Were Itinerant Craftsmen Free Agents During the Bronze Age and Why Does it Matter?

Can progress come about without individualization?

Metropolitan Museum The Collection Ancient The middle sector is the artist’s focal point in this sculpture from the Bronze Age, raised from below and burdened from above – Public Domain

Dear Readers,

I have to wrap my mind around some grant applications so I decided to recycle some pieces I wrote a few years ago.

Originally published on Medium May 22, 2020

Prior to the 1930s when Australian archaeologist, V Gordon Childe, presented his theory about the metal-smiths of the Bronze Age and their concomitant relationship to the power elite, archaeologists considered craft-making merely as a result of economics. Childe identified the powerful role that prestige goods played in the early development of craft specialization and connected the emergence of craft specialists with an itinerant metallurgist culture in prehistoric …