Bronze Age Beginnings – a Scalar View from the Global Outskirts

Abstract

This article tracks the formation of the rich and socially complex Nordic Bronze Age (NBA), c. 2000–1500 bc, by applying a scalar methodology and using the entrepôt and early metalworking site of Pile in Scania as its point of departure. By regarding the Bronze Age as an ancient example of globalisation, Island Melanesia at the outskirts of contemporary globalisation is first examined to provide an analogue to the Nordic entrepreneurial and maritime culture into which metallurgy was first adopted. How did this northern margin become ‘Bronze Age’, and what impact did its inclusion have? Various scales, from local to Bronze-Age-global were found to intersect in the Pile hoard, and in similar sites near and far. By c. 2000 bc, metals and other commodities travelled along well-established local, regional, and super-regional networks, which even incorporated the British Isles and Únětician hubs at the Middle Elbe–Saale. Back in Scandinavia, metal and metal-related culture provided a comparative advantage when navigating local competition for influence and leadership. The transculturally global was strategically appropriated locally, using the reinvention of tradition as a principal strategy. The first metal boom caused friction and slow social change, rather than a social revolution. The real tipping point came in 1600–1500 bc, when the nearly full-blown NBA emerged, through engagement with a considerably expanded world. By this time, large amounts of metal were in circulation. Seen from the non-urban north, this unprecedented expansion of their world brought new opportunities but likely also deep social tensions. Thus, the effects of adopting metallurgy permeated society and connectivity at every level, even at the outskirts of the Bronze Age world.

Male Social Roles and Mobility in the Early Nordic Bronze Age. A Perspective from SE Jutland

“…The result of the network analysis shown in Figure 10 reveals a distinct differentiation of the primary male identity into three subgroups defined by an explicit distribution of the following key object groupings: the sword, the spear, the axe and personal equipment (toiletries, drinking vessels and jewellery). The social roles defined by these objects are related to high status, warfare and leadership (Kristiansen 2014;Treherne 1995;Vandkilde 2018Vandkilde , 2019.…”

Shifting networks and mixing metals: Changing metal trade routes to Scandinavia correlate with Neolithic and Bronze Age transformations

“…These are visible in the building of ancestral gallery graves for collective burial, over-size longhouses, hoarding of metal objects, and metal-led material culture more generally. Most of these manifestations can be considered a compromise between a rooted communal tradition and new leadership forms emerging from the metal enterprise [ 17 , 21 ].…”

“…From this point of no return, the amount of metal imported to southern Scandinavia began to grow in LN II and NBA IA. By 1600-1500 BC in NBA IB, huge amounts of metal were reaching southern Scandinavia, coinciding with the breakthrough of the NBA as an exceedingly rich cultural zone, despite its situation at Europe's northern fringe [1,[17][18][19][20][21][22]. During the bloom period of NBA II (1500-1300 BC), imports of metals increased continually, along with the consolidation of a new social order [5,23,24].…”

Bronze Age weight systems as a measure of market integration in Western Eurasia

“…Since the evidence is not consistent with a predominant role of public institutions, our alternative hypothesis is that private merchants were the main agents responsible for the diffusion of weighing technology and for the creation and customary regulation of widespread weight systems. The hypothesis is relevant to understand the emergence of long-distance connectivity networks in the Bronze Age, which recent models frame as a Western Eurasian phenomenon (17)(18)(19). It has become increasingly clear that local economies were dependent on trade to procure essential but rare raw materials such as tin (18,20) and that both Eastern city-states and European village-societies were equally thriving in this reciprocal dependence (17).…”

“…The hypothesis is relevant to understand the emergence of long-distance connectivity networks in the Bronze Age, which recent models frame as a Western Eurasian phenomenon (17)(18)(19). It has become increasingly clear that local economies were dependent on trade to procure essential but rare raw materials such as tin (18,20) and that both Eastern city-states and European village-societies were equally thriving in this reciprocal dependence (17). These observations raise a fundamental question that recent models do not address: if some rare commodities were demanded globally, did their prices follow common trends across the market?…”