Overview
Technology refers to any set of standardised procedures for transforming raw materials into finished products. Innovation consists of any change in technology which has tangible and lasting effect on human practices, whether or not it provides utilitarian advantages. Prehistoric societies were never static, but the tempo of innovation occasionally increased to the point that we can refer to transformation taking place. Prehistorians must therefore identify factors promoting or hindering innovation. This volume stems from an international workshop, organised by the Collaborative Research Centre 1266 ‘Scales of Transformation’ at Kiel University in November 2017. The meeting challenged its participants to detect and explain technological change in the past and its role in transformation processes, using archaeological and ethnographic case studies. The papers draw mainly on examples from prehistoric Europe, but case-studies from Iran, the Indus Valley, and contemporary central America are also included. The authors adopt several perspectives, including cultural-historical, economic, environmental, demographic, functional, and agent-based approaches. These case studies often rely on interdisciplinary research, whereby field archaeology, archaeometric analysis, experimental archaeology and ethnographic research are used together to observe and explain innovations and changes in the artisan’s repertoire. The results demonstrate that interdisciplinary research is becoming essential to understanding transformation phenomena in prehistoric archaeology, superseding typo-chronological description and comparison. This book is a scholarly publication aimed at academic researchers, particularly archaeologists and archaeological scientists working on ceramics, osseous and metal artefacts.
Full Product Details
Author: Michela Spataro ,
Martin Furholt
Publisher: Sidestone Press
Imprint: Sidestone Press
Volume: 8
ISBN: 9789088908248
ISBN 10: 9088908249
Pages: 250
Publication Date: 25 February 2020
Audience:
Professional and scholarly
,
Professional & Vocational
Format: Paperback
Publisher's Status: Active
Availability: In Print
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Author Information
Michela Spataro is a scientist in the Department: Conservation and Scientific Research at the British Museum. She is particularly interested in the provenance of ceramic raw materials (clays and mineral inclusions) which can indicate where a pot was manufactured, and therefore shed light on patterns of pottery production and trade in the past. Martin Furholt is Professor at the Institute of Archaeology, Conservation and History at the University of Oslo, Norway. Before he was working as Research Fellow and Lecturer at the CAU Kiel. His main research interests are the social and political organisation, mobility and community composition, local and regional social networks of Neolithic and Bronze Age communities in Southeast Europe, Central Europe, and Northern Europe. He conducted his Phd research on Baden Complex materials in Poland and Czech Republic, and his Habilitation thesis on the Neolithic and Chalkolithic of the Aegean Region. He is currently conducting fieldwork on 6th millennium Neolithic settlement in Slovakia and Serbia, and publishes papers related to the ongoing 3rd millennium migration debate in Europe. Key publications Martin Furholt, Massive migrations? The impact of recent aDNA studies on our view of third millennium Europe. European Journal of Archaeology 21, 2, 2018, 159-191. Martin Furholt, Translocal Communities – Exploring Mobility and Migration of Sedentary Societies in the European Neolithic and Early Bronze Age. Prähistorische Zeitschrift 92, 2, 2018, 304–321. Martin Furholt, Upending a ‘Totality’: Re-evaluating Corded Ware Variability in Late Neolithic Europe. Proceedings of the Prehistoric Society 80, 2014, 67 – 86.
