Recycling Ideas: Bronze Age Metal Production in Southern Norway

The aim of the study is to examine technological, cognitive and symbolic aspects of metallurgy in southern Norway from the Bronze Age (i.e. 1700-500 cal. BC to the beginning of the Late Neolothic, i.e. c. 2400 cal. BC. Two sets of ideas are scrutinized: 1) ideas that have governed and still govern archaeological concepts of the Bronze Age, and 2) ideas that moulded Bronze Age mentality, arising, it is argued, from physical experience with metallurgy.