Metalworking bricoleurs: Pragmatism or alienation? A case of the Lusatian hoard from Lipienek (Poland, 600–450 BC)

Abstract

At the beginning of 750 BC, the Urnfield world-system was about to collapse, bringing about many serious cultural changes in the region of Central Europe along with the atomization of local Lusatian communities from the territory that is today northern Poland. It was a time of growing social and political competition between the Lusatian power elites, which took different forms, including more or less open struggle for influence in the metal trading network. In this paper, we provide new chemical (using ED XRF and SEM-EDS) and technological (using mCT, X-ray, OM and SEM-EDS) data for the bronze anklet and three phalerae which were hoarded in present-day Lipienek, northern Poland, between 600 and 450 BC, to combine it further with patterns of metalwork production and consumption in the region. Particular emphasis is placed on the need to present how the metal trading influenced cultural interactions between the Lusatian peoples from the Chełmno land and the nearby Kuyavia region, and how the Chełmno group responded to the dynamic and interconnected landscape of Early Iron Age Poland. Through exploring the metal artefacts from Lipienek, we also contribute to a better understanding of the bricoleur style in the Lusatian metalworking. Here, it appears that this technological trajectory might have resulted from the pragmatism of metalworkers who searched for a way to keep pace with the social and technological competition during the Lusatian era. Furthermore, the results have allowed us to hypothesise that the bricoleur style behind the hoard can also reflect the alienation of Chełmno group metalworkers and their patrons from the mainstream metal trading network, which was controlled by the Stanomin centre in the nearby Kuyavia region.