Big-Men and Small Chiefs: The Creation of Bronze Age Societies
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Big-Men and Small Chiefs : The Creation of Bronze Age Societies. / Iversen, Rune.
I: Open Archaeology, Bind 3, 12.2017, s. 361-375.Publikation: Bidrag til tidsskrift › Tidsskriftartikel › Forskning › fagfællebedømt
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TY - JOUR
T1 - Big-Men and Small Chiefs
AU - Iversen, Rune
PY - 2017/12
Y1 - 2017/12
N2 - This paper investigates to what extent the significant material changes observable at the end of the Neolithic reflect transformations of the underlying social dynamics. Answering this question will help us to understand the formation of Bronze Age societies. The analysis concerns southern Scandinavia with a certain focus on Denmark. The assumption is that the creation of Bronze Age societies must be understood as a long formative process that partly originated in the culturally-heterogeneous Middle Neolithic. Fouraspects seem to have been essential to this process: the rise of the warrior figure, the reintroduction of metal, increased agricultural production, and the establishment of one of the characteristic features of the Bronze Age, the chieftain hall. These aspects do not appear simultaneously but are introduced step-by-step starting out in the late Middle Neolithic and early Late Neolithic to fully develop around 2000 BC. Consequently, this paper argues that the final Late Neolithic (LN II, c. 1950–1700 BC) was de facto part of the Earliest Bronze Age.
AB - This paper investigates to what extent the significant material changes observable at the end of the Neolithic reflect transformations of the underlying social dynamics. Answering this question will help us to understand the formation of Bronze Age societies. The analysis concerns southern Scandinavia with a certain focus on Denmark. The assumption is that the creation of Bronze Age societies must be understood as a long formative process that partly originated in the culturally-heterogeneous Middle Neolithic. Fouraspects seem to have been essential to this process: the rise of the warrior figure, the reintroduction of metal, increased agricultural production, and the establishment of one of the characteristic features of the Bronze Age, the chieftain hall. These aspects do not appear simultaneously but are introduced step-by-step starting out in the late Middle Neolithic and early Late Neolithic to fully develop around 2000 BC. Consequently, this paper argues that the final Late Neolithic (LN II, c. 1950–1700 BC) was de facto part of the Earliest Bronze Age.
KW - Faculty of Humanities
KW - Late Neolithic
KW - Bronze Age
KW - social transformation
KW - Denmark
KW - warrior
KW - metal
KW - agriculture
KW - halls
KW - Middle Neolithic
U2 - 10.1515/opar-2017-0023
DO - 10.1515/opar-2017-0023
M3 - Journal article
VL - 3
SP - 361
EP - 375
JO - Open Archaeology
JF - Open Archaeology
SN - 2300-6560
Y2 - 31 August 2016 through 4 September 2016
ER -
ID: 186639204