Challenges the terrestrial focus of European prehistory, emphasizing the significance of seascapes, maritime networks, and coastal societies in shaping prehistoric Europe.
For many years now, the main thrust of European prehistory has followed a fundamentally terrestrial plot line. This terrestrial paradigm has undervalued the story of Europe as a peninsula between the Baltic, Mediterranean and Atlantic, and likewise downplayed that of many navigable rivers that reach deeply inland and the large lakes important for travel and subsistence. In vast areas of Europe the survival of incoming groups depended on coping and interacting with a seascape as much as a landscape. From the late Mesolithic onwards, in regions such as Scandinavia, the British Isles and the Mediterranean, most occupation was coastal; seas or rivers provided the most important infrastructure for transport, exchange and communication. Know-how about seascapes, boatbuilding, navigation and maritime networks had a profound impact on social organisation, ritual monuments and iconography, and the spread of materials and ideas, enabled by the adaptation of languages to these new environments. Given these facts the time is long overdue to critique the dominant terrestrial paradigm of European prehistory. This book is the first in the multi-author series Maritime Encounters, outputs of the major six-year (2022–2028) international research initiative funded by Sweden’s central bank. Our programme is based on a maritime perspective, a counterpoint to prevailing land-based vantages on Europe’s prehistory. In the Maritime Encounters project a highly international cross-disciplinary team has embarked on a diverse range of research goals to provide a more detailed and nuanced story of how prehistoric societies realised major and minor sea crossings, organised long-distance exchange, and adapted to ways of life by the sea in prehistory.
List of Illustrations
List of Tables
Contributors
Introduction
1. A millennium of war – violent encounters during the 4th and 3rd millennia BC in the Western Baltic Sea, Christian Horn and Sebastian Schultrich
2. Chalcolithic and Bronze Age Atlantic connections c. 2500–800 BC, Aurélien Burlot
3. Using direct and indirect evidence of boats and boatbuilding for understanding the nature of seafaring in Atlantic Europe c. 5000–500 BC, Boel Bengtsson
4. Larger boats, longer voyages and powerful leaders: comparing Maritime Modes of Production in Scandinavia and California, Mikael Fauvelle and Johan Ling
5. The Maritime Mode of Production in relation to self-sufficiency, reciprocity, comparative advantages, Johan Ling
6. The origins of secret societies and their contribution to the rise of social complexity, Richard Chacon, David Dye, Brian Hayden, Johan Ling and Yamilette Chacon
7. Maritime memoria: navigating through Bronze Age rock art, Cecilia Lindhé
8. Archaeology and science: impact of lead isotope analyses on the archaeological discourse of metal trade for the Scandinavian and British communities in the 3rd–1st millennia BC, Zofia Anna Stos-Gale and Johan Ling
9. Late Bronze Age copper mining in southern Iberia: preliminary results of fieldwork at Las Minillas (Granja de Torrehermosa, Badajoz, Spain), Mark A. Hunt-Ortiz, Juan Latorre-Ruiz, Miguel Ángel de Dios-Pérez, Jacobo Vázquez-Paz, Magnus Artursson, Manuel Grueso-Montero, Marta Díaz-Guardamino, Zofia Stos-Gale and Johan Ling
10. What Genetics can say about Iron Age and Bronze Age Britain, Nick Patterson
11. Cross-disciplinary considerations: ‘hedge’, ‘hull’, ‘fool’ and the triumph of linguistic palaeontology, John T. Koch
12. Convergence in situ: the formation of the Indo-European branches and the Bronze-Iron Transition, John T. Koch
Index
John T. Koch is Research Professor at the University of Wales Centre for Advanced Welsh and Celtic Studies in Aberystwyth. A historical linguist specialising in early Celtic languages with a unique multidisciplinary profile, Koch’s research includes Indo-European origins of Celtic names, words, and grammar.
Mikael Fauvelle is a researcher in the department of archaeology and ancient history at Lund University. He is an anthropological archaeologist specialising in early complex economic systems and the emergence of maritime trade networks. His research has focused on topics including the origins of money, the innovation of ancient watercraft, and the formation of early chiefdoms. He has directed archaeological field projects in North America, Central America, and Scandinavia.
Sir Barry Cunliffe is Professor Emeritus of European Prehistory in the University of Oxford. A phenomenally prolific author and excavator, his publications include highly readable synthetic overviews that encompass long chronological sweeps of the archaeology of Britain, Eurasia, the Celtic world, and the Atlantic façade.
Johan Ling is Professor of Archaeology at the Department of Historical Studies, Gothenburg University and is Director of the Rock Art research Archives (SHFA). He is a specialist in Bronze Age archaeology with a focus on Scandinavian rock art and maritime trade.
