Debunking Deterministic Narratives of Technological Development Through Experimentation: A Critical Review of the Prehistory of Tin Bronze Alloying

Abstract

The currently accepted narrative on the prehistory of bronze alloying technology follows deterministic, outdated assumptions of technological progression that ignore the role of contextual and performance factors in the decision-making processes, thus neglecting human agency. In essence, it is expected that newer techniques were overarchingly more advanced than older ones and hence replaced them. The validity of this narrative should be challenged and revised. A critical analysis of worldwide literature exposed that, contrary to predictions of the accepted theory, (1) the oldest alloying techniques persisted for centuries after newer ones were invented, and (2) several techniques usually coexisted in the same contexts. We hypothesised that these counterintuitive findings could be explained by differences in performance between techniques, (dis)advantageous at different settings. To obtain empirical information on the performance of techniques and test for behaviourally relevant performance differences between them, a series of alloying experiments were conducted. The results show that all techniques can produce objects of broadly equivalent quality while offering different trade-offs during production. Therefore, every technique—or a combination—can be advantageous under certain conditions, and there are no grounds to support a linear trajectory of substitution. These results debunk the traditional narrative and predict that co-smelting and cementation techniques were more frequently practiced in the past than hitherto assumed. Our propositions prompt a readjustment of explanatory models of bronze production organisation, trade, and consumption while opening unexplored research paths for archaeology and the history of technology.