Local Societies in Bronze Age Northern Europe

ISBN-13: 9781138117150 / Angielski / Miękka / 2017 / 272 str.

Nils Anfinset;Melanie Wrigglesworth

Opis

This book aims to understand the process of the Bronze Age societies of Northern Europe which are often regarded as the periphery and a bleak contrast to the Central European Bronze Age. The Bronze Age is the first "globalised" period with new types of societies and new modes of exchange and trade. In this context there is considerable local variation and diversity within the Bronze Age societies of Northern Europe which is poorly understood, although there have been advances and changes in this research. Therefore this book challenges some of the mainstream opinions on the Bronze Age of Northern Europe, and focus on local and regional aspects. This is done by a series of articles from significant contributors that deal with these issues on theoretical and empirical levels, with regards to differences, cultural dualism, boundaries, regions and regionality in a period of increased "globalisation". The result is a movement away from local and regional aspects toward communications, travels and contacts between northern Europe and the greater world, not only towards Central Europe and the Near East but also towards the east. Northern/Arctic Europe is often left out in these discussions, and this book will contribute to this greater picture of the Bronze Age world.

Spis treści

List of figures and tables, Contributors, Acknowledgements, Introduction: local societies, regions and processes of cultural interaction in the Bronze Age, PART I: IDENTITY, GRAND NARRATIVES AND NETWORKS, 1. Approaching a complex past: entangled collective identities, 2. Asymmetric twins? Some reflections on coastal and inland societies in the Bothnian area during the Epineolithic and Early Metal Age, 3. Expressing identity through ritual in the Early Bronze Age, 4. Large-scale “grand narratives” and small-scale local studies in the Bronze Age discourse: the animal perspective, 5. Reconsidering a periphery: scenarios of copper production in southern Norway, 6. On the bronze trail: short-cuts, byways, transformation and displacement, PART II: REGIONS, GLOBALIZATION AND RESISTANCE, 7. Northwestern Russia at the periphery of the north European and Volga-Uralic Bronze Age, 8. Local centres in the periphery: the Late Neolithic, Bronze Age and Early Metal Age in Finland, 9. The Nordic Bronze Age and the Lüneburg culture: two different responses to social change, 10. Pottery, transmission and innovation in Mälardalen, 11. Social landscapes of Bronze Age Scandinavia, 12. The origin of a Bronze Age in Norway: structure, regional process and localized history, 13. Social response or resistance to the introduction of metal? Western Norway at the edge of the “globalized” world, Index

O autorze

Nils Anfinset is Associate Professor at the Department of Archaeology, University of Bergen.