tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6568915967186844196.post7277999250926455221..comments2024-03-26T14:19:33.332-07:00Comments on Bench Grass: The Early Iron Age Revival of the State, II: How Far Can We Go? Collapses and PopulationsErik Lundhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05728486209757153685noreply@blogger.comBlogger18125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6568915967186844196.post-17973233696177346722019-03-18T23:12:02.363-07:002019-03-18T23:12:02.363-07:00This comment has been removed by the author.alamgeerhossainhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16165662491852649898noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6568915967186844196.post-82821067438108948632019-03-18T23:10:12.484-07:002019-03-18T23:10:12.484-07:00This comment has been removed by the author.alamgeerhossainhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16165662491852649898noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6568915967186844196.post-29143584126014259952019-01-19T11:26:26.250-08:002019-01-19T11:26:26.250-08:00This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.Anonymoushttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07691933051913278222noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6568915967186844196.post-83894322465931650222018-01-23T01:25:54.263-08:002018-01-23T01:25:54.263-08:00This comment has been removed by the author.Anonymoushttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01825155825433518546noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6568915967186844196.post-15587088264295937032018-01-23T01:21:09.165-08:002018-01-23T01:21:09.165-08:00This comment has been removed by the author.Anonymoushttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01825155825433518546noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6568915967186844196.post-24810278814302234522018-01-23T01:19:18.795-08:002018-01-23T01:19:18.795-08:00This comment has been removed by the author.Anonymoushttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01825155825433518546noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6568915967186844196.post-46419394731730614712018-01-23T01:16:13.198-08:002018-01-23T01:16:13.198-08:00This comment has been removed by the author.Anonymoushttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01825155825433518546noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6568915967186844196.post-50736274406441578822018-01-12T09:17:28.854-08:002018-01-12T09:17:28.854-08:00This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.Anonymoushttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12654798371680004787noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6568915967186844196.post-10211174160398779942017-12-30T05:02:53.249-08:002017-12-30T05:02:53.249-08:00This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.Roberthttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07190110794433496600noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6568915967186844196.post-78538026763503821332017-11-29T02:12:46.575-08:002017-11-29T02:12:46.575-08:00Sure. Iron technology (or any other) spreads throu...Sure. Iron technology (or any other) spreads through networks (although there are a couple of cases of people inventing writing systems after hearing them described).<br /><br />We lack the evidence to pinpoint exactly how late Bronze Age societies imploded, but the pattern of their rise and their general structure are clear. My point is that we don't need to look for a positive impetus - a technical, logistic or ecological limit would be enough to do the job given an inbuilt tendency to decay.Peter Thttps://www.blogger.com/profile/13289172253358199028noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6568915967186844196.post-21421361261165620842017-11-27T07:20:03.224-08:002017-11-27T07:20:03.224-08:00Not related to the above, but plugging an old but ...Not related to the above, but plugging an old but worthy effort, here again is Andrew Sherratt's ArchAtlas, on routes and paths in prehistoric Eurasia: http://www.archatlas.org/workshop09/works09_intro.phpErik Lundhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05728486209757153685noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6568915967186844196.post-38895830375381084782017-11-27T07:17:36.185-08:002017-11-27T07:17:36.185-08:00. . . Not to burn all my powder now, but we have o.... . . Not to burn all my powder now, but we have one dramatic example of the spread of "knowledge--" the haruspicy demonstration models of clearly Assyrian inspiration found in Etruscan contexts. This is clearly knowledge, if false, and might be used to calibrate the spread of ironworking and equestrianship. If Actor Network Theory is right, these are being spread by demonstrators. The wilder extension of this is that we can talk about the social prestige of the originating site (Assyria), and even the way in which social relations embed knowledge. I know, I know, fuzzy as all heck, but what that means is that ideas about how human biochemistry work are implicit in our idea of what this peptide is, and by reproducing the peptide in our lab, we are basically saying that the Salks Institute is in charge of telling us how biochemistry works. (And that we should hire Salks graduates for our tenure-track positions.)<br />We have a slightly hypothetical one --the spread of annual eponym officials and eponym lists-- and one <i>highly</i> hypothetical one, the spread of a female gender case in Indo-European. To do Assyrian stuff, we need to think like an Assyrian. Erik Lundhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05728486209757153685noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6568915967186844196.post-44341549671808243832017-11-27T07:11:48.512-08:002017-11-27T07:11:48.512-08:00. . . In the spread of ironworking praxis. Latour .... . . In the spread of ironworking praxis. Latour emphasises the role of visitors, hires, and institutional prestige in the spread of a technique (knowledge) from one research site to another. Techniques rarely spread without being demonstrated on site by a visitor, although a new hire can also bring them. The question of <i>why</i> a technique is accepted as being worth replicating, and which originating site gets to claim to be its origin, comes down to the prestige of the institution (cont....)Erik Lundhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05728486209757153685noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6568915967186844196.post-8189407956589234132017-11-27T07:09:10.539-08:002017-11-27T07:09:10.539-08:00It's hard to comment on the Merovingian/Caroli...It's hard to comment on the Merovingian/Carolingian case, because it is so far out of scale --and also perhaps not as interesting as the Early Iron Age, since it isn't obviously an era of technological/economic transition. Although I guess Lynn White would disagree with me. <br /><br />Latour's anthropological study of the discovery of an important peptide at the Salk Institute has some complications, in that the question of whether TRH(F) was "discovered" or "invented" is sufficiently alive to raise the usual epistemic squeamishness. Significantly, although understandably, he used a Pasteur demonstration when he spoke at the University of Toronto, and it might be better to go back to another chestnut and use the difficulties of replicating the vacuum pump, or my undergraduate/early graduate experience of watching cold fusion and high temperature superconduction verifications proliferate around the world as examples of a general phenomena of Latour's modified actor-network theory that might have some bearing (cont....)Erik Lundhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05728486209757153685noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6568915967186844196.post-28734007382819473752017-11-27T03:44:31.214-08:002017-11-27T03:44:31.214-08:00The connection with Latour escapes me. "Luxur...The connection with Latour escapes me. "Luxury" and "long-distance" are more or less synonymous in this context. The external input can be seen as necessary to maintain the structure in the face of social entropy, in that it allows rewards to arrivistes or bribes for support without requiring that some other party lose (Peter Brown makes this case explicitly for the late Merovingians/mid Carolingians - they had to trade parts of the royal domain and powers for support in succession contests, and a run of disputed successions and short reigns left them fatally weakened).Peter Thttps://www.blogger.com/profile/13289172253358199028noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6568915967186844196.post-39801459942743886542017-11-26T07:13:37.799-08:002017-11-26T07:13:37.799-08:00The idea that long distance luxury trades support ...The idea that long distance luxury trades support social hierarchy has an old pedigree. It's probably not an excessive paraphrase of Smith on luxury, for example. What I'm wondering about is the role of human circulation in maintaining it, and whether we could talk about Latour's <i>Laboratory Life</i> in this connection. <br /><br />In that case, long distance trade also underpins social networks of knowledge. Does the transmission of knowledge require social hierarchy?Erik Lundhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05728486209757153685noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6568915967186844196.post-2689749013812761752017-11-26T00:28:33.111-08:002017-11-26T00:28:33.111-08:00I dabble in the same line of thought. My current g...I dabble in the same line of thought. My current general take is that complex societies need some external input (usually luxury goods) to create and maintain the social order. The more complex social order enables greater production, and facilitates obtaining more luxury goods. Then supply falls, or demand outruns supply, social order simplifies, production falls, population falls. The Bronze Age luxury goods inputs were ivory, textiles, slaves and foreign jewellery.Peter Thttps://www.blogger.com/profile/13289172253358199028noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6568915967186844196.post-29227375128764569852017-11-25T02:36:47.862-08:002017-11-25T02:36:47.862-08:00This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.Anonymoushttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01145997416211800948noreply@blogger.com