Presenting Counterpoints to the Dominant Terrestrial Narrative of European Prehistory

Challenges the terrestrial focus of European prehistory, emphasizing the significance of seascapes, maritime networks, and coastal societies in shaping prehistoric Europe.

This book is the first in the multi-author series Maritime Encounters, outputs of the major six-year (2022–2028) international research initiative, funded by Sweden’s central bank. Our programme is based on a maritime perspective, a counterpoint to prevailing land-based vantages on Europe’s prehistory. In the Maritime Encounters project a highly international cross-disciplinary team has embarked on a diverse range of research goals to provide a more detailed and nuanced story of how prehistoric societies realised major and minor sea crossings, organised long-distance exchange, and adapted to ways of life by the sea in prehistory.

Recent advances with ancient DNA have brought migration back into archaeological explanation, but little attention has been paid to maritime aspects of these movements or the maritime legacies inherited from indigenous cultures. The formation of the populations, cultures, and languages of Europe are now seen largely as consequences of three great prehistoric migrations: hunter-gatherers repopulating the post-glacial landscape, followed by farmers spreading from Anatolia, and then Indo-European-speaking pastoralists from the steppe.

There is a significant gap in this current model that we sense most acutely in Scandinavia and the British Isles. Unanswered questions include: How these groups reached the islands and peninsulas of Atlantic Europe? What types of boats were used? How many people and animals could they carry? To what extent did indigenous coastal peoples contribute traditions and knowledge of boats, boat building, seaways, navigation, and subsistence in coastal environments? How was the long-distance trade in metals organised during the European Bronze Age? And what was the impact of this seacrossing network on the cultures, languages, and populations of the producers and consumers of bronze?

Table of Contents

List of illustrations
List of tables
Contributors

Introduction
John T. Koch, Mikael Fauvelle, Barry Cunliffe & Johan Ling
1. A millennium of war – violent encounters during the 4th and 3rd millennia BC in the western Baltic Sea
Christian Horn & Sebastian Schultrich
2. Chalcolithic and Bronze Age Atlantic connections c. 2500–800 BC
Aurélien Burlot
3. Using direct and indirect evidence of boats and boatbuilding for understanding the nature of seafaring in Atlantic Europe c. 5000–500 BC
Boel Bengtsson
4. Larger boats, longer voyages, and powerful leaders: comparing Maritime Modes of Production in Scandinavia and California
Mikael Fauvelle & Johan Ling
5. The Maritime Mode of Production in relation to self-sufficiency, reciprocity, and comparative advantages
Johan Ling
6. The origins of secret societies and their contribution to the rise of social complexity
Richard Chacon, David Dye, Brian Hayden, Johan Ling, & Yamilette Chacon
7. Maritime memoria: navigating Bronze Age rock art
Cecilia Lindhé
8. Archaeology and science: impact of lead isotope analyses on the archaeological discourse of metal trade for the Scandinavian and British communities in the 3rd–1st millennia BC
Zofia Anna Stos-Gale & Johan Ling
9. Late Bronze Age copper mining in southern Iberia: preliminary results of fieldwork at Las Minillas (Granja de Torrehermosa, Badajoz, Spain)
Mark A. Hunt-Ortiz, Juan Latorre-Ruiz, Miguel Ángel de Dios-Pérez, Jacobo Vázquez-Paz, Magnus Artursson, Manuel Grueso-Montero, Marta Díaz-Guardamino, Zofia Stos-Gale, & Johan Ling
10. What genetics can say about Iron Age and Bronze Age Britain
Nick Patterson
11. Cross-disciplinary considerations: ‘hedge’, ‘hull’, ‘fool’, and the triumph of linguistic palaeontology
John T. Koch
12. Convergence in situ: the formation of the Indo-European branches and the Bronze–Iron transition
John T. Koch
Index

John T. Koch is Research Professor at the University of Wales Centre for Advanced Welsh and Celtic Studies in Aberystwyth. A historical linguist specialising in early Celtic languages with a unique multidisciplinary profile, Koch’s research includes Indo-European origins of Celtic names, words, and grammar.

Mikael Fauvelle is a researcher in the department of archaeology and ancient history at Lund University. He is an anthropological archaeologist specialising in early complex economic systems and the emergence of maritime trade networks. His research has focused on topics including the origins of money, the innovation of ancient watercraft, and the formation of early chiefdoms. He has directed archaeological field projects in North America, Central America, and Scandinavia.

Sir Barry Cunliffe is Professor Emeritus of European Prehistory in the University of Oxford. A phenomenally prolific author and excavator, his publications include highly readable synthetic overviews that encompass long chronological sweeps of the archaeology of Britain, Eurasia, the Celtic world, and the Atlantic façade.