Metals, Minds and Mobility: Integrating Scientific Data with Archaeological Theory

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 characterization of metals and metallurgical residues combined with more sophisticated approaches to data analysis add greater resolution to provenance studies. Though offering better pictures of artifact source, the explanation of artifact 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 addressing 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 organized 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 of current approaches, situating the volume in a broader context and identifying future research directions.

Table of Contents

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