EAA2021: Abstract
Abstract is part of session #16:
Title & Content
Title:
Writing economic history without concrete figures? Bronze Age North Tyrol and the Question of the economic significance of metal production
Content:
Based on metal analyses, the so-called “classical Ösenring (ingot torque) copper” is closely associated with copper mining in the Tyrolean Lower Inn Valley (fahlore mining district Schwaz – Brixlegg) in Western Austria. In the Early Bronze Age, it was distributed in considerable quantities over large parts of Europe up to Scandinavia. Thus, it can be assumed that during this epoch an intense mining activity took place in North Tyrol – which was abandoned in the Middle Bronze Age and resumed in the Late Bronze Age –, and yet it is hardly possible to make quantitative statements on this matter. This is mainly due to the fact that corresponding mining traces and processing facilities are missing or have not been preserved.
Under such circumstances, what possibilities remain for writing an economic history of the region and assessing the importance of metallurgy within this framework? Since the archaeological sources on the Early Bronze Age in the area are quite limited overall (burials of this period, for example, are almost unknown), the incorporation of archaeometric data seems absolutely necessary. Archaeozoological, geochemical, and palynological analyses are of particular importance here. The purpose of this paper is to present some preliminary conclusions from an ongoing research project in this regard: on the one hand, such sources are consulted in a case study based on the Buchberg near Wiesing, a smelting site in the Tyrolean Lower Inn Valley. On the other hand, valuable insights can be derived from a more far-reaching comparison of archaeometric data from Bronze Age sites in the Eastern Alps.
In this way, even if no direct calculations on the (Early) Bronze Age metal production in North Tyrol are feasible, we can nevertheless obtain concrete figures and information on the economic system and the importance of metallurgy therein.
Under such circumstances, what possibilities remain for writing an economic history of the region and assessing the importance of metallurgy within this framework? Since the archaeological sources on the Early Bronze Age in the area are quite limited overall (burials of this period, for example, are almost unknown), the incorporation of archaeometric data seems absolutely necessary. Archaeozoological, geochemical, and palynological analyses are of particular importance here. The purpose of this paper is to present some preliminary conclusions from an ongoing research project in this regard: on the one hand, such sources are consulted in a case study based on the Buchberg near Wiesing, a smelting site in the Tyrolean Lower Inn Valley. On the other hand, valuable insights can be derived from a more far-reaching comparison of archaeometric data from Bronze Age sites in the Eastern Alps.
In this way, even if no direct calculations on the (Early) Bronze Age metal production in North Tyrol are feasible, we can nevertheless obtain concrete figures and information on the economic system and the importance of metallurgy therein.
Keywords:
Bronze Age, Austria, archaeometry, economic archaeology, metallurgy
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authors
Main authors:
Jessica Keil1
Co-author:
Affiliations:
1 University of Innsbruck - Department of Archaeologies