Economies of Destruction: How the Systematic Destruction of Valuables Created Value in Bronze Age Europe, C. 2300-500 BC

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"Why do people destroy objects and materials that are important to them? This book aims to make sense of this fascinating, yet puzzling social practice. It does so by focusing on a period in history in which such destructive behavior reached unseen heights and complexity: the Bronze Age in Europe (c. 2300-500 BC). This period is often seen as the time in which the first 'familiar' Europe took shape due to the rise of a metal-based economy. But it was also during the Bronze Age that massive amounts of scarce and recyclable metal were deliberately buried in the landscape and never taken out again. This systematic deposition of metalwork sits uneasily with our prevailing perception of the Bronze Age as the first 'rational-economic' period in history - and therewith - of ourselves. Taking the patterned archaeological evidence of these seemingly un-economic metalwork depositions at face value, it is shown that the 'un-economic' giving-up of metal valuables was an integral part of what a Bronze Age 'economy' was about. Written as an extended essay and based on case studies from Bronze Age Europe, this book attempts to reconcile the seemingly conflicting political and cultural approaches that are currently used to understand this pivotal period in Europe's deep history. Using theories from economic anthropology, this book argues that -paradoxically - giving up that which was valuable created value. It shows that to achieve something in society, something else must be given up"-- Cover Half Title Title Page Copyright Page Dedication Table of Contents List of figures List of tables Acknowledgments Preface 1. Systematic irrationalities? The Bronze Age ‘destructive economy’ Selective deposition: recognizing a logic in un-economic behaviour Bronze Age economies and the rise of the first ‘familiar’ Europe Destructive economies and the ‘unfamiliar’ face of the European Bronze Age Political economy models: a Bronze Age ‘other’ as economic ‘same’? Metalwork deposition as ‘moral’ acts: Bronze Age as cultural ‘other’ Short-term and long-term logic: breaking the political–moral deadlock? Outline of this book Notes Bibliography 2. Selective deposition – what does it entail and how can it be studied? How important were things people deposited? Seeing depositions as part of a bigger, relational whole Selective deposition as ‘average behaviour’ Selective deposition as ‘the right way to act’ Average behaviour with a logic that tends to be exclusive ‘Think locally, act globally’ Many different practices, one relational logic? Conclusion Notes Bibliography 3. The value conundrum: What common things and splendid items share and why their deposition is selective Introduction The significance of things and the distinction between alienable and inalienable things Why inalienable things require specific treatment Why alienable things require special treatment as well What alienable and inalienable things share and how they are linked Graeber’s theory: value as practice Deposition – the paradox of total alienation and ultimate inalienability Summing up Note Bibliography 4. Pre-Bronze Age selective deposition Late Mesolithic and Neolithic Europe – the west, c. 5600–beginning of the fourth millennium BC Copper Europe – the east, c. 5000–2900 BC How TRB depositions worked to keep stone, jade and copper valuables apart Selective deposition: different societies, same solutions? The disruptive third millennium BC – did landscape-bound deposition disappear? The legacy of the Corded Ware world view for Bronze Age depositional practices Conclusion Notes Bibliography 5. Trade hoards: The un-economic nature of the Bronze Age metal economy Introduction What makes a thing a commodity? Example 1 – Early Bronze Age Central Europe: rings, ribs and axes as convertibles Example 2 – palstave hoards in the Middle Bronze Age North Sea and Channel zone (c. 16th–13th century BC) Example 3 – axe hoards in the Late Bronze Age Iberian northwest Example 4 – deposition of axes and token axes in Early Iron Age northwest Europe Conclusion: deposition as ‘objectifying’ spheres of exchange A ‘sacrificial economy’ Notes Bibliography 6. Gifts to familiar gods? Introduction Bronze Age ‘pantheons’ and the notion of functional gods The problem with historical comparison The Bronze Age gods delusion Giving, keeping and ‘keeping-while-giving’ in depositions Deposition: dissolution and construction of personhood and social wholes Other-worldly or ‘transgressive’ objects Impersonating the supernatural? An imagistic mode to convey religiosity Conclusion: what archaeologists observe is deposition, not religion Notes Bibliography 7. The receiving landscape Landscapes instead of places A depositional location as a place category Why a concept of place category does not make sense Depositional landscapes as relational What constituted a deposition place? Episodic and semantic memory Landscape as an imagined reality Depositional landscapes as ‘other places’ Conclusion: an unfamiliar but predictable logic? Notes Bibliography 8. Economies of destruction: ‘keeping-while-destroying’? Introduction How bronze things make abstract concepts of value conceivable ‘Keeping-while-destroying’? Political vs. moral economies: how deposition links short-term to long-term transactions Social potential: how concealing valuables may create a ‘capacity to act’ Was deposited material also ‘kept’ in a more practical way? The potential of depositional acts to produce ‘truths’ and still allow for change ‘Sacrificial’ vs. ‘archival economies’ Back to Ommerschans – when Bronze Age things return, do values become ‘price’ again? Bronze Age deposition and us Notes Bibliography Index