin provenance – new thoughts about the spread of metallurgical knowledge

Bianka Nessel, Gerhard Brügmann, Daniel Berger, Carolin Frank, Janeta Marahrens and Ernst Pernicka

PART 2: PRESTIGE ECONOMIES AND EXCHANGE

6. Unequal exchange and the articulation of modes of re-production

Michael Rowlands

7. Why was (and is) silver sexy? Silver during the 4th–3rd millennia in the Near East and Mesopotamia

Susan Sherratt

8. G old, conspicuous consumption and prestige – a relationship in need of review. The case of Early and Middle Bronze Age Crete

Borja Legarra Herrero

PART 3: CIRCULATION OF METAL AS COMMODITIES

9. Biography, prosopography and the density of scientific data: Some arguments from the metallurgy of Early Bronze Age Britain and Ireland

Peter Bray

10. The role of pre-Norsemen in trade and exchange of commodities in Bronze Age Europe

Lene Melheim, Johan Ling, Zofia A. Stos-Gale, Eva Hjärthner-Holdar and Lena Grandin

11. Lead and copper mining in Priorat county (Tarragona, Spain): From cooperative exchange networks to colonial trade (2600–500 BC)

Núria Rafel Fontanals, Ignacio Soriano, Xosé-Lois Armada, Mark A. Hunt Ortiz and Ignacio Montero-Ruiz

PART 4: CONCLUDING REMARKS

12. Mobility, minds and metals: The end of archaeological science?

Marcos Martinón-Torres

Index

Colour figures

Erscheinungsdatum	03.10.2018
Zusatzinfo	b/w and colour
Verlagsort	Oxford
Sprache	englisch
Maße	220 x 280 mm
Themenwelt	Geisteswissenschaften ► Archäologie
Themenwelt	Geschichte ► Allgemeine Geschichte ► Vor- und Frühgeschichte
ISBN-10	1-78570-905-4 / 1785709054
ISBN-13	978-1-78570-905-0 / 9781785709050
Zustand	Neuware