2015/11/26 by Kristian Kristiansen, Paulina Suchowska‐Ducke · 4 citations
Earth and Planetary Sciences · Social Sciences · Arts and Humanities · #Archaeology and ancient environmental studies #Metallurgy and Cultural Artifacts #Ancient and Medieval Archaeology Studies
paper · pdf · doi:10.1017/ppr.2015.17
openalex publication_date 2015/11/26 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/08/04
The Bronze Age was the first epoch in which societies became irreversibly linked in their co-dependence on ores and metallurgical skills that were unevenly distributed in geographical space. Access to these critical resources was secured not only via long-distance physical trade routes, making use of landscape features such as river networks, as well as built roads, but also by creating immaterial social networks, consisting of interpersonal relations and diplomatic alliances, established and maintained through the exchange of extraordinary objects (gifts). In this article, we reason about Bronze Age communication networks and apply the results of use-wear analysis to create robust indicators of the rise and fall of political and commercial networks. In conclusion, we discuss some of the historical forces behind the phenomena and processes observable in the archaeological record of the Bronze Age in Europe and beyond.