Bronze Age Europe – the first Industrial revolution

As part of a larger pan-European study investigating the Bronze Age of Europe, an archaeologist from the University of Gothenburg has provided the first evidence of long distance travel by an individual – probably from southern Sweden – into the territory of the Únětice culture of Silesia.

The doctoral thesis confirms evidence based on bioarchaeological data.




A traveller from Sweden

‘Over 3800 years ago, a young male, possibly born in Skĺne, made a journey of over 900 kilometres south, to Wroclaw in Poland”. concludes Dalia Pokutta, author of the thesis. He met his end violently in Wroclaw, killed in the territory of the Úněticean farmers. His remains were discovered in association with two local females, who had been killed at the same time.

Was this a ‘Bronze Age love story’, with no happy ending?

What is clear from the evidence is the first case of Swedish-Polish long distance connections that have so far been uncovered.




Nebra Sky Disc, on display in Basel, Switzerland.


Transformed understanding of mobility

The Early Bronze Age has undergone a range of transformations in our perception over the past few decades, as further archaeological excavation and research is carried out. The Únětice culture is perhaps the most widely known of these central European groups, famously associated with the Nebra Sky Disk.The culture is considered to be part of a wider pan-European phenomenon, arising gradually between III-II millennium BCE.

The new study of the culture comes as a result of international cooperation of several leading European universities within the EU Forging Identities: The Mobility of Culture in Bronze Age Europe programme. Dalia Pokutta’s part of the study is a ‘bioarchaeological portrait’ of the Únětice culture in Poland, focusing particularly on the territories of Lower Silesia.

The study presents the subject from a palaeodemographic perspective based on the results of isotopic analysis of human remains dating back to the Early Bronze Age (2200-1600 BCE).

This has been the largest isotopic project undertaken in Poland so far with hundreds of samples, not only human bones, but also animals analysed and located geographically.

She focuses on Early Bronze Age lifestyle, medical knowledge and diseases, occupations and professions, as well as carefully chosen subgroups of Silesian prehistoric society, such as the tribal aristocracy, children and elders. The study provides information regarding diet and subsistence, transportation, human migrations and territorial mobility as well as the impact of these factors upon Úněticean society, expansion of metallurgy and commerce, forms of ruler-ship and collective identity.

European identity

At the beginning of the Bronze Age, people in what is now Europe, began to develop a cultural uniqueness. Archaeological evidence attests that societies shared cultural expressions while simultaneously developing local and regional differences. The 2,500 years of the Bronze Age is the first era where convergence of ideals and ideas prevailed over divergence. The studies, including the one by Dalia Pokutta, attempt to understand the underlying mechanisms for this process, although they seem to occur relatively independently of early state-organised societies towards the south.

Cultural and social formations of an entirely new kind came to characterise Europe with intense and dynamic relations between both local and long distance groups, which manifests in increased mobility and forms, ranging from itinerant smiths to widespread exchange of bronze and domestic animals. From these processes new identities were forged, almost literally in bronze and Europe emerged as a distinct cultural zone.

An industrial revolution

It could be argued that the Bronze Age, was the first ‘industrial’ age due to the common and shared values assigned to the metal in an era of international trade, politics and culture. The period sees an increase in commodity exchange with new forms of weapons and ornaments that could be produced. This development of functional bronze objects, advances in metallurgy and other archaeological evidence allow the hypothesis that movement of people, goods and ideas across the continent played an important role.

One of the main factors of this new mobility was undoubtedly the need to seek out the various and geographically dispersed resources of copper, gold and especially tin. This led to a connected trade network that enabled raw materials and bronze objects with their associated technologies and ideas to spread across Europe as a common cultural ideal.

Other components of this phenomenon may have been control of central economic resources such as breeding and trade in cattle and sheep for wool production; a changing importance of the horse in both practical and symbolic use and the adaptation of new varieties of plants for agriculture.

At the centre of Bronze Age Europe

Dalia Pokutta’s input into the study aims at a new dimension of bioarchaeology, presenting a culture that sat at the heart of Europe through the life histories of the people - skilled astronomers and star-gazers, talented metallurgists, farmers, explorers, merchants and barrow builders – the people who laid the foundations of the first Europe of metals and the Bronze Age world.

Source: University of Gothenburg/EU Forging Identities

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