What
we are capturing here is something that we had generally suspected
and now also find been confirmed through the archeological record.
The Bronze Age triggered a class of specialist miners and metal
refiners along with the necessary blacksmiths to ptoduce salable
goods. This tool kit migrated to mining districts and set up shop.
Intermarriage and jobs would draw local populations into this new
economy.
What
has not been mentioned in the literature as yet is that any given
mining district produces metal quality unique to the district and
some of that is godawful and must be blended with metal from other
districts at least. Thus actual trade often become imperitive just
to have viable product and this provides a form of commercial unity.
The
real breakthrough came in 2400 BC when they began to exploit the Lake
Superior native copper mines which made possible the building of the
Great Pyramids.
All
this meant that a palace based factory system arose wherever a good
market existed. These were noticibly well protected and often
somewhat remote from local population concentrations which is
sensible when you are a group of wealthy foreigners. Recall the
Philistines.
The
proper name for this is the Atlantean Trade empire of which the
Minoan culture was an important part. We have learned that this
culture was global with a common trade culture at least and centered
on identifiable land masses in the Atlantic. They preferred island
city states to provide a natural barrier to barbarian tribes. It is
only when a large market beckons that they will go heavily on shore
as happened with the Philistines who sat almost athwart the Suez
Canal and close by Egypt.
A physico-anthropological study of skeletal material from Neolithic age to Hellenistic times in Central Greece and surrounding region
Sunday, August 3, 2014
I
have located the text of
George Panagiaris important 1993 doctoral thesis on Greek skeletal
material. This may be one of the most comprehensive efforts to study
the Ancient Greek population from a physical anthropological
perspective (413 male and 354 female crania, using 65 biometric
characters as well odontological traits).
Panagiaris' conclusions in English can be found in p.10 of the document. He confirms that the greater period of discontinuity in the material is observed during the Helladic period (=Bronze Age in Greek archaeology), where broad-headed incoming groups appear, side by side with the older Mediterranean population. He attributes this to the arrival of such people from the highlands Pindos range, although he sees the possibility of Anatolian influences as well, but has no comparative data. He cites the tendency for broader skulls in higher latitudes, although this general trend in H. sapiens probably does not explain the local trend within Caucasoids where the key difference is between mountaineers (where the Alpine, Dinaric, Armenoid, and Pamir-Ferghana types are well-represented) and lowland folk. Perhaps, if various ancient DNA projects manage to study some Greek material we may be able to ascertain the events that were taking place in Greece at that time.
Of course, the issue cannot be seen in isolation, because at this time we see an increase in brachycephalic types in Crete and Anatolia, the appearance of the intrusive brachycephalic Bell Beaker folk in Western Europe, and perhaps even the presence of the interfluvial type (Pamir-Ferghana type) in the eastern Saka.
Personally,
I see something important in these developments: why
would broad-headed mountaineers make their appearance in the lowlands
at this time in history? I
am strongly leaning towards the idea that this has to do with
metallurgical innovation during this time. According to Roberts et
al. (2009), from which the figure on the left [above]is
taken:
Metallurgy
in Eurasia originated in Southwest Asia due to the widespread
adoption of, and experimentation in, pyrotechnology and the desire
for new materials to serve as aesthetic visual displays of identity,
whether of a social, cultural or ideological nature. This
can be demonstrated through the early use of metal for jewellery and
the use of ore-based pigments along with the continued use of stone,
bone, and other materials for most tools. The subsequent appearance
of metals throughout Eurasia is due to the acquisition of metal
objects by individuals and communities re-inventing traditions of
adornment, even in regions hundreds of kilometres from the nearest
sources of native metals or ores. The
movement of communities possessing metallurgical expertise to new ore
sources and into supportive societies led to the gradual transmission
of metallurgy across the Eurasian landmass. By
the second millennium BC, metallurgy had spread across Eurasia,
becoming firmly rooted in virtually all inhabitable areas (Sherratt
2006). The ability to smelt different ores, create different metals
or increase metal production did not occur in a linear evolutionary
fashion throughout Eurasia, but rather appeared sporadically over a
vast area – a result of regional innovations and societal desires
and demands.
There is no evidence to suggest that metallurgy was independently invented in any part of Eurasia beyond Southwest Asia. The process of metallurgical transmission and innovation created a mosaic of (frequently diverse) metallurgical traditions distinguished by form, composition and production techniques. It is within this context that innovations such as the earliest working of gold in the Balkans or the sudden emergence of distinctive tin-bronze working in Southeast Asia should be seen.
[This
ignores the independent evidence for copper and gold metallurgy in
Western Europe, especially the Southern Iberian Peninsula, where
some of the evidence has been stated to be equally as old. I do also
note that in the second map the Southern Iberian area has been
darkened (is older) and is indicated to be separate from the larger
areas of activity in the East-DD]
Models for the development of metallurgy in Southwest Asia have for a long time been focussed on research carried out in the lowland regions of the Levant and Mesopotamia. These models do not take into account the different developmental trajectories witnessed in the resource-rich highlands of Anatolia, the Caucasus, and Iran. In this paper, the beginnings of the use and production of metals in Iran will be juxtaposed with a cursory overview of the lowland model (the ‘Levantine Paradigm’) in order to highlight these differences. By synthesizing data from a number of current research projects exploring the early metallurgy of the Iranian Plateau, this paper demonstrates how at least one of the highland regions of Southwest Asia was at the very forefront of technological innovation from the seventh through the second millennium BC.
I
had planned to write a separate post on the interplay between
metallurgy and the rise in social complexity that led to the spread
of (at least some branches of-) Indo-European and Semitic during
time, but this is probably as good a place as any to summarize the
argument:
The practice of metallurgy launched the first globalization: in order to produce high quality metal objects, one needed a variety of specialized workers: prospectors, miners, metalworkers. The necessary ores do not occur everywhere on the map, and production requires a complex logistic operation to manage resources and talent. One needed, in addition, to establish a network of traders and warriors to carry out and supervise the trade, since demand for metal objects was wide and not limited to the vicinity of their production.
Production and trade networks facilitated the flow of ideas, and necessitated the flow of peoples, both because expertise was non-local, and also because the producers wanted to supervise their profitable business. There is an advantage to being an early adopter of new technology; many of the shifts in power in world history depended on a technology differential (European guns in the New World, mounted archers on the Eurasian steppe, triremes in the Mediterranean, Macedonian long-spears vs. Persian light infantry being some examples).
The technology differential eventually dissipates as everyone gets access to the new inventions. This process may take several centuries, but in the meantime those monopolizing them enjoy a triple advantage:
- There is demand for their product
- They have the better weapons
- They are part of broader communities that can muster resources against anyone who crosses them
It
is no accident that the Bronze Age started with technological
innovation and ended up in a series of military conflicts. What
began as a transformation of Neolithic communities by monopolizing
guilds of the bearers of the new technologies ended up with everyone
having access to them, and of course they went to war.
Getting back to the topic of Panagiaris' dissertation, I might try my hand at translating some interesting portions. These will be posted as updates in the space below.
No comments:
Post a Comment