Metal Supply and Social Networks in the Irish Later Bronze Age

爱尔兰青铜时代后期的金属供应和社交网络

• 批准号: EP/X020975/1
• 负责人: Carlo Bottaini
• 金额: $ 26万
• 依托单位: Queen's University Belfast
• 依托单位国家: 英国
• 项目类别: Fellowship
• 财政年份: 2023
• 资助国家: 英国
• 起止时间: 2023 至 无数据
• 项目状态: 未结题
• 来源: https://gtr.ukri.org/projects?ref=EP%2FX020975%2F1
• 关键词: Metal; Supply; Social; Networks; Irish

For the entire duration of the Bronze Age (c. 2500-800 BC) metallurgy provided one of the most significant drivers for both technological and societal change. The ubiquitous and growing demand for copper, when copper ores only occur in some closely circumscribed geographical areas, shaped new exchange networks and established new communities of practice. Over the course of the later 3rd to early 1st millennia BC, exhaustion of some existing copper supply sources and the opening up of others led to periodic changes in regional and inter-regional socio-economic interactions. Often these changes in copper supply patterns align with wider transformations in the archaeological record. For Britain, the outline of these developments is now reasonably well understood, but the same does not hold true for other parts of Atlantic Europe. For the Later Bronze Age of Ireland in particular, we still lack reliable data that could provide us with insights into changes in copper supply patterns and the social networks that underpinned them. The present project aims to address this gap by adopting a multidisciplinary approach. It will establish the sources of the copper consumed in Ireland after the island lost its role as the main supplier of that metal in the British Isles, and on this basis will reassess the island's changing role in wider regional and inter-regional socio-economic interactions. The project will also provide a more reliable chronological framework for Irish Later Bronze Age metalwork and the copper supply patterns underpinning its production, which in turn will allow us to assess how changes in these patterns relate to other transformations in the archaeological record, concerning population density, land-use and settlement structures, as well as the emergence of powerful chiefdom-type polities that controlled crucial economic resources and trade. In doing so, the project will facilitate the placing of these developments in a wider Insular and European context.

在整个青铜时代（约公元前 2500-800 年），冶金术一直是技术和社会变革的最重要驱动力之一。当铜矿石仅出现在一些严格限制的地理区域时，对铜的需求无处不在且不断增长，形成了新的交换网络并建立了新的实践社区。在公元前 3 世纪末到 1 世纪初期，一些现有铜供应来源的耗尽和其他供应来源的开放导致区域和区域间社会经济互动的周期性变化。通常，铜供应模式的这些变化与考古记录中更广泛的转变相一致。对于英国来说，这些发展的轮廓现在已经相当容易理解，但对于大西洋欧洲的其他地区来说，情况却并非如此。特别是对于爱尔兰青铜时代晚期，我们仍然缺乏可靠的数据来深入了解铜供应模式的变化以及支撑它们的社交网络。本项目旨在通过采用多学科方法来解决这一差距。它将确定爱尔兰失去其作为不列颠群岛铜主要供应商的地位后该岛消耗的铜的来源，并在此基础上重新评估该岛在更广泛的区域和区域间社会经济互动中不断变化的角色。该项目还将为爱尔兰晚期青铜时代金属制品和支撑其生产的铜供应模式提供更可靠的时间框架，这反过来将使我们能够评估这些模式的变化如何与考古记录中的其他转变相关，涉及人口密度、土地使用和定居结构，以及控制关键经济资源和贸易的强大酋长型政体的出现。在此过程中，该项目将有助于将这些开发项目置于更广泛的岛屿和欧洲背景下。