1st Edition
Economies of Destruction How the systematic destruction of valuables created value in Bronze Age Europe, c. 2300-500 BC
Acknowledgments
Preface
Chapter 1 Systematic irrationalities? The Bronze Age ‘destructive economy’
Chapter 2 Selective deposition – what does it entail and how can it be studied?
Chapter 3 The value conundrum – what common things and splendid items share and why their deposition is selective
Chapter 4 Pre-Bronze Age selective deposition
Chapter 5 Trade hoards – the un-economic nature of the Bronze Age metal economy
Chapter 6 Gifts to familiar gods?
Chapter 7 The receiving landscape
Chapter 8 Economies of destruction: ‘keeping-while-destroying’?
Index
Biography
David Fontijn is Professor in the Archaeology of Early Europe at the Faculty of Archaeology, University of Leiden, and affiliated member of the German Archaeological Institute (DAI). His research focuses on ritual landscapes and on the social evolution of prehistoric farming societies in Europe and Eurasia. Previous books include the award-winning Sacrificial Landscapes (2003) and Transformation through Destruction (2013; co-written/edited with S. Van der Vaart and R. Jansen).
"This book sheds new light on one of the most pressing problems in European archaeology: why did people in the Bronze Age bury so much metalwork or consign it to rivers and bogs? David Fontijn's analysis is compelling, original and brilliantly argued. It will be influential and ought to take studies of ancient Europe in exciting new directions." – Richard Bradley, Reading University, UK
"This innovative and insightful book explores the analytical lenses through which we encounter and explain the deposition of metal objects in Bronze Age and Early Iron Age Europe. Employing anthropological theories of value to call into question the distinctions archaeologists so often draw between social, religious and economic activities, this book will be of interest to anyone working on the significance of objects and depositional practice in the past." – Joanna Brück, University of Bristol, UK
