John C. Barrett

"Food and drink, along with the material culture involved in their consumption, can signify a variety of social distinctions, identities and values. Thus, in Early Minoan Knossos, tableware was used to emphasize the difference between the host and the guests, and at Mycenaean Pylos the status of banqueters was declared as much by the places assigned to them as by the quality of the vessels from which they ate and drank. The ten contributions to this volume highlight the extraordinary opportunity for multi-disciplinary research in this area."--Jacket.

"We live today in an interconnected world and we are inclined to believe that in earlier times the connections were less extensive and that communities were more isolated from each other. This book looks at the Europe that began to emerge some 4,000 years ago with the beginnings of metallurgy and the debates that have taken place concerning the scales of connections that existed then. Around this time Stonehenge was built from materials that were brought across huge distances. To what extent did geographically extensive connections exist, how might we recognise them and what, if any, were their consequences? Disagreements over these questions have existed in archaeology for nearly a century and yet they have profound implications for the ways in which we understand the dynamics of historical development in general. By examining the way one claimed connection between the Aegean and Western Europe was used to explain changes in Western Europe as the result of the rise of civilisation in the Aegean, and the ways that this explanation was challenged in the 1960s, we learn something about the nature of archaeological reasoning. The authors question common assumptions concerning the relationships between so-called civilised and barbarian societies, and ask their readers to consider what might drive change in social, cultural and economic systems"--