Toby C. Wilkinson

Adam S. Green

Darryl Wilkinson

Nancy Highcock

Thomas Leppard

Cities and Citadels provides an urgent update of archaeology’s engagement with economic theory. Recent events have forced a major reassessment of economic thinking. In the wake of the 2008 Great Recession and the economic impact of the COVID-19 Pandemic, the world finds itself in unprecedented times. Even though archaeology typically concerns itself with the remote past, it must also help us understand how we got to where we are today. This book takes up the challenging new theories of scholars like Thomas Piketty, Mariana Mazzucato and David Graeber and explores their importance for the study of human economies in ancient and prehistoric contexts. Drawing on case studies from the Neolithic to the Classical Era and spanning the globe, the authors put forward a new narrative of economic change that is relevant to the 21st century. This book speaks to the study of economics in all ancient societies and is suitable for researchers of archaeology, economics, economic history and all related disciplines.

An Archaeology of Inequality and Economic Growth

Cities and Citadels

Susan Sherratt

This volume explores the part played by different metals in use from the fourth millennium BC to the Early Iron Age, not only in the Aegean but also in the wider Old World. It addresses the divergent uses and roles of different metals, the interrelationships of these roles and the changing values that may have been accorded to them at different times and in different places by producers and consumers. Individually, the papers in the volume contemplate the particular properties of different metals and the various issues concerning their frequent under-representation in the archaeological (but not necessarily textual) record, and also point out comparative and diachronic perspectives that may have the ability to offer insights into their important roles in wider cultural and historical changes over a period of several millennia. After the Introduction and Chapter 1, which reflects on some of the parameters involved in the term ‘precious’ as applied to metals, the remaining six chapters cover the Aegean and the networks that link the Aegean with Italy, Cyprus and the Near East more generally, and south-east Anatolia and the Caucasus. Between them they discuss the beginnings of regular iron metallurgy, the uses of and attitudes to gold, silver and bronze and other copper-based alloys at various times between the fourth millennium BC and the Early Iron Age.

Changing Roles of Metals in the Early Aegean and Nearby Lands

Circuits of Metal Value

John Bennet

How do we understand the systemic interactions that took place in and between different regions of prehistoric Eurasia and their consequences for individuals, groups and regions on both a theoretical and empirical basis? Such interactions helped create economic and cultural spheres that were mutually dependent yet distinct. Systemic interactions in and between different regions of Eurasia over millennia were instrumental in the creation of mutually-dependent though distinct economic and cultural spheres. Bur how do we understand such interactions and their consequences for individuals, groups and regions both theoretically and empirically? This volume, emerging from a conference hosted in Sheffield in April 2008 in memory of Professor Andrew Sherratt and in honour of his contributions to large-scale economic history, presents some diverse archaeological responses to this problem. These range from `world-systems' through `ritual economies' to `textile rivalries' and address the challenge of documenting, explaining and understanding the progressively more interwoven worlds of prehistoric Eurasia.

Systemic Interactions in Eurasia, 7th to 1st Millennia BC

Interweaving Worlds

Toby C. Wilkinson

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