Abstract
Histories of innovation are prototypical success stories. The advent of the wheel, of writing, printing, the steam engine or computers: where would we be without these path-breaking technological innovations and their global consequences? At least retrospectively, innovations appear as linear, straightforward processes. However, this view is too simplistic. Innovations are not self-evident new elements of life but meet social and technological resistance. In accounts of past innovations, we also often forget that their price is always an irremediable loss of knowledge and practical skills. This collection of essays shows that innovations, both ancient and more recent ones, are located in a network of pre-existing life-worlds. The authors elucidate the wide and often unrecognized impacts of innovations on social structures and cultural practices. Case studies from ancient Mesopotamia, Egypt, central Europe and the modern world highlight the preconditions and oft-ignored secondary effects of innovation. They address the complex social negotiations and the multitude of unforeseen and unplanned changes which accompany the New, rather than focusing on intended changes, which are usually understood as improvements and ways to broaden possibilities for action. Our ultimate goal is to investigate the complex entanglements of innovations in past and present worlds and deepen our understanding of mechanisms of cultural change.
Inhalt
- 7-19Archaeology and Innovation: Remarks on Approaches and Concepts / Reinhard Bernbeck, Stefan Burmeister / 2017
- 21-42Innovation as a Possibility. Technological and Social Determinism in Their Dialectical Resolution / Stefan Burmeister / 2017
- 43-60Innovation and Inertia: Questioning Paradigms of Consumerist Object Fetishism / Hans Peter Hahn / 2017
- 61-103Neolithization in Progress – The Advent of Domesticates in Northeastern Africa / Anett Dittrich / 2017
- 105-139What Makes the World Go Round? Silenced Consequences of the Introduction of Metallurgy / Florian Klimscha / 2017
- 141-159Iron and Consequences of the Introduction of its Technologies in Northern Central Europe / Michael Meyer / 2017
- 161-203Sedentism as a Process of Innovation. Technological and Social Perspectives on the Architectural Development of a Bronze Age Settlement System / Sabine Reinhold / 2017
- 205-224Working Lives in an Age of Mechanical Reproduction: Uruk-Period Mesopotamia / Susan Pollock / 2017
- 225-249Producing Aegeanness – An Innovation and Its Impact in Middle and Late Bronze Age Syria/Northern Levant / Constance von Rüden / 2017
- 251-276The Documentary Gaze as a Mesopotamian Innovation / Reinhard Bernbeck / 2017
- 277-294Innovations That Failed to Materialize: Why Was There No Copper Metallurgy in the Central European Early and Middle Neolithic? / Sayuri de Zilva, Matthias Jung / 2017
Herausgeber
Stefan Burmeister ist Kurator am Museum und Park Kalkriese. Seine Forschungschwerpunkte sind Wagen, Migration, Materialität und die römische Eroberung der Germania. Stefan Burmeister ist Mitglied der Römisch-Germanischen Kommission.
Reinhard Bernbeck ist Professor am Institut für Vorderasiatische Archäologie der Freien Universität Berlin sowie Professor für Anthropologie an der Binghampton University. Seine Forschungsschwerpunkte bei Topoi richten sich auf die Implementierung spätneolithischer technischer Innovationen in die Gesellschaften des südlichen Turkmenistans, sowie Irans und der Türkei. Darüber hinaus interessiert er sich für die ideologischen und politischen Dimensionen von Archäologie.
Citation
BibTeX
@collection{Burmeister2017,
editor = {Stefan Burmeister and Reinhard Bernbeck},
title = {The Interplay of People and Technologies},
subtitle = {Archaeological Case Studies on Innovation},
series = {Berlin Studies of the Ancient World},
number = {43},
date = {2017},
publisher = {Edition Topoi},
location = {Berlin},
url = {http://edition-topoi.org/books/details/1209},
urldate = {2020-07-06},
doi = {10.17171/3-43},
urn = {urn:nbn:de:kobv:188-fudocsseries000000000691-7},
isbn = {978-3-9816751-8-4},
}