Looking In From The Edge (LIFTE) The impact of international commercialization on north-west Europe’s peripheral communities 1468-1712: production, commerce and consumption in Orkney and Shetland

在近代早期，世界资本主义贸易体系的发展逐渐扩大，直到将地球仪的大部分地区纳入其影响范围。在欧洲也是如此，它导致了周边地区更紧密地融入欧洲贸易网络，并将这些地区基本上维持生计和低水平贸易的经济转变为商业化的、生产剩余的经济。商业化的扩展对当地社区产生了深远的影响，因为它需要周边的土地来扩大生产的规模和性质，但也使这些社区能够获得进口的货物和材料，影响了当地的文化和社会展示。该项目是对苏格兰北方群岛的微观研究，审查消费品的引进及其对生产、交换和消费机制的影响。它对比了设得兰群岛的主要渔业生产经济，直接面向德国市场，与奥克尼的农业经济，这是面向挪威和苏格兰市场。这一“岛屿实验室”提供了一个竞技场，在这里可以最密切地研究向商业化的转变，因为在这里可以清楚地查明贸易的媒介、机制和影响。该项目的重点是1468年至1712年期间，这标志着岛屿从挪威转移到苏格兰，以及汉萨同盟在岛屿上进行贸易的时期，这对商业化进程至关重要。该项目采取跨学科方法，包括文献资料、陆上和水下调查以及对贸易和消费场所的有限挖掘、考古文物研究、对表明商品生产的生物遗骸的分析以及对与贸易有关的常设建筑物的研究。这样一种方法可以考虑到往往很少的历史证据，不仅可以全面了解商业的规模，而且可以全面了解商业对生产和消费的物质影响。这将提供一个全面的研究机制的贸易本身，以及社会和经济后果的贸易。这个项目的总体概念不是作为一个小地方的特殊研究，而是作为一个微观研究，照亮了从中世纪到现代世界的通道。

During the early modern period the development of a world system of capitalist trade gradually extended until it brought much of the globe within its influence. In Europe as well, it led to a closer incorporation of peripheral places into the European trade network, and transformed their largely subsistence and low-level trading economies to commercialized, surplus-producing ones. The spread of commercialization had profound effects on local communities, as it required peripheral lands to increase the scale and nature of production, but also made imported goods and materials available to these communities, influencing local cultures and social display. This project is a microstudy of the Northern Isles of Scotland and examines the introduction of consumer commodities and their impact on the mechanisms of production, exchange and consumption. It contrasts the largely fish-producing economy of Shetland, directed towards the German market, with the agricultural economy of Orkney, which was orientated more towards markets in Norway and Scotland. This ‘island laboratory’ provides an arena in which the transformation towards commercialization can be most closely studied, for there the vectors, mechanisms and impacts of trade can be clearly identified. The project focuses on the period 1468–1712, which marks the the transfer of the isles from Norway to Scotland and the period of Hanseatic trade on the islands, which was crucial for the commercialization process. The project takes an interdisciplinary approach, incorporating documentary sources, land-based and underwater surveys and limited excavations of trading and consumer sites, the study of archaeological artefacts, an analysis of biological remains indicating commodity production and a study of standing buildings connected with trade. Such an approach allows a consideration of the often meagre historical evidence, providing an holistic understanding of not merely the scale of commerce, but also its material impact on production and consumption. This will provide a comprehensive study of the mechanisms of the trade itself, as well as the social and economic consequences of that trade. The overarching concept of this project is not as a particularistic study of one small place, but as a microstudy illuminating the passage from the medieval to the modern world.