Feasting networks and Resilience at the end of the British Bronze Age

探索社区如何应对经济和气候危机是加强过去和现在对复原力的理解的关键。该项目将探索对英国青铜时代末期气候恶化和贸易崩溃的反应。一个主要焦点是发展了新的社会和经济网络，以及这些网络如何使社区在面对动荡时具有弹性。这将通过使用一套新的科学方法来分析非常丰富但被称为中密度的研究不足的遗址来实现。大约公元前800年，随着气候恶化和经济崩溃，欧洲经历了巨大的动荡，青铜器突然贬值。就像21世纪的经济危机一样，公元前第一个千年的繁荣和萧条造成了巨大的不稳定。在英国南部，社会并没有把重点转向铁，而是转向农业集约化和大规模的宴会；在铁器时代之前，有一个‘宴请时代’。这些盛宴的遗迹创造了一些有史以来最令人震惊的考古遗址。这些“助产士”代表了英国史前最丰富的材料来源，其中一些覆盖了几个足球场大小的区域，并生产了数十万件文物。尽管有丰富的考古资源，以及几个世纪以来这一转变在塑造社会方面的重要性，但我们仍然知之甚少。最根本的变化是青铜贸易网络的崩溃，该网络几个世纪以来一直控制着人、思想和文物的流动。我们对新的社会和经济网络知之甚少，这些新的社会和经济网络出现并围绕着这些巨大的盛宴，使社会在不稳定时期具有韧性，并在罗马征服之前构建了权力关系和社区互动。它们不仅是理解这一过渡阶段的关键，也是更广泛地理解英国后来的史前时期的关键。新的研究进展意味着，解决这些考古学问题的时候到了。最近的发掘为解决这些问题提供了丰富的材料。此外，科学进步意味着我们现在可以比以前更精确地建立人类和动物的运动模式。最后，还有大量的材料和一套科学方法，可以重建英国南部不断变化的社会面貌，并研究它如何在经济和气候恶化的情况下保持弹性。该项目将专注于两个地区的六个助产士：威尔特郡和泰晤士河流域。这些助产士可以追溯到青铜时代-铁器时代的过渡(约公元前800-400年)。这些地区是这一阶段活动的中心，举办了大量的盛宴活动，丰富的物质组合证明了这一点。这些盛宴是一个不断变化的社会动态的核心。它们为社区互动、打造和巩固新的联盟提供了一个焦点。它们也是新经济实践的焦点，代表着农产品集约化和贸易的枢纽。因此，该项目将使用一套生物考古技术，研究发展出的新的社会和经济网络，并将使用理论模型，研究它们如何使社区在面对逆境时具有弹性。多同位素分析(锶、硫、碳、氮和氧)将揭示动物和人类来自哪里，以及如何通过不同的畜牧做法和景观利用最大化农业生产。这将重建新的社区间网络以及经济和农业生产的组织，从而揭示使社区具有弹性的战略。它将为应对社会经济崩溃提供一个关键的案例研究，并将改变人们对青铜时代末期的变化如何塑造几个世纪以来英国南部社会的理解。

Exploring how communities respond to economic and climatic crisis is key for enhancing understanding of resilience in the past and present. This project will explore responses to a deteriorating climate and trade collapse at the end of the Bronze Age in Britain. A major focus is the new social and economic networks that developed and how these made communities resilient in the face of turmoil. This will be achieved by employing a new suite of scientific methods to analyse the very rich, but understudied sites known as middens.Around 800BC Europe suffered great upheaval as the climate deteriorated and economies collapsed, with bronze abruptly losing value. Like the 21st century economic crisis, this first millennium BC boom and bust caused great instability. In southern Britain, society did not shift focus to iron, but rather to agricultural intensification and grand-scale feasting; there was a 'Feasting Age' prior to the Iron Age. The remains of these feasts created some of the most startling archaeological sites ever unearthed. These 'middens' represent the very richest resource of material from British prehistory, some covering an area the size of several football pitches and producing hundreds of thousands of artefacts. These provide the key to understanding socio-economic change during this phase.In spite of the rich archaeological resource and the importance of this transition in shaping society for centuries, we still know remarkably little. The most fundamental change was the breakdown in the bronze trade network, which had controlled the movement of people, ideas and artefacts for centuries. We know very little about the new social and economic networks that emerged and centred on these vast feasts, making society resilient at a time of instability and framing power relations and community interaction right up to the Roman conquest. They are key to understanding not only this transitional phase, but British later prehistory more broadly.New research developments mean that the time is right to address these archaeological problems. Recent excavations have provided a wealth of material to address these issues. In addition, scientific advances mean that we can now establish patterns of human and animal movement with greater precision than was previously possible. Finally, there is a large body of material and a suite of scientific methods that can reconstruct the changing face of society in southern Britain and examine how it remained resilient in the face of economic and climatic deterioration.The project will focus on six middens that date to the Bronze Age-Iron Age transition (c. 800BC-400BC) in two regions: Wiltshire and the Thames Valley. These areas were the epicentres of activity during this phase, hosting vast feasting events evidenced by rich material assemblages. These feasts were at the very centre of the dynamics of a changing society. They provide a focal point for community interaction, forging and consolidating new alliances. They are also the focus of new economic practices, representing hubs for the intensification and trade of agricultural produce. Therefore, using a suite of bioarchaeological techniques, the project will examine the new social and economic networks that developed and, using theoretical models, will examine how they made communities resilient in the face of adversity.Multi-isotope analysis (strontium, sulphur, carbon, nitrogen and oxygen) will reveal where animals and humans came from and how agricultural production was maximised through different husbandry practices and landscape use. This will reconstruct the new inter-community networks and the organisation of the economy and agricultural production, thus revealing the strategies that made communities resilient. It will provide a key case study into responses to socio-economic collapse and will transform understanding of how change at the end of the Bronze Age shaped society in southern Britain for centuries.