Identifying craftspeople and workshops in Bronze Age.

What is it about?

An investigation of Bronze Age jewellery concerning possible production traces, tool traces or technical pecularities in Scandinavia and Northern germany during the Bronze Age allowed the allocation of artefacts (ornaments) to specific craftspeople. The way in which a craftsman is working is influenced by the society, the personal skills and the way in which he/she has learned the craft. Groups of craftspeople share a pool of techniques and some specific characteristic ways of doing. As such not just individual craftspeople can be identified but also workshops. This paper reveals contacts between these workshops over distances of 300 km and severeal different organised workshop structures.

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Why is it important?

The storage rooms of the archaeological museums are filled with bronze artefacts which now have revealed their secrets of their production. This allowed to understand the social organisation of a 3500 year old society in total new way. We now can assume several different kinds of workshops, from family controlled to elite controlled and shall discuss the idea of proffesional craftspeople already in the Bronze Age.