The Past and Present Society

The Bronze Age

Author(s): V. Gordon Childe
Source: Past & Present, No. 12 (Nov., 1957), pp. 2-15
Published by: Oxford University Press on behalf of The Past and Present Society
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/650012 .
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GORDON CHILDE
Our readers will have read of the death of Gordon Childe.
Childe was the most
significant archaeologist
of our
day;
his
teaching
has
permanently changed
the
way
manldkind
thinks
about
pre-history.
He was a historian and a
scientist;
he
studied the behaviour of men known
only
through
the
objects
they
left behind
them,
not
merely
the
objects
themselves.
His method of
analysis, classification, synthesis
was the method
of the
scientist,
rather than of the
technologist.
Childe was a Marxist and
proud
of it. His Marxism was
a
way
of
thought,
a
guide
to
solving problems
and
reaching
decisions,
not a set of
propositions, dogmas,
formulae. He
often
spoke
of his debt to Marx and
Engels
and I know would
have liked to be remembered as one of those who
helped
to
shape
Marxist
philosophy.
Not
every
notice of his death
will record this wish.
History
has suffered a
great
loss. Past and Present has
lost more than most. Childe
joined
the Board at its foundation.
His active
participation
in its work did much to
shape
the
standards which the
journal
has striven to attain.
The
day
before his death was announced we received
from
him the text of the article
printed
below. To
print
it in this
issue we have had to
postpone
another article and risk a few
days delay
in
publication.
I am sure that our readers will
approve
this decision.
JOHN MORRIS, Editor.
THE BRONZE AGE
IT WAS WITH THE BRONZE AGE THAT THE COURSE OF EUROPE'S HISTORY
-
social and economic as well as
technological
and scientific
-
began
to
diverge
both from that of the New World and from that of the
Ancient East. "Bronze
Age"
here means not so much a
period
of
sidereal time as a
technological stage
in which metal -
actually
copper
more often than the
alloy
of
copper
and tin -- first came to
be used
regularly for
the
principal cutting
tools and
weapons
to
replace
or
supplement
the earlier
equipment
of
stone,
bone and wood. This
technological stage
was never reached at
ell
in North
America;
in
Europe
it was achieved
considerably
later than in
Egypt
and
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THE BRONZE AGE
3
Mesopotamia.
But Bronze
Age
means much more than a techno-
logical stage.
In the first
place
of course it did
give
men more efficient means
of
production
and
implements
of destruction. Yet metal axes or
adzes are
very
little
more
efficient than stone ones for
tree-felling,
and for such
rough
work metal
replaced
stone
only very slowly.
Metal
daggers
were
probably really
less liable to
snap
in close
fight
than flint or bone
weapons
and did
replace
these
quite quickly.
But saws - for
sawing
wood - can
only
be made of
metal,
and
without saws it is hard to see how wheels could be made.
(The
earliest wheels were solid disks of wood or
tripartite
disks made
by
mortising together
three
shaped planks).
Before the
European
expansion wheels,
whether cart-wheels or
potters' wheels,
were known
nowhere in the New
World,
and in the Old World
only
in such
regions
as had once reached the Bronze
Stage.
The
pre-European
distribution of
ploughs
also coincides with the
prehistoric
distribution
of the Bronze
Stage
so it
may
be that metal tools were essential for
making
this
composite implement
even
though
no metal need be
incorporated
in its structure. Thus the whole of modern
industry
based on
rotary
motion is
certainly
rooted in the Bronze
Age,
and
agriculture,
in contrast to
plot-cultivation
with
digging
sticks or
hoes,
may
have started there too.
Secondly at least two theoretical sciences can be traced back to
practical
sciences
applied
in the Bronze
Age.
The
startling
tran-
substantiation effected in
smelting
-
the reduction
by heating
with
charcoal
(carbon)
of the blue or
green crystaline
ores of
copper
to
the
tough
red metal
-
is the
prototype
of all the chemical
changes
deliberately
effected
by
men and indeed of the transmutation of metals
in nuclear
physics. Similarly
in
locating
ores
prehistoric prospectors
must have relied
upon systematic
observation and
comparison
of
surface features such
as,
more
widely systematized, guide predictive
geologists to-day.
Thirdly
the economic
consequence
of the
regular
use of
copper,
still more of
bronze,
in
industry
was the initiation of
organised
international trade.
Copper
is far from a common
element;
its ores
are
mostly
found in
rough
mountainous or desert
country,
never in
the fertile alluvial
valleys,
16ss-clad
slopes
or chalk downs
preferred
by
neolithic farmers. The
Egyptians got
their
copper
from Sinai
or the Eastern
Desert;
some at least of the Sumerians'
copper
was
fetched from
Oman;
the best known
prehistoric
mines in Central
Europe
are found in the Eastern
Alps
at elevations
of
4,000
to
6,ooo
ft.
above the sea at the remote heads of narrow
densely
wooded ravines.
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4
PAST AND PRESENT
In Great Britain of course
all
deposits
of
copper
and tin are
couiined
to the
Highland Zone,
notoriously
a
region
"of difficult settlement"
in Fox's words. In brief no neolithic
village
is
likely
to have been
situated on a
copper
lode. If the farmers demanded metal
tools,
they
had to
import
the raw material from outside the
village territory.
Now
admittedly
Stone
Age savages
and barbarians in the Old World
and their modern
representatives
in the
Americas,
Australia and
Oceania
by
some sort of
intertribal
barter did secure
foreign
substances
-
shells, colouring matters,
even choice stones like obsidian for
tools. But the
objects
of this Stone
Age
commerce wvere
really
luxuries: at a
pinch
the
participants
could do without them.
Only
when determined to use metal for essential tools and
weapons,
did a
community
abandon its
self-sufficiency, becoming dependent
on
foreign
trade for necessities.
Fourthly
the demand for a
regular supply
of
copper
or bronze
evoked a novel element in
society,
a new
population
of
full-time
specialists
who did not catch or
grow
their own
food,
but relied
for
sustenance on food
produced by
others. Of course in recent Stone
Age
societies we know
experts
who
specialize
in
flaking
flint arrow-
heads, carving
betel-boxes or
exercising
other crafts. But these are
always only part-time specialists; they
are
primarily hunters,
fishermen
or farmers and excercise their
special
skills
only
in the
intervals of
getting
their own food and
rely
thereon
merely
for
prestige
or luxuries. Even
specialists
in
government, chiefs,
were
generally
in this sense
part-timers,
as
among
the Maori. Metal-
workers
to-day
are
generally
full-time
specialists
and
presumably
preserve
the status of their
prehistoric
ancestors. Moreover to
maintain a
regular supply
of metal at least a
core
of full-time
specialists
would be needed to mine and smelt the ores and burn the
necessary
charcoal in the remote metalliferous mountains or deserts and to
transport
the metal to the
farming villages.
A Bronze
Age pre-
supposes
a mechanism for the
regular
extraction and distribution
of metal
-
in a
word,
a
metallurgical industry
-
staffed at least in
part by
full-time
specialists.
The new
industry revealed,
but
only
in
embryo,
the solution to the contradiction of the neolithic
economy:
the sole means of
providing
for an
expanding population
was to
bring
fresh land under cultivation or
grazing.
When all land suitable
for
exploitation by
the
very extravagant
neolithic
techniques
was
fully occupied,
the
only
outlet for a farmer's
younger
children would
be to subdivide the lots
-
that would mean a reduction in the standard
of
living
- or to annex land
already occupied by
other farmers.
But for the
prospects opened up
first
by
the
metallurgical industry,
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THE BRONZE AGE
5
Europeans
would doubtless have continued to resort to the second
alternative, keeping
the
population
down
by leaving
the
young
men
to
kill
each other
off,
as the Red Indians did. Of course this
expedient
was
actually adopted
even in
Europe,
but
metallurgy
was the small
beginning
of those
secondary
industries that have
eventually
rendered
this
stultifying
solution
unnecessary.
The
foregoing compressed summary
of the
implications
of a
Bronze
Age
should have revealed how
great
must be the
divergence
between Old World and New World histories that started therewith.
It will also
suggest
a historical
explanation
for the
divergence..
An
appeal
to divine
interposition
or to racial
superiority
is,
of
course,
no
explanation.
As far as
geography
be
concerned,
the environment
of America's Atlantic coasts is
very
similar to that of the
opposite
shores
of the same ocean in
Temperate Europe.2
The Red Indians had
even better
opportunities
for
discovering metallurgy
than
Europeans
enjoyed; copper
was at least as abundant in the New World as in
the Old and in the Great Lakes
region
occurs in
unparalleled
quantities
in the metallic
state,
as native
copper.
The Indians had
discovered it all
right,
but treated it as a
superior
sort of
stone; they
never
shaped
it
by casting,
still less extracted it from ores
by smelting.
They
never
really
discovered
metallurgy.
In
any
case the crucial
point
was not so much to discover the
properties
of metal as to
organize
and staff a
machinery
for its
regular
extraction,
distribution and
processing.
A sufficient number of
persons
must be withdrawn from
food-production
to man the
industry,
and
they
must be
supported by
the
surplus
food
produced by
the
community
that should consume their
products.
Men must be
induced to forsake their
fishing grounds
or farms to mine ore in
the wilderness and
transport
the
winnings
over mountains and
torrents, through
forests or deserts. To achieve that a
relatively
great surplus
of food must have been
accumulated
and so concentrated
as to be available to
support
and reward the
industry's employees.
Now it is first in
Egypt
and Lower
Mesopotamia
that a Bronze
Age
is
recognizable
and dated in the
archaeological
record. That does not
mean that the oldest
copper objects
have been found there. It is
indeed most
unlikely
that
metallurgy
should have been discovered
in the alluvial
valleys
and deltas of the Nile and the
Tigris-Euphrates
where
no
copper
occurs in
nature.
But in them are found the oldest
dated indications of the
regular
use of
metal.
Accepting
this as a
datum,
its
necessity
can
easily
be inferred. With neolithic
techniqu.es
a substantial
surplus
can most
easily
be
produced by irrigation
cultiva-
tion in the
valleys
of
great
rivers that
periodically
overflow
their
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6 PAST AND PRESENT
banks. Moreover the rivers that water the
crops,
are at the same
time
moving
roads on which
bulky goods,
like
food-stuffs,
can
economically
be
transported
so that the
produce
of farms scattered
over a wide area can
readily
be
gathered
at a
single
centre;
for
nowhere
could one little neolithic
village by
itself amass sufficient
surplus
food to
support
the man
power
needed to run a whole
metallurgical
industry. Only by pooling
the resources of
many
communities
could the
requisite
reserves be accumulated.
Furthermore,
to
judge
by
the
practice
of subsistance farmers
to-day,
neolithic
peasants
would have been disinclined to
produce regularly
more than was
needed to
support
themselves and their
dependents;
to obtain a
surplus regularly
some inducement or
pressure
would be needed.
In
fact,
the
beginning
of the Bronze
Age
in
Egypt
and
Mesoptomia
coincided with a social revolution - the "Urban
Revolution",
I call
it
-
the establishment of totalitarian
regimes3
under which a
surplus
was
systematically
extracted from the
peasant
masses and
gathered
into centralized
royal
or
temple granaries.
On the Nile the
regular
use of metal did not
begin
till the leaders of the Falcon
(Horus)
clan
from
Upper Egypt
had
by
force of arms at
length4 subjugated
all the
other
clans,
whose
independent villages
had been
strung
out
along
the river from the First Cataract to the
Delta,
and had welded them
into the unified
pharaonic monarchy. By right
of
ccnquest
the clan
chief
had become a
king,
the
pharaoh,
lord and master of the whole
Nile
valley
and entitled to receive as rent or tribute the
surplus
produce
of its industrious cultivators.
By
his
victory
the chief of
the Falcon clan had become ruler over all defeated clans and over
his fellow-clansmen too. He is no
longer,
like the
latter,
a
Follower
of
Horus;
he is
Horus
-- the Horus Aha. He has been raised above
society,
he has become a
god.
Aha and his
successors
are
depicted
in
superhuman size,
twice as
large
as defeated foemen and as their
retainers also.
'They
are buried with
singular rites; :oyal tombs,
beginning
with
Aha's,
were
distinguished by
a monumental
super-
structure,
termed a
nmastaba,
no
parallel
to which marked or had
marked commoners'
graves. They
were crammed with fantastic
wealth, jars
of
grain, oil,
wines and other
provisions, arms, tools,
vessels and ornaments of
copper
and
precious metals, furniture,
stone vases and other
masterpieces
that must have been
manufactured
by
full-time
specialist
craftsmen.
Finally
each
mastaba
was
surrounded
by
the
simple graves
-
up
to 220
--
of
retainers,
including
smiths and other
artizans,
slain to continue
serving
their
divine master after his decease. Thus the
king
did in fact concentrate
the wealth
produced by
the
Egyptian peasantry,
and
part
of it was
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THE BRONZE AGE
7
actually expended
on the
support
of
specialized
craftsmen and on the
importation
of raw materials. At the same time
Egyptian society
was
split
into two
opposing classes;
the
king
and a small
body
of
dependent nobles,
on whom the
pharaoh
had
personally
conferred
some of his
spiritual
and economic
privileges,
were contrasted to a
lower class
comprising
not
only
the
peasant masses,
but also the metal-
workers and other
specialist
craftsmen. The latter were not indeed
tied to the court or the nobles' estates
by any
effective
legal sanctions,
but,
short of
emigrating
across waterless deserts to
alien,
hostile
peoples,
had
no
alternative
patrons,
no other source of a
living.
In
Mesopotamia
the Bronze
Age
did not
begin
under
quite
such a
totalitarian
regime.
The
region
was not
united
politically
till
2350
B.C. under
Sargon
of
Agade.
The later
Babylonia,5
Lower
Mesopotamia,
was
previously
divided into a score or so of
politically
independent city-states.
But in each of these a
god
concentrated
as
tithes,
first-fruits or
rent,
the
surplus produced by
the
cultivators,
'the
god's people',
and some of this
again
was
really expended
on the
support
of smiths and other full-time
specialists
and on the
importation
of metals and other
raw-materials,
not
locally
obtainable.
On
paper
a Sumerian
temple-city
looks more like a
huge
co-operative
household than a class
society.6
In
practice
class
cleavage
had
split
the household. The
god's self-appointed ministers,
the
higher
clergy,
held
enormously larger
shares in the
god's land
than the
ordinary
cultivators. The
exploitation
of
the
poor by
the
rich,
of
the weak
by
the
strong
is
explicitly
mentioned in
Urukagina's Reform
Decree,
about
2400 B.c. Finally
in each
city
we read of a
"city-king"
(styled
ishakku
or
ensi);
he was first minister of the
god
on
earth,
his
representative
in certain rituals and leader of the
god's people
in war. He controlled the sole
city granary (at
least at
Lagash)
and from time to time became lord and master of the
peoples
of
conquered
cities,
and at the same time of
course,
of his
fellow
citizens
too, though
he remained
theoretically
a fellow-servant of the
god.
Since Sumerian historians believed that
"kingship
descended from
heaven" before the
Flood, they
believed that the
king
of one
city
or
another had
always
ruled over an united
Babylonia,
as did
Sargon
of
Agade,
and the later
kings
of Ur and then of
Babylon.
Such
imperial
rulers would have been
very nearly
on a level with the
pharaohs,
but
in fact such
empires,
if
any
existed before
Sargon's,
were
ephemeral
and
partial.
In
any
case
city-kings, long
before
Sargon
of
Agade,
were buried in
royal tombs,
as distinctive as the
Egyptian though
less
sumptuous,
and
accompanied by
a
slaughter
of human
victims,
signifying
once more their elevation above
society.
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8 PAST AND PRESENT
It
may
be
granted
that such totalitarian economies were essential
to
get
a
metallurgical industry
started. A
relatively huge surplus
must be accumulated and made accessible to induce men to
adopt
the hazardous
professions
of
prospector, miner, smelter,
distributer
and smith. Such a
surplus
was in fact first accumulated in
pharaoh's
courts and Sumerian
temples
under a totalitarian
economy.
Presumably
it could have been accumulated in no other
way.
In
any
case the
pharaonic monarchy
and the
empire
of
Agade
set the
model to which all
subsequent
oriental States and
Empires
-
Assyrian, Persian, Hellenistic,
Ottoman -
adhered in outline. Yet
the relations of
production
that thus made
possible
the establishment
of a
metallurgical industry,
fettered its further
development.
So the
types
of tools and
weapons
and the technical methods for their
production,
established
by 3oco
B.C.,
persisted
in
Egypt
and Hither
Asia with
hardly any progressive change
for the next two millennia.
The reasons for such
stagnation
are not far to seek. The urban
revolution in the Orient liberated craftsmen and
specialists
from the
necessity
of
procuring
their own
food,
but
only
at the cost of
complete
dependence
on a court or a
temple.
It
gave
them leisure to
perfect
their skills but no
encouragement
to do so
along progressive
lines;
for the last
thing
to interest a divine
king
or
high priest
would be
labour-saving
devices. It
guaranteed
craftsmen
regular supplies
of
raw
materials,
but
only
to convert these into what divine
kings,
nobles and cloistered
priests
demanded. It evoked
exponents
of
applied
science,
but
only
to
relegate
them to the lower classes and
condemn them to
illiteracy.
So it isolated the
exponents
of
theoretical science from the
practical
sciences
successfully applied
by prospectors,
smelters,
smiths and other illiterates. For the
revolution had evoked an order of
clerks,
who
developed predictive
arithmetic, geometry
and calendrical
astronomy,
but had attached
them to the
ruling class;
some well-known
Egyptian
texts reveal how
the clerks
despised
metal workers and other artizans and claimed to
be 'relieved of all manual tasks'. The learned
sciences,
thus
limited,
were
thereby
sterilized.
European
bronze industries
developed
later than the Oriental - in
the
Aegean probably
not much after
3000
B.C.
(the
exact date is still a
matter of
guesswork),
north of the
Alps
not before
1700
-
and in a
quite
different social
setting.
Before 18oo B.C. the
Aegean
coasts and
islands were
occupied by
minute
townships,
more numerous than
the
city-states
of classical times but
apparently just
as
autonomous,
though
all
exhibiting
to
archaologists
equally
similar
patterns
of
behaviour and
certainly
as
closely
linked
by
commercial intercourse.
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THE BRONZE AGE
9
None were
demonstrably
class societies.
Troy
and Lerna indeed
were ruled
by chiefs;
but
though
these lived in modest
palaces, they
were
not buried in
royal
tombs and so would not have been raised
above
society,
like an
Egyptian pharaoh
or
a Sumerian
city-king.
In other towns domestic and
funerary
architecture alike
suggest
differences in
wealth,
but no division into classes. Most townsfolk were
certainly
farmers and
fishers,
but
resident
smiths worked
probably
in most coastal
townships, goldsmiths
also in the Troad and
Crete,
seal-engravers
too in the
latter
island. These craftsmen were
kept
regularly supplied
with raw materials.
Copper
ores were available
on Naxos and elsewhere within the
Aegean
basin as well as in
Cyprus,
the
Copper
Island.
Ore, imported probably
from
Naxos,
is known
to have been smelted at the
port
of Rafina on the north coast of
Attica with charcoal from
Hymettus
or Pentelicus. But
tin,'
which
was
relatively common,
must
have been
imported
-
perhaps
from
western
Europe.
The extractive and
manufacturing
industries
may
have been started
by immigrant specialists
from
Egypt
or Hither Asia who
must,
however,
have trained native
apprentices.
Of bronze-smiths'
products
some
(for
instance
tweezers) reproduce Egyptian patterns,
that
funnily enough
are
quite
different
from the
Sumerian,
while
others,
like
axes,
can be matched in Hit-hcr Asia but not in
Egypt.
Thus
Aegean metallurgy
from its birth was
fe:tilized by
the
blending
of two
divergent
traditions.
But
Early Aegean
smiths
did not
content
themselves
with
repeating
standardized Oriental
types.
They
varied their
products
to
suit
local tastes and to
increase
their
efficiency. Early Aegean
metal ware
-
and indeed other craft
products
--
exhibit far more
progressive change
than the con-
temporary
Oriental
products.
The more
progressive
character of
Aegean industry
and craftsmen-
ship
is
legitimately explicable by
reference to the social
and economic
structures within which
they
functioned. Craftsmen had not been
reduced,
as in the
Orient, to
an
exploited
lower class because no class
division had as
yet
cleft
Aegean
societies. Their
patrons
were
themselves
practical
men who would
appreciate
the
efficie;cy
of
tools and
weapons.
And the craftsmen were
effectively
free to
choose
their
patrons
instead of
being virtually
tied to a
court,
a
temple
or a noble's estate. Communication between the several
little
townships
must
have been
relatively easy
and was
demonstrably
frequent;
so craftsmen could travel
about,
as
they
did in Homeric
and classical times.
(Note
how
many
craftsmen and merchants in
Athens in the fifth
century
were
metics,
i.e. resident
aliens.) Similarly
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IO PAST AND PRESENT
merchants could choose their markets. The new
population
of
craftsmen and
specialists
could thus start out with a status and
tradition of freedom that in fact survived even when class division
reduced the
peasantry
to an
exploited
lower class.
Yet a
metallurgical industry
could serve such societies
only
because
that
industry
had
already
been established to
supply
the demands of
totalitarian Oriental States. The neolithic
villages
of
Crete,
Mainland Greece and the Anatolian coasts and their
Early Aegean
successors were too
small,
and therefore too
poor,
to
support special-
ists
engaged
full-time in
discovering, mining
and
smelting ores,
shipping
the
metal,
or even
processing
it. It would never have been
worth while for such
specialists
to search out
Aegean
ore
deposits
and initiate
mining operations
but for the reliable markets
constituted
by
the accumulated
surpluses
of
Egypt
and
Mesopotamia;
these alone
guaranteed
a livelihood to the
specialists engaged.
On the
other hand once the ores had been
located,
once
mining
and
distributive industries had been started in reliance on the Oriental
markets,
the
operators
could increase their
profits by disposing
of
some of their
winnings
to the local
populations
and those encountered
along
the
shipping
routes. Indeed the
goodwill
of such
peoples
would have to be
purchased
with
generous largesses.
Moreover local
labour would
presumably
be recruited to
help
in
mining, smelting,
and
transportation
and thus be initiated into the
mysteries
of
metallurgy.
Finally Aegean peoples
did not
have
to
rely entirely
on
the
surplus
food
they
themselves
produced
to
recompense
the
original
operators
of the
metallurgical industry
and to
support
the full-time
specialists
who
eventually
settled
among
them and
produced
for them.
They
could draw
upon
the vast
surplus
accumulated in the Orient both
by
trade and
piracy.
Their territories
produced
raw materials
-
emery, marbles, timber,
as well as metal
-
required
for
Egyptian
or Asiatic
industry
and
luxury
trades. Vases of
Cycladic
marble
were
actually exported
to
Egypt
and
naturally
arrived full of some
luxury unguent
or
perfume.
Their
exports
could be carried in
Aegean bottoms;
for the islanders and coastal townsmen
possessed
efficient boats which are
frequently depicted
on
vases. So the
balance of
Aegean
trade would be enriched
by
the
profits
of
transport.
On the other hand
piracy
was
always tangled up
with commerce in
the
Mediterranean;
a raid on the Delta is
circumstantially
described
in the
Odyssey,
the
prizes being
food-stuffs and
slaves.
Presumably
the
sea-peoples
were
annexing
a slice of the Oriental
surplus
in this
way already
in the
Early Aegean period.
They enjoyed
a further
advantage;
the
Aegean
was too remote to be
the victim of Oriental
imperialism.
Oriental states did indeed
try
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THE BRONZE AGE II
to obtain as tribute or loot the raw materials
they
needed.
The
pharaohs
sent
expeditions, supported by
the
royal army,
to mine
copper
in Sinai and had themselves
depicted smiting
the wretched
Beduin. In the same
spirit Sargon
of
Agade
boasts of
conquests
in
the Cedar Forest and the Silver Mountain. If such
aggression
succeeded,
the natives would be reduced to a
subject
class.
Successful resistance was
likely
to lead to a totalitarian
regime,
and
the victorious
champion
of national
independence
was liable to
ape
Aha or
Sargon.
When information becomes available towards
2000
B.c.,
the little states of Hither Asia are totalitarian monarchies
whose rulers are either vassals or rivals of the
potent kings
of
Egypt
or
Babylonia
but in either case raised above
society.
That is what
the
Europeans escaped.
Just
because
they
could draw on the
surpluses
accumulated in the
Orient and benefit from the
metallurgical industry
established in
reliance thereon,
without themselves
having
to accumulate the vast
surplus required
to start such an
industry, Aegean
societies were able
to enter
upon
the Bronze
Age
without
submitting
to a class division.
The new
population
of full-time
specialists, required
to maintain
a Bronze
Age,
in the
Aegean
could
and did
separate
out from the
peasant
masses in a barbarian tribal
society. Though they
were
often aliens in a
society
that was
presumably
based on
kinship;
and
probably
landless in a
community
where access to
land
was the first
consequence
of
membership
of the
tribe, yet by
their skills and
achievement
they
could earn a subsistance and a
status,
if not
tribal,
at least intertribal. Even if the break-down of tribal society
reduced
the
peasantry
to
serfdom
or
something
like
it, they
could
escape;
a craftsman could become a
Tychios,"
a
Pheidias,
welcomed
in
every city,
honored
internationally.
Of
course,
not
many did;
the
realization of these
possibilities depended
on
exceptional
merrit
-
and
good
luck. Yet
the
originality
and inventiveness
displayed
in
Early Aegean metalwork,
as contrasted with the
contemporary Oriental,
may fairly
be
attributed to this
privileged position
of the metal-
workers. The inventions in
technique
and art
justly
attributed to the
Greeks of the classical
age
two thousand
years
later are
surely
not the
outcome of an innate "Greek
genius",
but of a tradition
inherited
by
the class societies of the Iron
Age
from the barbarian
society
of
the
Early
Bronze
Age.
North of the
Alps
too a Bronze
Age began,
a thousand
years later,
among poor
and
independent
barbarian societies because
they
could
draw
upon
resources accumulated in class societies elsewhere
-
immediately
in Minoan Crete and
Mycenaean
Greece. Soon after
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12 PAST AND PRESENT
1900
B.C.
"priest-kings"
at
Knossos, Mallia,
Phaistos and
Hagia
Triada in
Crete,
and in Mainland Greece war-lords at
Mycenae,
Thebes, Pylos
and other
cities,
before
1450 B.C.,
had raised themselves
so far
above
their societies as to build themselves
palaces
and
royal
tombs. None
achieved the totalitarian eminence of an
Egyptian pharaoh
or
Mesopotamian city-king
-- there were four
palaces
in central
Crete
and, though
the tholos tombs at
Mycenae
are the
finest,
similar
cemeteries,
representing independent dynasties,
are more numerous
than the
independent city-states
of Classical Greece
-
yet
all
managed
to accumulate
quite large surpluses.
It is needless here to
enquire
how this was done save to note that a
quite
substantial
part
of
Minoan-Mycenaean
wealth had been drawn through
commerce, mercenary
service
or
piracy
from the
great
accumulations
of the Oriental States.
The wealth thus concentrated constituted an effective and accessible
market for the
products
of barbarian
Europe,
north of the
Alps.
The warlike
Mycenaeans
in
particular
demanded
copper
and tin for
their armament industries and
--
lucldly
for us
-
amber for
magic
rituals or
simply
for
parade.
For amber is
easily
identifiable
archmologically
and of known
provenance.
Plotted on a
map
the
distribution of amber finds from dated
graves
and hoards reveals
quite clearly
the route
whereby
the fossil resin was
transported
from
the Baltic to the
Mediterranean
-
up
the
Elbe,
then
up
the Saale or
the
Vltava,
across the mountain
ranges
to the
Danube,
then
up
the
Inn,
across the low Brenner Pass and down the
Adige.
The route thus dis-
closed is
nat
urally
termed the Amber
Route,
but other raw materials
not so
easily identified,
and even manufactured
articles,
were
certainly
carried
along
it too. It
actually
crossed the
tin-bearing regions
of
Saxony
and Bohemia
and
passed
close to the
prehistoric copper
mines
of
the
Eastern
Alps.
Branch routes too can be
certainly
detected
with the aid of metal ware -
one down to Danube to the
region
of
Buda-Pest,
across the
Hungarian plain (the Alf6ld)
to the mouth
of the Maros near
Szeged
and so to the
Transylvanian gold-fields,
the other from the Saale across western
Germany
and Holland to
the Channel and at last to the Cornish tin streams.
Now, just along
the Amber Route and its two
branches,
the various
quarrelsome
tribes
of
Upper Italy,
Central
Europe
and the British Isles entered
upon
a
Bronze
Age
from about the moment when the first
imported
amber
beads
appear
in the
royal
Shaft Graves of
Mycenae,
circa
1650 B.C.;
that
is, they
were
regularly supplied
with metal" and
began regularly
to use
arms,
implements
and ornaments of
bronze, locally
made
to
suit
divergent
fashions of
fighting, working
and
dressing.
Tribes liv-
ing beyond
the reach of these
routes-e.g.
in the whole of France
0
and
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THE BRONZE AGE
13
Norway,
in northern Sweden and
east
of the Baltic - remained
neolithic, normally using only stone,
bone and wood! The ultimate
dependence
of the metal trade
serving
barbarian
Europe
on co mmerce
with the civilized
Aegean
is thus obvious.
Plainly
it was
only
the reliable markets of Minoan Crete and
Mycenaean
Greece that had in the first instance made it worthwhile
organizing
the
systematic exploitation
of
European
ores and the
distribution of the metal. The small disunited barbarian tribes
would
surely
have been too
poor
to
justify
the initial
expenditure,
to
guarantee
a certain livelihood to the
personnel engaged. Equally
obviously
these barbarian tribes did utilize the services thus
organized.
Few,
if
any, villages
north of the
Alps
could indeed
support
even a
resident
smith; they
were
actually
served
by
itinerant merchant-
artificers,
known to modern
archnaologists
not from
graves,
but from
hoards that are believed to
represent
their
stock-in-trade. The
hoards
generally contain,
in addition to
amber,
semi-manufactures
(axe-heads
without
handles, daggers
without
hilts)
to be finished
off to
the
order of a
purchaser.
Within
any given
archaeological
culture-province, presumably
a tribal
territory,
most bronzes in the
hoards are of local
types peculiar
to the hoards and
grave-finds
of
the
region.
But in most hoards and in a few
graves
these
predominant
local
types
are
accompanied by
isolated
examples
of
foreign types,
proper
to other cultural
provinces
--
stray
Bohemian
pins
in North
Italy, sporadic
Irish axes in Central
Germany
and southern
Sweden,
a Saxon
pin
in southern
England. Hence,
we
may suppose,
a
merchant artificer
normally kept
to a
single
tribal
territory
and on its
frontiers met other itinerants to whom he
passed
on amber and other
goods
destined
for
inter-tribal traffic and
incidentally
a few
specimens
of his own manufactures.
In fact the amber trade
-
or
rather
the metal trade
-
imposed
an
"international", supertribal
economic
unity
on the
medley
of hostile
and
culturally disparate
tribes who relied
upon
it for
supplies
of
necessities. Its
agents, though producing primarily
for a tribal
clientele
and
adjusting
their
products
to local
tastes,
were at the
same time
inevitably
members of an economic
association,
perhaps
even a
craft-clan, inevitably pooled
their
experiences
and thus built
up
an
"international"
tradition from which each could in turn draw
inspiration.
In the
sequel
the barbarian market
expanded
till it was
capable
of
supporting
the
metal
industry,
when the
Mycenaean
market
contracted
catastrophically
after 1200
B.c.
In the first
place improve-
ments
in the rural
economy,
due
partly
at least to the
availability
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14
PAST AND PRESENT
of metal tools for
carpentry, reaping,
and
eventually tree-felling,
substantially augmented
the food
produced by
the
industry's
clients
in
Temperate Europe. Secondly
the area of the Bronze
Age
province
served
by
the metal trade was
enlarged, partly
as a result
of an actual colonization
by
farmers armed with the reliable metal
weapons; by
1200
B.C.
the distributive
system originally
based on the
Amber Route had extended its arteries to cover the whole of
France,
Denmark and South
Sweden,
most of
Poland, Transylvania
and the
whole
Apennine peninsula. Finally
the
efficiency
of the extractive
and distributive
machinery
itself was
improved
so that bronze became
much more abundant and
presumably cheaper
and was used for
quite large vessels,
shields and other items of defensive armour and
in
rough
work. Now in the centuries between
1650
and
I250
B.C.
archaeologists
have observed an
extraordinary progress
in
efficiency
of the barbarians' metal
equipment:
the flat axe had
developed
into
the socketted axe that is
just
as efficient and half as
expensive
as a
shafthole
axe;
the
triangular dagger
into a cut-and-thrust
sword;
the
Asiatic
toggle-pin
into a
safety-pin.
This cumulative series of
progressive
innovations
-
others can be
inferred,
but are not so
directly
attested
-
is a real foretaste of the
much faster accumulation of inventions in the four centuries
beginning
1600 A.D. It is not
perhaps altogether
fanciful to see in the former's
nameless authors the lineal ancestors of the natural scientists who
since
Galileo,
Newton and Pascal have
been
pooling
their results
in an international
society (till 1945).
Links between the two
groups
can be found in the
travelling
scholars and
migrant guildsmen
of medieval
Europe
and in less familar
figures
in the Dark
Ages
and
Iron
Ages.
The
political background
of our itinerant merchant-
artificers
could be called a concert of
powers,
far more
numerous,
far less
potent
and far less harmonious than in Modern
History
but
still
involuntarily
enmeshed in a
single
economic
system.
As for their
social
status, they surely enjoyed
no
high
rank in tribal societies
-
as
no smiths'
graves
are known in Bronze
Age Europe, they may
not
even have been members of such local
groupings
-
but
they
were not
relegated
to a lower class and
may
have drawn moral
support
from
some sort of
supertribal
craft association. If this
position
of the
craftsmen
-
the
applied
scientists
-
among
barbarian
societies,
cannot be
exactly
matched
among
the class societies of medieval
and modern
Europe,
it contrasts
favourably
with their status in the
Oriental monarchies. Yet their
craft-lore,
their
applied
science
was drawn from the Orient and at first
they
had
obeyed
its
precepts
to
the extent of
reproducing
standardized Asiatic
types
that their
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THE BRONZE AGE
15
Asiastic
colleagues
had been
replicating
for a thousand
years.
But
they
did not continue to
repeat; they
dared bold innovations both in
forms and
techniques, initiating among
the barbarians north of the
Alps
an
original imaginative
tradition
that, blending
with the
Aegean
one, surely
survived the Roman
Empire
and the Barbarian
Invasions,
which
actually
re-enforced
it,
to
emerge again
in the Middle
Ages.
To sum
up
the thesis: the
divergence
of
European
from all New
World
history
can be
explained by
the
proximity
of
Egypt
and
Mesopotamia
where alone the economic and social
preconditions
for the initial foundation of a
metallurgical industry
existed. The
priority
of the Orient in this
respect,
however,
offers an
equally
historical
explanation
for the
divergence
of
European
from Oriental
history;
it
exempted Europeans
from
paying
the
heavy price
of
starting
such an
industry
from
scratch,
at least until a
peculiarly
European
tradition in
applied
science had been established
among
societies that remained barbarian
firmly enough
to survive the
subsequent
breakdown of tribal
organization.
V. Gordon Childe
NOTES
I
This article is based
upon
lectures delivered before the Australian National
University
in
June 1957.
Most of the
argument
is set forth in
greater
detail
in
my forthcoming book,
The
Prehistory of European Society (Penguin
Books
Ltd.).
As the evidence is there set out in full with
bibliographical references,
documentation is omitted here.
2
Actually
inland
seas,
the
consequently
more
temperate climate,
and domestic-
able animals
gave Europe
some
advantage
over North America.
:
The
similarity
of the Bronze
Age
States of the Ancient East to
contemporary
totalitarian States was
pointed
out
by Heichelheim, Wirtschaftsgeschichte
des
Altertumns
in
I938.
4
The "unification of
Egypt" certainly proceeded by stages,
and it is doubtful
whether it was
completed by
Nar-mer or his
successor,
Aha. The latter was
the first to be buried in a
distinctively royal
tomb with human
sacrifices,
but
inferences documented
by
the
palette
of Nar-mer have been used in the text.
5
Babylonia,
till its unification about
1790 B.c., by
the First
Dynasty
of
Babylon,
would be an anachronism as a name for the
part
of
Iraq
south-east
of
Baghdad; Sumer, originally
meant
only
the lower
part
of the
area,
but the
ruling
class
throughout
it wrote Sumerian and are
usually
termed Sumerians.
6
In Man and
Materialism,
Fred
Hoyle
has taken the texts at their face
value,
as I once did
myself.
7
Geologically
the occurence of tin in the
Aegean
area is
extremely unlikely;
voyaging
to
Cornwall,
Galicia or
Tuscany
in the third millennium is a
hypo-
thesis beloved of
many prehistorians,
but
supported by
no conclusive evidence.
1
Bronze-smith summoned from Boeotia to Lokris to make a shield for
Ajax
in the Iliad.
B
There is some
ambiguous
evidence that Central
European
metal
deposits
were
being exploited
a
couple
of centuries earlier
by prospectors
from the
North
Syrian
coasts.
10
Localized bronze industries in
Brittany
and south-east
Spain may
be
connected with a
"long
sea" route from Cornwall to the East Mediterranean.
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