Creativity in the Bronze Age

Creativity is an integral part of human history, yet most studies focus on the modern era, leaving unresolved questions about the formative role that creativity has played in the past. This book explores the fundamental nature of creativity in the European Bronze Age. Considering developments in crafts that we take for granted today, such as pottery, textiles, and metalwork, the volume compares and contrasts various aspects of their development, from the construction of the materials themselves, through the production processes, to the design and effects deployed in finished objects. It explores how creativity is closely related to changes in material culture, how it directs responses to the new and unfamiliar, and how it has resulted in changes to familiar things and practices. Written by an international team of scholars, the case studies in this volume consider wider issues and provide detailed insights into creative solutions found in specific objects.

Author Biography

Lise Bender Jørgensen is Professor Emerita of Archaeology at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology in Trondheim, Norway. She is an internationally regarded expert in prehistoric textiles, with an extensive publication record which includes the monographs Forhistoriske Textiler i Skandinavien (Prehistoric Scandinavian Textiles) (1986) and North European Textiles until AD 1000 (1992). Joanna Sofaer is Professor of Archaeology at University of Southampton. She is the author of several volumes, including Clay in the Age of Bronze: Essays in the Archaeology of Prehistoric Creativity (Cambridge, 2015) and The Body as Material Culture (Cambridge, 2006). She is co-director of the excavation of the Bronze Age tell at Százhalombatta-Földvár, Hungary. Marie Louise Stig Sørensen is Professor of European Prehistory and Heritage Studies, University of Cambridge, and Professor of Bronze Age Studies, Universiteit Leiden. She has worked extensively on various aspects of the Bronze Age, with a special focus on the construction and performance of identity, and is the author of Gender Archaeology (2000). She is co-director of the excavation of the Bronze Age tell at Százhalombatta-Földvár, Hungary.