Technical and Social Innovations: A New Field of Research
Technical and Social Innovations: A New Field of Research
DOI: 10.17746/1563-0110.2019.47.3.027-037
S. Hansen
Deutsches Archaologisches Institut, Im Dol 2–6, Berlin, 14195, Germany
The grand narrative of cultural developments claims that all technical achievements in prehistory stemmed from urban centers in Mesopotamia and Egypt. But current studies, for instance on the oldest wagons, have opened up space for alternative working hypotheses and models: modern radiocarbon dating of complexes that revealed the cited innovations, e.g. the oldest wagons, functional metal tools, and an advanced copper metallurgy, which predate their first appearance in Mesopotamia, questions the role of this region in the development of technology. Possibly, Mesopotamian cities operated rather as a melting pot of numerous innovations obtained from various areas, which were then re-combined and placed into a different context. The North Caucasus, in particular the Early Bronze Age Maykop culture, is an exemplary candidate for such an interactive process in technical developments. The Maykop culture has been known in research for 120 years, and its genesis is supposed to have originated in Mesopotamia. This is an archaeological narrative meant to explain the high technical state of the Maykop culture. In the light of the new chronology based on a relatively small number of radiocarbon dates, a re-examination and alternative models are necessary. It is obvious that this culture developed a highly innovative potential in metalworking and sheep breeding, and fulfilled an important function as mediator in knowledge transfer between the Eurasian steppe and Upper Mesopotamia. Recent aDNA studies support this view.
