Major new study investigates Britain’s Bronze Age collapse

[Imperial Dave]

https://www.cardiff.ac.uk/news/view/2532560-major-new-study-investigates-britains-bronze-age-collapse-through-throwaway-picture-of-mobility,-feasting-and-resilience

of interest to some perhaps....

[Jim Webster]

https://www.cardiff.ac.uk/news/view/2532560-major-new-study-investigates-britains-bronze-age-collapse-through-throwaway-picture-of-mobility,-feasting-and-resilience

of interest to some perhaps....

I would be surprised if the food had travelled all that far. A hundred miles perhaps? Certainly other than for wine I cannot imagine much cross channel trade in livestock for slaughter

[DougM]

Not impressed. 'Britain's collapse' studying Wiltshire and the Thames Valley?  How would it be if I produced a paper on Britain's collapse using evidence from such a broad range of sources - like say, Inverness and Aviemore?

A joke.

[Imperial Dave]

I did think the work collapse was overdramatic and maybe regional transition would be better

[Erpingham]

The "Bronze Age Collapse" is an old theory - I was taught about at at Uni over 40 years ago.  I was surprised it is still kicking about, as it was rather based on a gap in the record, rather than anything particularly solid IIRC.  Perhaps now they have evidence of absence rather than absence of evidence, though.

[Duncan Head]

Not impressed. 'Britain's collapse' studying Wiltshire and the Thames Valley?

The article explicitly says southern Britain. Reading past the headline is occasionally useful.

[Anton]

I'll be interested to see what they discover.

On the feasting thing.  There is a great deal to be learned from Nerrys Patterson's Cattle Lords and Clansmen and Fergus Kelly's A Guide to Early Irish Law. Feasting was complex and operated at different levels.  Sometimes feasting was about recognition and inclusion other occasions it was a public display of submission.

[DougM]

Not impressed. 'Britain's collapse' studying Wiltshire and the Thames Valley?

The article explicitly says southern Britain. Reading past the headline is occasionally useful.

Very far southern Britain. In fact, so far south as to be quite remote. I did read the article. And noted the other studies. Which suggests that the focus of that particular academic was not on what we currently understand as Britain at all.

[Duncan Head]

Very far southern Britain. In fact, so far south as to be quite remote. I did read the article. And noted the other studies. Which suggests that the focus of that particular academic was not on what we currently understand as Britain at all.

But he never says that he is interested in "Britain" as such, he specifically mentions the south more than once, so I still don't see that you have a problem with anything beyond the headline.

[Nick Harbud]

Apart from quibbles on how much or how little of the British Isles are included in the study, I notice the narrative is firmly framed in modern concerns with phrases like "Around 800BC Europe had suffered great upheaval as the climate deteriorated, economies collapsed, and the status of bronze, the cornerstone of long-distance trade networks, changed."  One hopes that this is merely the product of piss-poor journalism rather than a core element of the research.

Incidentally, anyone read this article about the discovery of oak capricorn beetles in a Cambridgeshire bog?  The interesting thing is that presently these beetles are not found in UK due to the climate being too cold for them.  These days they are found in Southern France and around the Mediterranean.  The beetles and the wood in which they were found have been carbon dated to 3,800 years ago when, one presumes, the climate was at least 5°C warmer than it is now.

[Imperial Dave]

One hopes that this is merely the product of piss-poor journalism rather than a core element of the research.

hallelujah

[Erpingham]

One hopes that this is merely the product of piss-poor journalism rather than a core element of the research.

hallelujah

I think you wanted "amen" there, Dave

[Imperial Dave]

amen

[DougM]

Unfortunately,  serious news outlets used to retain serious and specialised journalists who could write up stories in a serious way. Nowadays, cheap cadets churn press releases that are sexed up by PR people rebadged as communications managers, and with headlines either ingested whole, or added by bored subs who haven't done more than skim the text.

[DBS]

Apart from quibbles on how much or how little of the British Isles are included in the study, I notice the narrative is firmly framed in modern concerns with phrases like "Around 800BC Europe had suffered great upheaval as the climate deteriorated, economies collapsed, and the status of bronze, the cornerstone of long-distance trade networks, changed."  One hopes that this is merely the product of piss-poor journalism rather than a core element of the research.

What worries me is that one cannot blame this on piss-poor journalism, given this is not second-hand reporting by a media organisation, but a release by Cardiff University itself, and, one assumes, seen by the lead researcher before it was issued.

Now, do not get me wrong, as someone who has spent decades working with government communications, I know all too well that there is a reluctance to let facts get in the way of a good story, amongst PR luvvies, but here the appreciation does appear to be somewhat situated. 

Even terms such as "The Feasting Age" are worrying - it is one thing to label a period by the principal material used for tools, weapons, clothing accessories or whatever, another to label it with something that presumably happened only very occasionally, even if on an epic scale when it did happen.  It would be a bit like labelling the current epoch The Age of Excessive Consumption based on Christmas and Easter dinners, rather than, much more justifiably, lots of McDonald's takeaway cartons.

To then further label it a transitional period also seems... courageous... nay, bold, Minister.