Appropriating Innovations by Unknown

Author:Unknown
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: HISTORY / Europe / General
ISBN: 9781785707254
Publisher: Casemate Publishers & Book Distributors, LLC
Published: 2017-11-29T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter 12

Key Techniques in the Production of Metals in the 6th and 5th Millennia BCE: Prerequisites, Preconditions and Consequences

Svend Hansen

Introduction

Human society could not have existed without techniques. The production of tools has become an essential defining criterion for humankind, in contradistinction to the animal kingdom. The history of humankind is unimaginable without hunting techniques, animal husbandry or the achievements of the Neolithic age. Such techniques give a structure to social processes and relationships. The ancient Greek term technē referred to art or artisanship based on experience and the kind of knowledge that can be acquired by learning. The modern term ‘technology’, by contrast, refers mostly to engineering or large-scale infrastructures.

How techniques come into being and the social repercussions they involve was a topic in archaeology very early on. Gordon Childe called the complex ensemble of innovations including domestication of animals, pottery-making, house-building and polished stone tools the ‘Neolithic Revolution’ (Childe 1936; Çilingiroǧlu 2005). Further, he regarded the sailing boat, the wagon, the plough and metalworking as prerequisites for the ‘Urban Revolution’ (Childe 1950; see Sherratt 1997; Hansen 2011 on these innovations). A closer study of these fundamental innovations, however, was long hindered by the absence of a reliable dating method. It took the establishment of 14C chronology to provide a precise mapping of the development and dissemination of these technical accomplishments. Likewise, increasing interest has been aroused by the interrelationship between technical innovations and social conditions. Were new technologies the precondition for a growth in production involving surplus manufacture and the concentration of economic power only in a few hands? Or did innovations flourish under the favourable conditions of peace and liberty?

Innovations rest upon inventions, new methods and technical solutions. They are effective as such when they are integrated into production and when the products ultimately are brought onto the market. This process is also referred to as ‘diffusion’ (Müller-Prothmann and Dörr 2009, 7). Yet, in the archaeological context a more pragmatic use of the term ‘innovations’ is advisable.1 Innovations are acknowledged when they appear in archaeological contexts, i.e. integrated into social practices like artistic depictions or funeral rites. But this of course tells us nothing about the time of invention or the process of diffusion. This article endeavours to cast light on the early stages of two important innovations by looking at two selected instances: alloying of copper and casting in the lost-wax form.

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