Big-Men and Small Chiefs: The Creation of Bronze Age Societies

TY - JOUR

T1 - Big-Men and Small Chiefs

T2 - 22nd Annual Meeting of the EAA

AU - Iversen, Rune

PY - 2017/1

Y1 - 2017/1

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

SN - 2300-6560

VL - 3

SP - 361

EP - 375

JO - Open Archaeology

JF - Open Archaeology

Y2 - 31 August 2016 through 4 September 2016

ER -