People in England were using balance weights and scales to measure the value of materials as early as the late second and early first millennia BC. This is what Professor Lorenz Rahmstorf, scientist at the University of Göttingen and project manager of the ERC Weight and Value project, has discovered.
Gold flange twisted spiral torc (around 15cm long; 367.1 g) from Castlemount, Dover, Kent, England [Credit: British Museum] |
Until now, it had often been assumed that trade during the Bronze Age in northwestern Europe was primarily socially embedded - for example as in the exchange of gifts. The existence of precise units of measurement, however, enabled people even at that time to compare exact ratios of material values of different goods such as metals, possibly also wool and grain. They were also able to calculate profits, to create currencies and to save up measurable quantities of metal.
Rectangular bronze weight (around 4.8 cm long; 29.8 g) from Salcombe, Devon, England [Credit: British Museum] |
What is surprising about the statistical analysis of the unit of weight that has been identified, is that it is very nicely compatible and possibly even identical with the dominant East Mediterranean weight of that time. This would be an indication that knowledge about standard weights and measures has been widely disseminated and possibly passed on through travelling traders.
Fragment (around 1.5 cm long) of a balance beam of bone with a bronze suspension loop from Cliffs End Farm, Isle of Thanet, Kent, England, identified by Jörn Schuster [Credit: Wessex Archaeology] |
However, these findings now indicate that such value measurement systems already existed in many if not all parts of prehistoric Bronze Age Europe. "The results of our research show that we have so far underestimated the complexity of the early commercial transactions during the Bronze Age in Europe," said Rahmstorf.
The results were published in the journal Antiquity.
Source: University of Göttingen [August 26, 2019]
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