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）的整个过程中，冶金学为技术和社会变革提供了最重要的驱动力之一。当铜矿仅在某个紧密限制的地理区域，塑造新的交换网络并建立了新的实践社区时，对铜矿石的需求无处不在且日益增长。在公元前第三至千年的后期至千年的早期，一些现有的铜供应来源的耗尽以及其他开放导致了区域和区域间社会经济互动的定期变化。通常，这些铜供应模式的变化与考古记录中更广泛的转换保持一致。对于英国而言，这些发展的概述现在已经众所周知，但是对于大西洋欧洲的其他地区来说，这些发展尚不正确。特别是对于爱尔兰的青铜时代，我们仍然缺乏可靠的数据，这些数据可以为我们提供有关铜供应模式变化以及为铜供应模式变化的见解。本项目旨在通过采用多学科方法来解决这一差距。在岛上失去了不列颠群岛的主要供应商之后，它将建立在爱尔兰消耗的铜的来源，在此基础上，将重新评估该岛在更广泛的地区和区域间社会经济互动中的变化。该项目还将为爱尔兰后来的青铜年代金属制品和铜供应方式提供更可靠的年代学框架，而铜的供应方式则是其生产的基础，这反过来又使我们能够评估这些模式的变化如何与考古记录的其他转变相关，涉及人口密度，土地利用和沉降结构，以及强大的领域的经济性以及强大的贸易领域的出现，以及对控制性的经济性的出现。这样一来，该项目将促进在更广泛的岛屿和欧洲背景下的这些发展。