Knowledge Networks and Craft Traditions in the Ancient by Katharina Rebay-Salisbury,Ann Brysbaert,Lin Foxhall

This edited quantity investigates wisdom networks in response to fabrics and linked applied sciences in Prehistoric Europe and the Classical Mediterranean. It emphasises the importance of fabric items to the development, upkeep, and cave in of networks of assorted varieties – that are vital to reasons of cultural touch and alter. concentrating on the materiality of gadgets and at the method during which fabrics are used provides a multidimensional caliber to networks. The homes, services, and types of varied fabrics are intrinsically associated with the way wisdom flows and applied sciences are transmitted. Transmission of applied sciences from one craft to a different is among the major drivers of innovation, while sharing wisdom is enabled and restricted by means of the level of linked social networks in position.

Archaeological learn has usually been restricted to learning gadgets made from one specific fabric intensive, be it lithic fabrics, ceramics, textiles, glass, steel, wooden or others. the information move and move between crafts that take care of varied fabrics have frequently been missed. This ebook takes a clean method of the reconstruction of data networks by way of integrating or extra craft traditions in every one of its chapters. The authors, recognized specialists and early profession researchers, offer concise case stories that disguise a variety of fabrics. The scope of the e-book extends from networks of craft traditions to implications for society in a much broader experience: fabrics, items, and the applied sciences used to make and distribute them are interwoven with social that means. humans make items, yet items make humans – the materiality of items shapes our knowing of the area and our position inside of it. during this booklet, gadgets are handled as clues to social networks of other varieties that may be contrasted and in comparison, either spatially and diachronically.