Resources in Premodern Societies

New Approaches to Lifeworlds, Skills and Complexity

Edited by Maja Gori, Constance von Rüden & Thomas Stöllner | Forthcoming

Resources in Premodern Societies

New Approaches to Lifeworlds, Skills and Complexity

Edited by Maja Gori, Constance von Rüden & Thomas Stöllner | Forthcoming


Paperback ISBN: 9789464271508 | Hardback ISBN: 9789464271515 | Imprint: Sidestone Press | Format: 182x257mm | ca. 310 pp. | Language: English | 18 illus. (bw) | 65 illus. (fc) | Keywords: archaeology; resources; premodern societies; lifeworlds; skill embodiment; agent-based modelling; craft and skill; mining; metallurgy; cognitive archaeology; environmental adaptation; material culture; technological innovation | download cover | DOI: 10.59641/l4o0i1j2k3

Publication date: 26-03-2026

We will plant a tree for each order containing a paperback or hardback book via OneTreePlanted.org.

This volume brings together innovative research to explore the profound impact of resources on the development of early societies. Divided into three major themes – lifeworlds in resource landscapes, skill and embodied knowledge, and the role of resources within complex systems – the volume draws on diverse case studies, from Bronze Age Chinese mining to Iron Age preurban resource management and the metallurgy-pastoralism nexus. Contributors reveal how materials were not merely extracted but embedded within cognitive frameworks, cultural traditions, and social transformations. Special emphasis is placed on the relational and evolving nature of craft skills, technological innovations, and the embodied growth of knowledge. Advanced computational approaches focussing on complexity, further illuminate patterns of mobility, resource use, and state formation.

Integrating archaeological, anthropological, and modeling perspectives, this volume offers an interdisciplinary and multi-scalar analysis of resources and their impact on societies in premodern times. It is intended for scholars, researchers, and advanced students in archaeology, anthropology, history, and related disciplines who are interested in material culture, environmental adaptation, cognitive processes, and the dynamics of complex societies.

Introduction. ReSoc- Resources in Societies
Maja Gori, Thomas Stöllner, Constance von Rüden

Lifeworlds in resource landscapes

1. Introduction: Lifeworlds in resource landscapes.
Thomas Stöllner

2. Resources as Life Worlds: How Do Material Resources Shape Cognition and Culture?
Timothy M. LeCain

3. Resource-Scapes: Interwoven practices between appropriation and alienation in premodern mining communities
Thomas Stöllner

4. Linked resources: The metallurgy-pastoralism nexus
Mark Pearce

5. Local Knowledge and Sacralisation of Resources in the Iron Age Apennines (Italy). From Resource Landscapes to Resource Cultures.
Raffaella Da Vela

6. Technology and Social Dynamics of Mining in Bronze Age China
Yiu-Kang Hsu & Haichao Li

7. Urban Mining? A new look at taphonomic processes as key to the reconstruction of waste and resource management in Late La Tène society
Milena Müller Kissing David Brönnimann, Johannes Wimmer, Barbara Stopp, Hannele Rissanen, Norbert Spichtig

Skill, embodiment and the growth of knowledge

8. Introduction. Skill, embodiment and the growth of knowledge
Constance von Rüden & Maja Gori

9. Craft apprenticeship, craft innovation and the relational aspects of skill
Nikolas Papadimitriou & Akis Goumas

10. The Anatomy of a Tradition
Christopher D. Buckley

11. Built from Paint: The Making of Architectural Simulations in the Wall Paintings of Tell el-Daba
Johannes Jungfleisch

Resources and complex systems

12. Introduction: Resources and complex systems
Michail Roos

13. The Challenge of Interdisciplinarity in Agent-Based Modelling with Particular Reference to Archaeology
Edmund Chattoe-Brown

14. Migration in the Cetina Phenomenon? An Agent Based Modelling Approach to Reasons for Mobility in the Adriatic Area between 2500 and 2000 BC
Maja Gori & Frederik Schaff

15. Simulating resource exploitation strategies in Iron Age to Hellenistic communities in southwest Anatolia
Dries Daems & Stef Boogers

16. A Model of the Emergence of the State
Martin Neumann

Dr. Maja Gori

Maja Gori holds a PhD in Pre- and Protohistory and Aegean Archaeology from the University of Heidelberg in cotutelle de thèse with the University of Paris 1 Sorbonne Panthéon. After this she had worked as postdoctoral researcher at the Ruhr University of Bochum, University of Heidelberg, University of Amsterdam and University of Mainz. In 2017 she got the Habilitation as professon in Italy. Since 2018 she holds a permanent position as researcher at the CNR-ISPC Italian National Research Council, Institute for Heritage Science. In 2024 she got promoted to senior researcher. M. Gori specializes in prehistoric archaeology with a focus on the Balkans and Central Mediterranean. Her interest stretches from mobility patterns and cultural transmission, the relationship between past identities and material culture, to development of archaeological theory, network analysis and Agent-based Modelling, as well as archaeological discourses in present day identity building and political uses of archaeology.

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Jun. Prof. Dr. Constance von Rüden

Constance von Rüden is currently junior professor for Prehistory at the Ruhr-University Bochum with a special focus on Mediterranean prehistory and theory. Previously she held post-doc positions at the German Archaeological Institute in Athens, at the Centre for Mediterranean Studies at Bochum and at Heidelberg University.

read more

Prof. Dr. Thomas Stöllner

Thomas Stöllner holds the Chair for Pre- and Protohistory at the Ruhr University Bochum in Germany and directs the Research Department and the Department of Mining Archaeology at the Deutsches Bergbau-Museum Bochum (DBM). His main area of research is the social and economic development of mining communities throughout pre- and protohistory with a focus on mining, the archaeometry of mining, and the archaeology of technology and social interrelations with the aid of studies in settlements and graveyards.

read more

Abstract:

This volume brings together innovative research to explore the profound impact of resources on the development of early societies. Divided into three major themes – lifeworlds in resource landscapes, skill and embodied knowledge, and the role of resources within complex systems – the volume draws on diverse case studies, from Bronze Age Chinese mining to Iron Age preurban resource management and the metallurgy-pastoralism nexus. Contributors reveal how materials were not merely extracted but embedded within cognitive frameworks, cultural traditions, and social transformations. Special emphasis is placed on the relational and evolving nature of craft skills, technological innovations, and the embodied growth of knowledge. Advanced computational approaches focussing on complexity, further illuminate patterns of mobility, resource use, and state formation.

Integrating archaeological, anthropological, and modeling perspectives, this volume offers an interdisciplinary and multi-scalar analysis of resources and their impact on societies in premodern times. It is intended for scholars, researchers, and advanced students in archaeology, anthropology, history, and related disciplines who are interested in material culture, environmental adaptation, cognitive processes, and the dynamics of complex societies.

Contents

Introduction. ReSoc- Resources in Societies
Maja Gori, Thomas Stöllner, Constance von Rüden

Lifeworlds in resource landscapes

1. Introduction: Lifeworlds in resource landscapes.
Thomas Stöllner

2. Resources as Life Worlds: How Do Material Resources Shape Cognition and Culture?
Timothy M. LeCain

3. Resource-Scapes: Interwoven practices between appropriation and alienation in premodern mining communities
Thomas Stöllner

4. Linked resources: The metallurgy-pastoralism nexus
Mark Pearce

5. Local Knowledge and Sacralisation of Resources in the Iron Age Apennines (Italy). From Resource Landscapes to Resource Cultures.
Raffaella Da Vela

6. Technology and Social Dynamics of Mining in Bronze Age China
Yiu-Kang Hsu & Haichao Li

7. Urban Mining? A new look at taphonomic processes as key to the reconstruction of waste and resource management in Late La Tène society
Milena Müller Kissing David Brönnimann, Johannes Wimmer, Barbara Stopp, Hannele Rissanen, Norbert Spichtig

Skill, embodiment and the growth of knowledge

8. Introduction. Skill, embodiment and the growth of knowledge
Constance von Rüden & Maja Gori

9. Craft apprenticeship, craft innovation and the relational aspects of skill
Nikolas Papadimitriou & Akis Goumas

10. The Anatomy of a Tradition
Christopher D. Buckley

11. Built from Paint: The Making of Architectural Simulations in the Wall Paintings of Tell el-Daba
Johannes Jungfleisch

Resources and complex systems

12. Introduction: Resources and complex systems
Michail Roos

13. The Challenge of Interdisciplinarity in Agent-Based Modelling with Particular Reference to Archaeology
Edmund Chattoe-Brown

14. Migration in the Cetina Phenomenon? An Agent Based Modelling Approach to Reasons for Mobility in the Adriatic Area between 2500 and 2000 BC
Maja Gori & Frederik Schaff

15. Simulating resource exploitation strategies in Iron Age to Hellenistic communities in southwest Anatolia
Dries Daems & Stef Boogers

16. A Model of the Emergence of the State
Martin Neumann

Dr. Maja Gori

Maja Gori holds a PhD in Pre- and Protohistory and Aegean Archaeology from the University of Heidelberg in cotutelle de thèse with the University of Paris 1 Sorbonne Panthéon. After this she had worked as postdoctoral researcher at the Ruhr University of Bochum, University of Heidelberg, University of Amsterdam and University of Mainz. In 2017 she got the Habilitation as professon in Italy. Since 2018 she holds a permanent position as researcher at the CNR-ISPC Italian National Research Council, Institute for Heritage Science. In 2024 she got promoted to senior researcher. M. Gori specializes in prehistoric archaeology with a focus on the Balkans and Central Mediterranean. Her interest stretches from mobility patterns and cultural transmission, the relationship between past identities and material culture, to development of archaeological theory, network analysis and Agent-based Modelling, as well as archaeological discourses in present day identity building and political uses of archaeology.

read more

Jun. Prof. Dr. Constance von Rüden

Constance von Rüden is currently junior professor for Prehistory at the Ruhr-University Bochum with a special focus on Mediterranean prehistory and theory. Previously she held post-doc positions at the German Archaeological Institute in Athens, at the Centre for Mediterranean Studies at Bochum and at Heidelberg University.

read more

Prof. Dr. Thomas Stöllner

Thomas Stöllner holds the Chair for Pre- and Protohistory at the Ruhr University Bochum in Germany and directs the Research Department and the Department of Mining Archaeology at the Deutsches Bergbau-Museum Bochum (DBM). His main area of research is the social and economic development of mining communities throughout pre- and protohistory with a focus on mining, the archaeometry of mining, and the archaeology of technology and social interrelations with the aid of studies in settlements and graveyards.

read more










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