Culture and Change in Central European Prehistory: 6th to 1st millenium BC (2007)

This book is a cohesive overview of Central European prehistory from the introduction of agriculture around 6000 BC to the state-forming processes that began to emerge during the first millennium BC. A complex mosaic of culture, society and processes is mirrored in the material world and in certain periods involves a large part of the Eurasian continent. Culture and change must be understood as both localised and macro-regional: the book is a cultural-historical tale - inspired by, for example, the attempts of French historians to integrate different levels of history. Emphasis is laid on the eventful boom periods where innovations and cross-cultural interaction intensified in such a way that history's mainly reproductive pattern was broken. Important turning points are attached, among other things, to the first production of food, copper- and bronze metallurgy, and the sword as a weapon and symbol. These technical innovations were part of a complicated interaction with social and cultural processes, which in many cases are connected in a pattern that can be followed in time and space. PREFACE This book is an introductory essay about central European prehistory from the first agricultural communities to the formation of urban soci- eties and states several millennia later. It may, I hope, be of interest to a general readership, but students of Scandinavian archaeology may in particular find it helpful. In my experience students have difficulty in obtaining a fairly detailed and, at the same time, cohesive overview of central European prehistory. One obstacle is that much of the relevant literature is in German, which is no longer a natural part of young peoples’ training in Scandinavia. Even those who feel at home in that language may feel at a loss when confronted with the mass of empirical detail. Scandinavian prehistory can, furthermore, hardly be understood isolated from a broad and deep European perspective.