Bronze Age: Technology, Trade, and Increasing Social Complexity
Bronze Age: Technology, Trade, and Increasing Social Complexity
Chapter 5 examines one of Sha Po’s most fascinating and important periods of cultural development, the Bronze Age, a period during which the local community was making wider and more specialised use of the coastal landscape. On the plateau there was some form of stilt-house settlement associated with the specialised manufacture of fine quartz rings, while on the backbeach we have the region’s best evidence for non-ferrous metallurgy in the form of in situ bronze casting. The evidence for craft specialisation tells us that society was undergoing change and could perhaps support the work of artisans through some form of surplus production of food. Moreover, access to more advanced technology and exotic materials are both indications of a widening of external contacts, trade, and exchange, while a heightened interest in personal ornamentation and display points towards greater competition and the emergence of social hierarchies.
Keywords: Contact, trade, and exchange, Pyrotechnology, Bronze casting, Craft specialisation, Quartz ornament workshop, Social hierarchies, Stilt-house, Settlement, Prestige goods, Competition, Display, Chiefdom
Hong Kong Scholarship Online requires a subscription or purchase to access the full text of books within the service. Public users can however freely search the site and view the abstracts and keywords for each book and chapter.
Please, subscribe or login to access full text content.
If you think you should have access to this title, please contact your librarian.
To troubleshoot, please check our FAQs , and if you can't find the answer there, please contact us .
