Bronzization, the globalization of the Bronze Age in Afro-Eurasia

Abstract

The second millennium BCE is a time in human history when the archaeological record, both in terms of travelled finds and ideas, reflects a networking of unprecedented intensity and velocity. This phenomenon of heightened networking and interconnectivity is recognized as one of the earliest manifestations of globalization, occurring in Afro-Eurasia during the Bronze Age, and is tentatively termed bronzization. The engine of any globalization is a transculture, which emerges from a broad network and permeates regional groups, thus creating at these entry points the contact zone, a social space that merges the global with the local, but also gives birth to autoethnography and transculturation. Furthermore, the transculture has a democratizing effect, in the sense that previously valued goods and ideas, to which access was restrictive and controlled, become available to a large group of people. The result is a cascade effect on networking and interconnections with a myriad of directionalities, choke points and dead ends as well. From a methodological point of view, a mind-set that allows for the recognition and research of such a complex web of contacts is histoire croisée, which from its conceptions considers more than just single, directional dependencies and bi-directional flows. The transculture of this age is bronze. The desire to acquire this good as raw material (copper and tin), semi-finished product (ingot) or finished goods, echoes through all corners of Afro-Eurasia. These in turn prompt the circulation of goods, symbols, styles and technologies, but also of people and views of their world and lives. Several find categories and lifestyles are already highlighted as clear indicators of such an interconnectivity; amber, vitreous materials, ceremonial hearths, horses, wagon/chariots and afferent harnesses, warriorhood and warfare, Bronze Age specific womanhood are just a few of the clear beacons that convey the occurrence of bronzization.