The Flintknapper and the Bronzesmith

The labels “stone” age and “bronze” age reflect what archaeologists perceive as trends in material culture, but our perspective is skewed by a number of factors such as formation processes and our need for dividing the temporal continuum into discrete units. The focus of the paper is on examining this transition from the perspective of the craftspeople who were making the objects which archaeologists perceive as central for defining a stone age and a bronze age. Southern Scandinavia is the region in focus. Conditions and constraints on the flintknapper and on the bronzesmith, respectively, are compared and contrasted. No specialists can be discerned in the realm of flintknapping. As would be expected of a new technology, domestic copper/bronze casting begins somewhat hesitantly. The number of forms is limited and metal alloys are heterogeneous. By Period IB of the Bronze Age, however, we see a bifurcation whereby we can distinguish between elaborate and complicated bronzeworking using a standardized raw material on the one hand, and simpler, less complicated crafting, on the other. This confirms Kristian Kristiansen’s conclusion from 1987 (p. 46) that bronze specialists had emerged by Period II.