Kristiansen K., Larsson T.B. The Rise of Bronze Age Society: Travels, Transmissions and Transformations

Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005. — 449 pp. — ISBN: 978-0-521-84363-8.Winner of the 2006 SAA Book Award Beginning with state formation and urbanization in the Near East c. 3000 BC and ending in Central and Northern Europe c. 1000-500 BC, the Bronze Age marks an heroic age of travels and transformations throughout Europe. Kristian Kristiansen and Thomas Larsson reconstruct the travel and transmission of knowledge that took place between the Near East, the Mediterranean and Europe. They explore how religious, political and social conceptions of Bronze Age people were informed by long-distance connections and alliances between local elites.
- Offers a significant new interpretation of social development in the European Bronze Age
- Archaeological evidence and historical sources are explored by two leading experts in the field, Kristian Kristiansen and Thomas Larsson
- Integrates traditionally separate research fields of European and classical or Mediterranean archaeologyPrologue: between Scylla and Charybdis.
A theoretical strategy for studying interaction.
Odysseus: a Bronze Age archetype.
Rulership in the Near East and the eastern Mediterranean during the Bronze Age.
Europe in the Early Bronze Age: an archaeological background.
Symbolic transmission and social transformation in Bronze Age Europe.
The cosmological structure of Bronze Age society.
Among gods and mortals, animals and humans.
Cosmos and culture in the Bronze Age.
Epilogue: towards a new Culture History.