Session format:
Regular session
Title:
Economic Systems in the Neolithic and Bronze Age: Pathways of Production, Consumption, Storage, Control and Exchange
Content:
The Neolithic was marked both by the dominance of materials and food production and by the increased scale of storage and consumption. Steady increase has since been observed globally in the production and consumption of goods and materials, and in the distribution of resources, techniques, skills and ideas. This has enabled the establishment of networks which, in the Neolithic and Bronze Age, gave rise to important exchange and trade routes.
Residential and ritual elements of the built environment – huts, houses, megaliths, barrows – entailed not only high production and consumption of raw materials but also many hours of labour and logistics expenses. Similar economic investments and cooperation structures were also required, for example, for the extraction and production of tradable goods (both raw materials and finished products). Storage pit-complexes of the Neolithic and Bronze Age serve as evidence of food production and surplus, offering insights into their management. Finds of hoards, weights and ingots are crucial for the reconstructions of networks and exchange systems, while they can also be taken as evidence of the complex politics of storage and control of goods and resources. The latter were key to sustaining large-scale economic investments and labour.
With this session we would like to bring together Neolithic and Bronze Age studies that discuss and problematize the complex interplay between production, storage, control and exchange of resources and the significance of economy on the Longue durée. We welcome contributions from all over the world and from, but do not limit them to, archaeology (including subdisciplines), environmental science and geosciences, in the form of case studies, comparative studies or theoretical approaches.
Keywords:
Economy, Neolithic, Bronze Age, production, consumption, resources
Session associated with MERC:
no
Session associated with CIfA:
no
Session associated with SAfA:
no
Session associated with CAA:
no
Session associated with DGUF:
no
Session associated with other:
Main organiser:
Stefanie Schaefer-Di Maida (Germany) 1,2
Co-organisers:
Jan Piet Brozio (Germany) 1,2
Dragana Filipović (Germany) 1,2
Linn Nordvall (Sweden) 3
Rune Iversen (Denmark) 4
Affiliations:
1. Institute of Pre- and Protohistoric Archaeology, CAU Kiel
2. CRC 1266
3. Department of Historical Studies, University of Gothenburg
4. Saxo Institute, University of Copenhagen
THIS SESSION CAN NOT BE SELECTED AT THIS MOMENT