Reader in Archaeology, University of Bristol School of Arts
Publications
The early-middle bronze age transition in Wessex, Sussex and the Thames Valley. , by Joanna Bruck, 1997 at Cambridge University (Ph.D. thesis)
Settlement, Landscape and Social Identity: The Early-Middle Bronze Age Transition in Wessex, Sussex and the Thames Valley, by Joanna Bruck, published August 2000 in Oxford Journal of Archaeology (vol. 19, issue 3, article, pp.273-300) View Online
Abstract:In southern England, the end of the Early Bronze Age is marked by the appearance of archaeologically visible farmsteads and field systems. This paper explores and critiques the widespread idea that these changes are the direct result of a need to intensify agricultural production. Such discussions have implicitly drawn on evolutionist images of economic maximization and environmental exploitation that do not sit easily with our knowledge of other aspects of Bronze Age society. In this paper, I shall consider economic change as a consequence rather than the cause of wider changes to the social fabric at this time. A review of the Early and Middle Bronze Age settlement evidence provides insights into how society became transformed over the period and begins to hint at some of the reasons why subsistence practices changed so visibly.