This two volume monograph about the region of Thy in the early Bronze Age provides a high resolution archaeological and ecological model of the organisation of landscape, settlements and households during the period 1500-1100 BC. Bordering the North Sea to the west, and the calmer waters of the Limfjord to the east, the region of Thy in Denmark experienced four centuries of intense economic and demographic expansion. By combining results from environmental and economic research (pollen and palaeo-botanical analyses) with intensive field surveys and excavations of farmsteads with exceptional preservation, it has been possible to open a window to the changes that transformed Bronze Age society and its environment during a few centuries of exceptional expansion and wealth consumption. The results from this interdisciplinary venture made it possible to link together the histories of local farmsteads with the wider regional and global history of the Bronze Age in North-western Europe during this period. Here is much to feed on for students and researchers of the Bronze Age alike.

This two volume monograph about the region of Thy in the early Bronze Age provides a high resolution archaeological and ecological model of the organisation of landscape, settlements and households during the period 1500-1100 BC. Bordering the North Sea to the west, and the calmer waters of the Limfjord to the east, the region of Thy in Denmark experienced four centuries of intense economic and demographic expansion. By combining results from environmental and economic research (pollen and palaeo-botanical analyses) with intensive field surveys and excavations of farmsteads with exceptional preservation, it has been possible to open a window to the changes that transformed Bronze Age society and its environment during a few centuries of exceptional expansion and wealth consumption. The results from this interdisciplinary venture made it possible to link together the histories of local farmsteads with the wider regional and global history of the Bronze Age in North-western Europe during this period. Here is much to feed on for students and researchers of the Bronze Age alike.

Plant cultivation has a long and successful history that is tightly linked to environmental and climate change, social development and to cultural traditions and diversity. This is true also for the high latitudes of northern Europe, where cultivation started thousands of years before the earliest written records. The long history of cultivation can be studied by archaeobotany, which is the study of ancient seeds, pollen and other plant remains found on archaeological sites. This book presents recent advances in North-European archaeobotany. It focuses on plant cultivation and brings together studies from different countries and research environments, both at universities and within contract archaeology. The studies cover the Nordic countries and adjacent parts of the Baltic countries and Russia, and they span more than 5,000 years of agricultural history, from the Neolithic to the Middle Ages. They highlight and discuss many different aspects of early agriculture, from the first introduction of cultivation, to crop choices, expansions and declines, climatic adaptation, and vegetable gardening.

This collection of articles helps to explain why the Bronze Age has come to hold such a fascination within modern archaeological research. By providing new theoretical and analytical perspectives on the evidence new interpretative avenues have opened, it situates the history of the Bronze Age in both a local and a global setting.

Trade before Civilization explores the role that long-distance exchange played in the establishment and/or maintenance of social complexity, and its role in the transformation of societies from egalitarian to non-egalitarian. Bringing together research by an international and methodologically diverse team of scholars, it analyses the relationship between long-distance trade and the rise of inequality. The volume illustrates how elites used exotic prestige goods to enhance and maintain their elevated social positions in society. Global in scope, it offers case studies of early societies and sites in Europe, Asia, Oceania, North America, and Mesoamerica. Deploying a range of inter-disciplinary and cutting-edge theoretical approaches from a cross-cultural framework, the volume offers new insights and enhances our understanding of socio-political evolution. It will appeal to archaeologists, cultural anthropologists, conflict theorists, and ethnohistorians, as well as economists seeking to understand the nexus between imported luxury items and cultural evolution.