BREAKING THE MOULD · A cross-cultural analysis of the character of bronze smiths and craft diversity in late Bronze Age Europe (1300-800 BC)

Breaking the Mould: A cross-cultural analysis of the character of bronze smiths and craft diversity in late Bronze Age Europe (1300-800 BC)

Craft is fundamentally an expression of technical, aesthetic, social and cultural spirit of past ages, with advances in the general parameters of craft marking milestone shifts between old through to new Stone Ages or the early through to advanced metal ages. The use of metals represents one of the most fundamental paradigm shifts in later prehistory, when engagement with landscapes changed as new raw materials were sought and a suite of hitherto independent technologies coalesced - pyrotechnology, stone carving, wood working, ceramic production and more to enable metalworking. This was not just a shift in the materials used therefore, but a fundamental shift in how people interacted with their physical world through technology. This began quite modestly by the end of the Stone Age (certainly by the fifth millennium BC), but it remained something of a novelty. By the later part of the second millennium BC, however, things changed utterly. Metal came to be used commonly and by many different elements in society. The massive impact this had on social worlds could be compared rather broadly with the move from the first days of airplanes as rare and wonderful objects to today's mass travel by air - the technologies remain in the same general realm, but the social impacts are completely different. For this reason, the project explores the major changes in metal production taking place around 1300-800 BC in Europe. At the core of this work is exploring what was the nature of this change by assessing who was making metal objects, how and where this was done, where did they obtain their resources (and from whom), and what were people doing now with metal that was so different to before. In broader terms, the range of tools and weapons, and ornaments, that emerged in this era and the ways these were used were to shape the course of many elements of European societies right up until the latter half of the second millennium BC. The objective of this project is to characterise culturally particular developments in bronze workshop practices using case-study areas in Europe, and through this to rethink relationships linking resource control, craft organisation and identity formation. This is achieved by measuring variability in the technological choices, skillsets and knowhow underlying smithing traditions and defining the social practices of craft production. I will employ a cross-cultural approach using three case studies: the Balkans, Central Europe and Northwest Europe.

Data: CORDIS, © European Union