Appropriating Innovations: Entangled Knowledge in Eurasia, 5000–1500 BCE

273 Pages·2017·65.87 MB·English

by  Joseph Maran

APPROPRIATING INNOVATIONS
E K E , 5000–1500 BCE
NTANGLED NOWLEDGE IN URASIA
Edited by
PHILIPP W. STOCKHAMMER AND JOSEPH MARAN
Oxford & Philadelphia
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Front cover: “Wheels of Innovation”, Jelena Radosavljević
Contents
Chapter 1. Introduction
Joseph Maran and Philipp W. Stockhammer ....................................................................................................1
Chapter 2. Innovation Minus Modernity? Revisiting Some Relations of Technical and Social Change
Cornelius Schubert ............................................................................................................................................4
Chapter 3. From Counting to Writing: The Innovative Potential of Bookkeeping in Uruk Period Mesopotamia
Kristina Sauer .................................................................................................................................................12
Chapter 4. Uruk, Pastoralism and Secondary Products: Was it a Revolution? A View from the
Anatolian Highland s
Maria Bianca D’Anna and Giulio Palumbi....................................................................................................29
Chapter 5. The ‘Green Revolution’ in Prehistory: Late Neolithic Agricultural Innovations
as a Technological System
Maria Ivanova .................................................................................................................................................40
Chapter 6. The Spread of Productive and Technological Innovations in Europe and the Near East:
An Integrated Zooarchaeological Perspective on Secondary Animal Products and Bronze
Utilitarian Metallurgy
Haskel J. Greenfi eld ........................................................................................................................................50
Chapter 7. Early Wagons in Eurasia: Disentangling an Enigmatic Innovation
Stefan Burmeister ............................................................................................................................................69
Chapter 8. Contextualising Innovation: Cattle Owners and Wagon Drivers in the North Caucasus and Beyond
Sabine Reinhold, Julia Gresky, Natalia Berezina, Anatoly R. Kantorovich, Corina Knipper,
Vladimir E. Maslov, Vladimira G. Petrenko, Kurt W. Alt and Andrey B. Belinsky .......................................78
Chapter 9. Innovation, Interaction and Society in Europe in the 4th Millennium BCE:
The ‘Traction Complex’ as Innovation and ‘Technology Cluster’
Maleen Leppek ................................................................................................................................................98
Chapter 10. Wheels of Change: The Polysemous Nature of Early Wheeled Vehicles in 3rd Millennium BCE
Central and Northwest European Societies
Joseph Maran ................................................................................................................................................109
iv Contents
Chapter 11. Appropriating Draught Cattle Technology in Southern Scandinavia: Roles, Context
and Consequences
Niels N. Johannsen ........................................................................................................................................122
Chapter 12. Key Techniques in the Production of Metals in the 6th and 5th Millennia BCE:
Prerequisites, Preconditions and Consequences
Svend Hansen ................................................................................................................................................136
Chapter 13. The Diffusion of Know-How within Spheres of Interaction: Modelling Prehistoric Innovation
Processes between South-West Asia and Central Europe in the 5th and 4th Millennia BC
Florian Klimscha ...........................................................................................................................................149
Chapter 14. A Comparative View on Metallurgical Innovations in South-Western Asia: What Came First?
Barbara Helwing ...........................................................................................................................................161
Chapter 15. The Role of Metallurgy in Different Types of Early Hierarchical Society in Mesopotamia
and Eastern Anatolia
Marcella Frangipane.....................................................................................................................................171
Chapter 16. The Use of Bronze Objects in the 3rd Millennium BC: A Survey between Atlantic and Indus
Lorenz Rahmstorf ..........................................................................................................................................184
Chapter 17. Appropriation of Tin-Bronze Technology: A Regional Study of the History of Metallurgy
in Early Bronze Age Southern Mesopotamia
Ulrike Wischnewski .......................................................................................................................................211
Chapter 18. gonur Depe (Turkmenistan) and its Role in the Middle Asian Interaction Sphere
Federica Lume Pereira .................................................................................................................................220
Chapter 19. The Appropriation of Early Bronze Technology in China
Jianjun Mei, Yongbin Yu, Kunlong Chen, Lu Wang .....................................................................................231
Chapter 20. Patterns of Transformation from the Final Neolithic to the Early Bronze Age:
A Case Study from the Lech Valley South of Augsburg
Ken Massy, Corina Knipper, Alissa Mittnik, Steffen Kraus, Ernst Pernicka, Fabian Wittenborn,
Johannes Krause, Philipp W. Stockhammer .................................................................................................241
Chapter 21. Yet Another Revolution? Weapon Technology and Use Wear in Late Neolithic
and Early Bronze Age Southern Scandinavia
Christian Horn ..............................................................................................................................................262
Chapter 1
Introduction
Joseph Maran and Philipp W. Stockhammer
The question of how to conceptualise the role of Rebay-Salisbury 2011). Its proponents aimed to distinguish
technological innovations over the last 12,000 years is of cultural ‘circles’ by charting the distribution of certain
crucial importance in understanding the mechanisms and aspects of social structure, material culture, technology,
rhythms of long-term cultural change in prehistoric and language, religion, music and myth. These circles were
early historic societies. Although the accelerating force of believed to be so defi nitive that even similarities in the form
the advent of agriculture and sedentary village life during of specifi c cultural traits between extremely distant regions
the early Holocene is widely acknowledged, the changes were regarded as meaningful and used to reconstruct cultural
that have come about since then have often been modelled origins by unravelling sequences of diffusion or migration in
as gradual and linear. Already back in the 1920s such an space and time. The Kulturkreislehre introduced the concept
approach was challenged by Vere Gordon Childe (1925; of diffusion to archaeology. Its most infl uential champion
1929), who insisted on the importance of technological was Vere Gordon Childe.
and economic innovation coupled with human mobility In the 1970s, archaeology understandably tried to rid
and communication between societies in Asia and Europe itself of the infl uence of diffusionism and to develop new
in triggering periods of upheaval that he envisaged as approaches explaining the appearance of similar cultural
‘revolutionary’ in their consequences. Childe was rightly traits in different areas. Unfortunately, this quest for new
criticised for his belief in teleological progress and his approaches sometimes led to a wholesale abandonment of the
oversimplifi ed idea of diffusion as an almost natural force study of intercultural contacts, replacing it by explanations
spreading from a few ‘civilizational cores’ in the Near East rooted in the notion of independent, autochthonous
and Egypt to ‘peripheral areas’. Yet, his ideas were ground- development in various regions. Only in the last decade
breaking in their emphasis on coupling societal change with have new approaches emerged that aim to overcome the
interaction and technological innovation. division between diffusionism and autochthonism. It was
It is not the aim of this volume to develop a non-linear in line with this recent line of thought that we designed the
perspective for the large number of technological innovations conference ‘Appropriating Innovations’ (15−17 January
that have shaped human existence since Childe’s ‘Neolithic 2015, Internationales Wissenschaftsforum Heidelberg)
Revolution’. Instead, we focus on two major clusters of on which the present volume is based. The aim of the
innovation, namely the Secondary Products Revolution conference was to map out alternatives to the impasse that
(Sherratt 1981) and bronze casting. What the introduction research on the introduction of innovations in early societies
of the Secondary Products Revolution and of bronze casting had manoeuvred itself into by opting either for diffusionism
have in common is that, roughly until the 1980s, they were or autochthonism, that is either for unidirectional fl ow from
mostly addressed with explanatory frameworks that relied a few ‘civilizational cores’ towards peripheral areas or
on the concept of diffusion. In the early 20th century, polycentric invention occurring independently in different
diffusionist thought was a very potent factor in the emergence areas.
of what was later called ‘Kulturkreislehre’ and soon became One of the most critical fl aws of diffusionism was its
the most infl uential current of culture–historical ethnography obsession with questions of origin. It emphasised the
in German-speaking academia (Trigger 1996, 235−241; importance of clarifying when and where an innovation
2 Joseph Maran and Philipp W. Stockhammer
was fi rst discovered. The question of why such innovations also non-technological knowledge has to be translated into
were taken up by other societies never occurred to individual world-views.
proponents of diffusionism, who held it to be self-evident The particular kind of personal interaction typical for
that, once the practicability of an innovation was proven, the exchange of innovations also entails another factor
it would automatically be adopted by other societies not necessarily involved in the transfer of objects in
because it was so useful. In contrast to previous research, situations of intercultural encounter, namely the possibility
we set out to shift our perspectives away from diffusion of communicating with each other at least at a basic
and towards the concept of translation. To accomplish level of language. To put it differently, learning language
this, the discussion of innovations in archaeology needs is part of learning the practices necessary to deal with a
to gravitate away from a focus on when and where they given technology. When it comes to innovation transfer,
were developed and towards an investigation of how language and hence translation, in the truest sense of the
these innovations were ingested by societies and how word, becomes a much more important factor.
this affected the lives and worldviews of the people We understand technologies as networks where the
constituting them. In this context, it is particularly different nodes (i.e. human and non-human actors and
interesting not only to address the question of ‘what actants such as world-views) are linked with each other.
societies did with innovations’, but especially to deal with The ability to appropriate and translate a new technology is
the dialectically related question of ‘what innovations did also conditioned by the previous existence of these nodes,
with society’ (Maran and Kostoula 2014). whether they have to do with the ability to produce a certain
During the fi rst period of the Heidelberg Cluster of temperature in ovens or with the tradition of exchanging
Excellence ‘Asia and Europe in a Global Context’ from 2008 knowledge and practices between different crafts. This
to 2012, our research focused on the local appropriation of relates to what Avinoam Meir (1988) has defi ned as the
objects coming from faraway places. At the ‘Materiality and ‘adoption environment’, the analysis of which is crucial in
Practice’ conference in March 2010 our chief concern was understanding the appropriation of innovations.
with the transformation of functions and meanings of objects For a long time, archaeologists have attributed an interest
and related practices in contexts of intercultural encounter in foreign knowledge and technologies to male individuals
(Maran and Stockhammer 2012). Since 2012 our focus has of high status, i.e. those actors who have long been taken
shifted from objects to innovations, but it is still the process as the guiding factors in historical developments. Without
of translation and appropriation of what we archaeologists further refl ecting on this issue, archaeologists have generally
defi ne as foreign that lies at the heart of our research. assumed that at a given time foreign male actors met local
Nevertheless, the transfer and translation of innovations male elites and provided them with the knowledge necessary
requires different forms of intercultural contact than the to handle a particular technology. However, Science and
transfer of objects: objects can be exchanged without Technology Studies (STS) have shown that male actors
any instructions for use – and sometimes develop their of high status are in fact among those with relatively little
transformative potential especially when the recipient lacks interest in innovation, as they consider every potential
any further information. The objects are appropriated, which change of the existing system a danger for their position in
is why our analytical focus has been on the transformative the hierarchy. On the other hand, individuals with low or
powers triggered by individual actors’ interaction with very fl exible status positions – for reasons associated with
objects of distant provenance. From a conceptual point of migration, mobility or gender – seem to be much more
view, however, such objects can hardly be ‘translated’ as the open to innovation, as their lack of power and status means
notion of translation implies and even emphasises ‘reaching there is less danger of their forfeiting infl uence (cf. De Laet
out’ (Fuchs 2009) in the sense of acquiring knowledge and Mol 2000). Can we archaeologists imagine that the
about, and from, actor(s) from a long way off and creating knowledge required to cast bronze was not transmitted by
local knowledge within this process of negotiation with a male smith to a male elite but by mobile women? What
the other. Innovation transfer requires personal contact and prerequisites have to be taken into consideration if we
an exchange of ideas and knowledge in the framework want to fi nd arguments linking the acceptance of a certain
of encounters with people from faraway places. As every innovation with what we perceive to be a local elite? Which
technology is socially constructed, not only technological actors were actually interested in new technologies? How
knowledge is exchanged in the context of these personal can we identify and trace the process of translation in
encounters, but also non-technological knowledge, i.e. ideas the archaeological record? And how can we describe the
and world-views connected with the innovation in question. transformative dynamics triggered in the process? Questions
Unlike the exchange of objects, the exchange of innovations such as these are addressed in the present volume, which
is always connected with an overspill of information about assembles an international group of scholars drawing upon
foreign world-views that hinders rather than enhances their specialist expertise to address a wide array of questions
acceptance and appropriation, as not only technological but that are relevant to the overarching topic of the book.
1. Introduction 3
Acknowledgements De Laet, M. and Mol, A. (2000) The Zimbabwe Bush Pump:
Mechanics of a Fluid Technology. Social Studies of Science
This volume would not have been possible without generous
30/2, 225–263.
fi nancial support from the Heidelberg Cluster of Excellence
Fuchs, M. (2009) Reaching Out; or, Nobody Exists in One Context
‘Asia and Europe in a Global Context: The Dynamics of
Only. Society as Translation. Translation Studies 2, 21–40.
Transculturality’ as part of the Excellence Initiative of
Maran, J. and Kostoula, M. (2014) The Spider’s Web: Innovation
the German Research Foundation. Our research has been and Society in the Early Helladic ‘Period of the Corridor
undertaken as part of the Cluster project ‘Appropriating Houses’. In Y. Galanakis, T. Wilkinson and J. Bennet (eds),
Innovations: Entangled Knowledge in Late Neolithic and ΑΘΥΡΜΑΤΑ. Critical Essays on the Archaeology of the Eastern
Early Bronze Age Eurasia’, and we would like to thank the Mediterranean in Honour of E. Susan Sherratt, 141–158.
members of this project for their intellectual input over the Oxford, Archaeopress.
years. With regard to the present publication, we would like Maran, J. and Stockhammer, P. W. (eds) (2012) Materiality and
Social Practice. Transformative Capacities of Intercultural
to thank Maleen Leppek for taking charge of the overall
Encounters. Oxford, Oxbow Books.
preparation of the publication, Andrew, Jennifer and Eva-
Meir, A. (1988) Adoption Environment and Environmental
Maria Jenkins for their English language editing and Jelena
Diffusion Processes: Merging Positivistic and Humanistic
Radosavljević for the editing of the illustrations. Their
Perspectives. In P. J. Hugill and D. B. Dickson (eds), The
careful work has made this publication possible. Moreover,
Transformation and Transfer of Ideas and Material Culture,
we would like to thank Oxbow Books for their continuous 233–347. College Station, TX, Texas A&M University
collaboration with us and especially Julie Gardiner as chief Press.
editor. Last but not least, we would like to thank all the Rebay-Salisbury, K. C. (2011) Thoughts in Circles: Kulturkreislehre
contributors for enriching this volume with their carefully as a Hidden Paradigm in Past and Present Archaeological
considered remarks on the appropriation of prehistoric Interpretations. In B. W. Roberts and M. Vander Linden (eds),
innovations. Investigating Archaeological Cultures: Material Culture,
Variability, and Transmission, 41–59. New York et al., Springer.
Sherratt, A. (1981) Plough and Pastoralism: Aspects of the
References Secondary Products Revolution. In I. Hodder, G. Isaac and N.
Hammond (eds), Pattern of the Past, 261–306. Cambridge,
Childe, V. G. (1925) The Dawn of European Civilization. London,
Cambridge University Press.
K. Paul.
Trigger, B. G. (1996) A History of Archaeological Thought. 2nd ed.
Childe, V. G. (1929) The Danube in Prehistory. London, K. Paul.
Cambridge et al., Cambridge University Press.
Chapter 2
Innovation Minus Modernity? Revisiting Some Relations
of Technical and Social Change
Cornelius Schubert
Introduction
and archaeology thus approach the problem from different
Most innovation studies are concerned with distinctly modern directions. Mainstream sociology has long neglected the
phenomena. Modern societies are seen as driven by manifold material constitution of society by focussing on idealist
innovation dynamics that evolve at the interstices between or immaterial norms and values, emphasising human
science, technology, politics and the economy. Sociology interpretation over material arrangements. Sociological
itself was born of the urge to understand the societal conceptualisations often dematerialise tools and devices into
transformations at the end of the 19th century and it is still abstract interests, mechanisms or power relations. This bias
fuelled today by the unceasing dynamics of social change. has been thoroughly criticised in the last 30 years as the
One of society’s most obvious dynamics simultaneously unabating interest in questions of materiality continues to fuel
poses one of the discipline’s most vexing conceptual discussion (cf. Knappett and Malafouris 2008). Archaeology,
problems: the relation between technical and social change. on the other hand, has little but the durable material artefacts
Despite the almost 150 years since the publication of from which to reconstruct prehistoric societies. The question
Das Kapital (Marx 1867), the intricate relations between is not how to (re)integrate materiality into social theory
technology and society still form a ‘moving target’ that but how to extract social relations in the past from their
sparks continued interest among the social sciences. But material remains. Indeed, archaeology is praised by one of
we have also come a long way since then. In the course the fi rst sociologists of invention (Gilfi llan 1952, 192) for
of this paper I shall revisit some classical approaches and refuting hero-centric views of history and acknowledging
engage with more recent developments in order to outline the signifi cance of technical inventions in work and war.
what insights archaeology might stand to gain from the Given their sheer number, it is a formidable challenge,
sociology of innovation. Put briefl y, my approach is to perhaps even a futile endeavour, to select and sort out
subtract modernity from innovation studies and then ask how in the confines of one chapter even a fraction of the
what remains might be used to conceptualise ‘non-modern’ studies concerned with the myriad relations of technical
relations between technical and social change. and social changes. Accordingly, my approach will be to
Recent conceptual developments in particular might outline a perspective from the sociology of technology and
prove diffi cult to transfer because they have emphasised innovation, drawing on its central tenets and elaborating
analyses of interrelated technical and social dynamics in possible contributions it may be able to make to archaeology.
practice. The main gist of these studies is that technology My argument is divided into two parts. First, I revisit
(and society) are never ready-made. They are continually evolutionary models of innovation that emphasise the
in the making. The new studies reject linear models of emergent and complex nature of social and technical
progress in favour of emergent entanglements of actors and change in contrast to simplifi ed models of linear innovation
artefacts. Without access to the concrete practices of design, or progress. Second, I specifi cally address the creative
manufacture, use and appropriation, both technology and adaptation of technologies in innovation processes by
society remain – at least partially – obscured.1 Sociology looking at the concept of diffusion and by considering
2. Innovation Minus Modernity? Revisiting Some Relations of Technical and Social Change 5
the role of users. This shifts the burden of explanation 1935, 5). What is more, the classic linear model of innovation
away from design issues towards application contexts and itself has a history that is in no way linear. Godin (2006)
essentially breaks up the innovation process into multiple recently traced the twisted evolution of the concept and its
local, and sometimes also contradictory, reinterpretations continual reshaping by divergent interests between science,
or reinventions along the assumed pathway of diffusion. politics and the economy since the early 20th century. The
powerful image of innovation as following a more or less
straightforward sequence, from basic to applied research and
Evolutionary models of social
then to development and fi nally to diffusion, can be seen as a
and technical change rhetorical device that only crystallised into a specifi c meaning
First and foremost, evolutionary models of innovation by way of its application in different contexts over time.
attack two prominent myths of social and technical change: Unlike technological (or social) determinism and models of
technological determinism and linear progression (cf. linear progress, evolutionary understandings of innovation
Basalla 1988; Ziman 2000).2 Both these myths represent emphasise its contingent nature, arguing that ‘it could have
simplistic reductions of the complex and emergent processes been otherwise’. Inventions are not simply adopted; complex
constituting socio-technical change. A closer look at the and situated judgements often lead to ‘retarded’ appropriation
literature, however, reveals that ideas strongly associated and local reconfi guration by adopters. I will go into more
with technological determinism and linear progress are detail on some of these points below.
actually quite hard to fi nd in innovation studies. Rather
than bona fi de positions, they are more often used to Approaches to evolutionary thinking
describe tendencies in the development of innovations or to An evolutionary perspective in innovation studies cannot
provide a rhetorical foil. In other words, both terms fi gure be described as a uniform approach. Rather, it draws on
mainly as a kind of shorthand for denouncing reductionism different lines of thought and shares some basic assumptions.
in the study of technology and society. In combination, It is prominent in fi elds such as economics, history and
technical determinism and linear progress portray social sociology. The lowest common denominator is – as I have
transformation as an inevitable process prompted by just indicated – a fi rm rejection of deterministic and linear
uncontrollable technological developments. These ideas models of innovation.
have been prominently refuted by sociologists since the Evolutionary thinking in economics has been used
dawn of the discipline. One excellent example is the heated especially to counter simplistic neo-classical notions of
debate that broke out at the fi rst Congress of the German profi t-maximising actors and economic equilibria. In ‘search
Sociological Association in 1910 after Werner Sombart of a useful theory of innovation’, Nelson and Winter (1977)
delivered a talk on the interrelation between technology and developed an ‘evolutionary theory of economic change’
culture. Max Weber closed his reply by protesting strongly (1982). Their approach underscores the fact that innovation
against the idea that anything, be it technology or economics, necessarily entails uncertainty, meaning that actors do
could be the last or fi nal cause of something else: ‘If we look not have clear criteria by which to evaluate their choices.
at the causal chain, it sometimes runs from the technical to Moreover, actors do not simply orient their behaviour
the economic to the political. At other times, the progression towards maximising profi t but have muddled interests and
runs from the political to the religious to the economic bounded rationalities. Rather than being rational agents of
[…]. Nowhere do we fi nd a fi nal cause (Ruhepunkt) [C.S.]’ change, actors in organisations tend to stick to organisational
(Deutsche Gesellschaft für Soziologie 1911, 101). routines – or as Nelson and Winter put it, organisations are
Colum Gilfi llan, referred to above, stressed this point in ‘much better at changing in the direction of “more of the same”
a similar manner by drawing on the insights of archaeology than they are at any other kind of change’ (1982, 10). Their
40 years later: ‘The vast development of archaeology and argumentation, in a nutshell, is that economic organisations
ethnology since Morgan has proved that all sorts of social and their tendency for self-preservation are best suited to
systems, religions, art, etc. can coexist with all sorts of stable environments, ones that are not constantly perturbed by
economic systems and all sorts of technology, in preliterate innovation. Yet the economic environment of modern societies
cultures, and presumably in civilizations too’ (Gilfi llan 1952, is one of constant change, driven by technical invention and
194). Hence, no causal connections between technology economic competition. Evolutionary economists thus target
and society are likely to be found. Gilfi llan was also one of the theoretical shortcomings of neoclassical economics under
the fi rst scholars to link technical invention with biological the conditions of industrial capitalism. Their understanding of
evolution by highlighting the conviction that technological innovation emphasises three key issues: fi rst, the continuous
invention should be seen as a contingent series of small disequilibrium of modern economic environments, second,
steps rather than clearly identifi able breakthroughs: ‘An the tenacity of organisational routines and the development
invention is an evolution, rather than a series of creations, of technologies according to ‘natural trajectories’ (1977,
and much resembles a biological process […]’ (Gilfi llan 56), and third, a heterogeneous institutional selection