Over Land, Sea and the Space Between: Evidence for Multi-Scalar Interactions between Eastern Mediterranean and Central European Communities during the Bronze Age

Summary

This is an abstract from the "Mediterranean Archaeology: Connections, Interactions, Objects, and Theory" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology.

The Bronze Age in both the Mediterranean and Europe represents a period during which new socio-economic relationships were being forged that inextricably linked far-off communities. Within these discursive social networks, new commodities were traded over long-distances, new markets emerged, and along with novel opportunities for social differentiation reflected in new forms of material culture. The role of metals as the prime mover in these interactions has been much discussed. Such economic transactions likely were highly formalized, occurring with variable levels of reciprocity, and serving as an arena for the negotiation of social and political alliances, smaller-scale exchanges of a range of commodities, as well as the transfer of ideas, news of the world that lay beyond, and technical skill. This paper considers the range of material exchanges and movement of intangible information between communities in the Mediterranean and Central Europe that would have relied upon and reinforced the social networks established by long-distance trade of materials during the Bronze Age.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Society for American Archaeology 84th Annual Meeting, Albuquerque, NM (2019)   •
• Mediterranean Archaeology: Connections, Interactions, Objects, and Theory

Keywords

Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 24584