Bronze Age Economics: The Beginnings of Political Economies Book

Bronze Age Economics is a collection of Timothy Earle's major essays. Its comparative analysis of prehistoric economies is grounded in archaeological and historical data from three cases: Hawaiian chiefdoms, Andean South America (particularly the Inka), and Bronze Age Denmark. The book looks at trajectories of economic development as they affect, and are affected by, political institutions. In particular, Earle's essays examine the distinction between (1) "corporate" (that is, kinship-based) control of intensively maintained agricultural resources in Hawaii and Peru and (2) extensive exchange (market) networks in Denmark. The essays then evaluate the significance of that economic distinction for the evolution of political institutions (such as chiefdoms and the state). Earle has organized the readings around each of the three case studies rather than directly around the corporate/exchange dichotomy. As the book represents the trajectory of Earle's professional life over the past 25 years, it can be argued that the book fairly encapsulates something of the history of processual archaeology and social evolutionary theory during the last quarter of the twentieth century.Read More