Looking In From The Edge (LIFTE). The impact of international commercialization on north-west Europe's peripheral communities 1468-1712

在近代早期，世界资本主义贸易体系的发展逐渐扩大，直到将全球大部分地区纳入其影响范围。在欧洲也是如此，它使周边地区更紧密地融入了欧洲贸易网络，并将这些地区主要维持生计的低水平贸易经济转变为商业化的、盈余生产的经济。商业化的传播对当地社区产生了深远的影响，因为它需要周边土地来增加生产的规模和性质，但也使这些社区能够获得进口商品和材料，影响了当地的文化和社会展示。这个项目是对苏格兰北部群岛的微观研究，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主要面向德国市场的渔业经济和奥克尼群岛主要面向挪威和苏格兰市场的农业经济。这个“岛屿实验室”提供了一个可以仔细研究向商业化转变的场所，因为在那里可以清楚地确定贸易的媒介、机制和影响。该项目侧重于1468-1712年期间，这标志着北部岛屿从挪威转移到苏格兰，以及岛屿上的汉萨贸易时期，这对商业化进程至关重要。该项目采用跨学科方法，包括文献资料、陆上和水下调查、有限的贸易和消费地点挖掘、考古文物研究、表明商品生产的生物遗迹分析和与贸易有关的站立建筑研究。这种方法可以考虑到往往很少的历史证据，不仅对商业的规模，而且对其对生产和消费的物质影响提供了全面的了解。这将对贸易本身的机制以及这种贸易的社会和经济后果进行全面研究。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 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 transfer of the Northern 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.