IWH Symposium: Appropriating Innovations. Entangled Knowledge in Eurasia, 5000-1500 BC

IWH Symposium: Appropriating Innovations. Entangled Knowledge in Eurasia, 5000-1500 BC

Organizer
Joseph Maran & Philipp W. Stockhammer, Institute for Prehistory and Early History and Near Eastern Archaeology / Cluster of Excellence “Asia and Europe in a Global Context”, Heidelberg University
Venue
Internationales Wissenschaftsforum Heidelberg (IWH)
Location
Heidelberg
Country
Germany
From - Until
15.01.2015 - 17.01.2015
By
Stockhammer, Philipp W.

The question of how to conceptualize the role of technological innovations is of crucial importance for understanding the mechanisms and rhythms of long-term cultural change in prehistoric and early historic societies. For a long time, the changes that have come about have often been modelled as gradual and linear, innovations have been considered positively as a progress in the development of humankind and the focus was on the localization of the origin of innovations and the routes of their spread.

Our conference wants to go beyond the current discussion by shedding light on the conditions facilitating the quick spreading of technological innovation and on the process of the integration of new technologies into the life world of the appropriating societies. In particular, we want to concentrate on two key innovations, namely the transmission of the various components of the so-called “Secondary Products Revolution” in parts of the Near East and Europe during the 4th millennium BCE and the appropriation of early bronze casting technology, which spread from the Near East to Europe and China in the late 3rd and early 2nd millennium BCE.

We are especially interested in non-technological knowledge that is transmitted together with the technological knowledge, as technological knowledge is always deeply interconnected with the communication of social practices, ideas and myths. The acceptance of new technologies, therefore, requires the willingness to change existing world views and modify them due to the potentials and problems which are connected with the new technology.

Contributions should, therefore, concentrate on the conditions facilitating or hindering the spread of innovations and the transformative power of these innovations in the appropriating society. They should analyse how the introduction of novel technologies and the associated non-technological knowledge led to a transformation of existing economic systems and the underlying social orders in Late Neolithic, Chalcolithic and Early Bronze Age Eurasia by integrating innovative methodological approaches and contextual studies.

Programm

THURSDAY, January 15, 2015

09.00–09.30
Welcome & Introduction to the Topic

09.30–10.00
Cornelius Schubert (Siegen): Unruly Innovations. Evolutionary Perspectives on the Relations of Technology and Society

10.00–10.30
Augusta McMahon (Cambridge): Mesopotamia’s Textile Industry. First Steps in the 4th Millennium BC

11.00–11.30
Kristina Sauer (Heidelberg): In the Light of Innovations. Tracing the Transfer of Commodities and Knowledge in the “Uruk World”

11.30–12.15
Giuilio Palumbi (Lyon) & Maria Bianca D‘Anna (Tübingen): Uruk, Pastoralism and Secondary Products. Was it a Revolution? A View from the Anatolian Highlands

12.15–12.45
Mariya Ivanova (Heidelberg): The „Green Revolution“ in Prehistory. Late Neolithic Agricultural Innovations as a Technological System

14.00–14.30
Stefan Burmeister (Kalkriese): Early Wagons in Eurasia. De-Entangling an Enigmatic Innovation

14.30–15.00
Elke Kaiser (Berlin): The Innovative Potential in Communities of the Eastern European Steppe in the 3rd Millennium BC

15.00–15.30
Sabine Reinhold (Berlin) & Corina Knipper (Mannheim): Contextualising Innovation. On Waggons, Waggon Drivers and Burial-Mound Possessors in the North Caucasus and Beyond

16.00–16.30
Maleen Leppek (Heidelberg): Innovation, Interaction and Society in the 4th Millennium BCE in Europe

16.30–17.00
Joseph Maran (Heidelberg): Wheels of Change. The Polysemous Nature of Early Wheeled Vehicles in Central and Northwest European Societies, ca. 3200-2500 BCE

17.00–17.30
Niels N. Johannsen (Århus): Appropriating Draught Cattle Technology in Southern Scandinavia. Roles, Context and Consequences

17.30–18.00
Helle Vandkilde (Århus): Innovation and Change at the Onset of the Nordic Bronze Age

FRIDAY, January 16, 2015

9.00–9.30
Haskel J. Greenfield (Manitoba):The Spread of Productive and Technological Innovations in the Old World. An Integrated Zooarchaeological Perspective on Secondary Animal Products and Bronze Utilitarian Metallurgy

9.30–10.00
Marcella Frangipane (Rom): The Role of Metallurgy in Different Types of Early Hierarchical Societies. The Case of Eastern Anatolia between 4th and Early 3rd Millennium BC

10.00–10.30
Lorenz Rahmstorf (Mainz): And Childe was Right after all? Vere Gordon Childe’s Thoughts on Immigrant Craftsmen, Prospectors and the Dissemination of Key Economic Innovations During the 3rd Millennium BC in the Light of Recent Scholarship

11.00–11.30
Federica Lume Pereira (Heidelberg): Beads on a String. Gonur Depe (Turkmenistan) and its Role in the Middle Asian Interaction Sphere

11.30–12.00
Peter Miglus (Heidelberg): The Vault in 3rd and 2nd Millennium BC Mesopotamia

12.00–12.30
Johannes Müller (Kiel): Late Neolithic and Early Bronze Age Central Europe. Innovation and the Speed of Change

14.00–14.30
Ulrike Wischnewski (Heidelberg): Transfer of Innovation in the Near East in the Early Bronze Age

14.30–15.00
Ernst Pernicka (Mannheim): The Production of Tin Bronze in Eurasia – When, Where and Why?

15.00–15.30
Aslıhan Yener (Koҫ): The Discovery of New Tin Mines and Production Sites near Kültepe, Ancient Kanesh in Turkey. A 3rd Millennium BC Highland Production Model

16.00–16.30
Xingcan Chen (Bejing): Contact between the East and the West. Archaeological Evidence from the 3rd and 2nd Millennium BC

16.30–17.00
Jianjun Mei (Cambridge): The Appropriation of Early Bronze Technology in China

17.00–17.30
Sabine Linder (Heidelberg): Early Bronze Casting in China. Transformative Capacity of a New Technology

SATURDAY, January 17, 2015

9.00–9.30
Florian Klimscha: (Berlin) Spheres of Knowlege and Recombination of Techniques. The Transfer of Innovations between SW Asia and Central Europe in the Chalcolithic and Early Bronze Age

9.30–10.00
Barbara Helwing (Lyon): A Comparative View on Metallurgical Innovations in Southwestern Asia

10.00–10.30
Svend Hansen (Berlin): Technical Innovations. The Role of Early Metallurgy

11.00–11.30
Philipp W. Stockhammer (Heidelberg): The Transformative Power of Knowledge Transfer. Appropriating Bronze Technology

11.30–12.00
Ken Massy (München): Old space, Old Customs? Early Bronze Age Burials in the Lech Valley in the Light of Material and Cultural Innovations

12.00–12.30
Corina Knipper (Mannheim): Personal Mobility and Dietary Differentiation at the Onset of the Central European Metal Ages. A Case from the Lech Valley in Southern Bavaria

14.00–14.30
Alissa Mittnik (Tübingen): Genetic Studies on Late Neolithic and Early Bronze Age Burials of the Lech Region (Southern Germany)

14.30–15.00
Johannes Krause (Tübingen): Ancient Human Genomes Suggest three Ancestral Populations for Present-Day Europeans

15.00–15.30
Christian Horn (Kiel): The Last War. A Theoretical Outlook on Innovations in Weapon. Technology in the Late Neolithic-Early Bronze Age Transition of Southern Scandinavia

16.00–17.30
General Debate and Conclusion

Contact (announcement)

Joseph Maran / Philipp W. Stockhammer
Cluster of Excellence “Asia and Europe in a Global Context” & Institute of Prehistory and Early History and Near Eastern Archaeology, Heidelberg University
Marstallhof 4
69117 Heidelberg

Phone: +49 (0) 6221 / 54 2540
stockhammer@asia-europe.uni-heidelberg.de

http://www.asia-europe.uni-heidelberg.de/en/research/conferences/appropriating-innovations.html
Editors Information
Published on
12.12.2014
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Regional Classification
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Language(s) of event
English
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