Comparative Perspectives on Colonisation, Maritime Interaction and Cultural Integration - Lene Melheim
12. Long-term Cosmological Interconnectedness and Long-distance Trade: Cosmology and Comparative Advantage in the Bronze Age and Beyond
Comparative Perspectives on Colonisation, Maritime Interaction and Cultural Integration - Lene Melheim
Mike Rowlands [+]
University College London, UK
Michael Rowlands is Emeritus Professor of Anthropology and Material Culture at University College London. He is currently Co-Director of a Leverhulme Trust funded project on local heritage initiatives in southwest China. He maintains active research on Heritage and Material Culture Studies in West Central Africa and co-directs the Centre for Research into Dynamics of Civilisation at UCL. Address for corre- spondence: Centre for Research into the Dynamics of Civilisation, B05 Gordon House, 29 Gordon Square, London, WC1H 0PP, UK. Email: [email protected]
Johan Ling [+]
University of Gothenburgh
Johan Ling is Associate Professor in Archaeology at the Department of Archaeology and Ancient History at the University of Gothenburg. He has worked with topics on rock art and landscape but also on aspects of provenancing Scandinavian Bronze Age artefacts by lead isotope and elemental analyses. Address for correspondence: Department of Historical Studies, University of Gothenburg, SE Box 200, 405 30 Gothenburg, Sweden. Email: [email protected]
Description
Mike Rowlands and Johan Ling describe exchange as part of a ‘civilisational cosmology’ that led to the spread of uniformities in material culture, settlements and landscape in the Bell Beaker period, thus starting off the European Bronze Age. They argue that the development of a comparative advantage set within this wider cosmological frame depended on defining differences in the contributions made to the reproduction of the totality. Building a comparative advantage in technology and the production of distinctive local forms made a difference in terms of the value and wealth created within a particular region.