Organizing Bronze Age Societies: The Mediterranean, Central Europe, and Scandanavia Compared

Cambridge University Press, 8/30/2010
EAN 9780521764667, ISBN10: 0521764661

Hardcover, 328 pages, 26 x 18.4 x 2.3 cm
Language: English

The Bronze Age was a formative period in European history when the organisation of landscapes, settlements, and economy reached a new level of complexity. This book presents the first in-depth, comparative study of household economy and settlement in three micro-regions: the Mediterranean (Sicily), Central Europe (Hungary), and Northern Europe (South Scandinavia). The results are based on ten years of fieldwork in a similar method of documentation, and scientific analyses were used in each of the regional studies, making controlled comparisons possible. The new evidence demonstrates how differences in settlement organisation and household economies were counterbalanced by similarities in the organised use of the landscape in an economy dominated by the herding of large flocks of sheep and cattle. This book's innovative theoretical and methodological approaches will be of relevance to all researchers of landscape and settlement history.

1. Introduction
theory and practice in the late prehistory of Europe Timothy Earle and Kristian Kristiansen
2. The palaeo-environment of Bronze Age Europe Charles French
3. Regional settlement pattern Magnus Artursson
4. Settlement structure and organization Timothy Earle and Michael J. Kolb
5. Households Marie Louise Sørensen
6. Subsistence strategies Maria Vretemark, Hans-Peter Stika and Brigitta Berzsényi
7. Technology and craft Joanna Sofaer
8. Organizing Bronze Age societies
concluding thoughts Timothy Earle and Kristian Kristiansen.