Resilience, innovation and collapse of settlement networks in later Bronze Age Europe: New survey data from the southern Carpathian Basin.

ABSTRACT: Societies of the later Early to Middle Bronze Age (ca. 2200-1600 BC) in the Carpathian Basin exhibited complex, hierarchical and regionally influential socio-political organisation that came to an abrupt end in the 16th century BC. Considered a collapse by some, this change was characterised by abandonment of virtually all central places / nodes in settlement networks. Until recently, the complexity that characterised the period was believed to have substantially diminished alongside depopulation. This model was reinforced by a combination of the loss of established external networks and low-resolution knowledge of where and how people lived in the first stages of the Late Bronze Age (between 1600 and 1200 BC). We contest the idea of a diminished Late Bronze Age and argue that a fully oppo

SUBMITTER: Molloy B 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC10637690 | biostudies-literature | 2023

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature