Competition and Conquest in Europe since the Bronze Age

383 Pages·2016·4.07 MB·English

by  Kristinsson Axel.

EXPANSIONS

EXPANSIONS

Competition and Conquest in
Europe since the Bronze Age

* * *

Axel Kristinsson

ReykjavíkurAkademían
For my mother,
INGIBJÖRG ÞORKELSDÓTTIR

Published by
ReykjavíkurAkademían, Reykjavík

Copyright © Axel Kristinsson, 2010
All rights reserved

ISBN 978-9979-9922-1-9

This work was supported by
Hagþenkir, The Icelandic Association of
Academic and Educational Authors.
CONTENTS

PREFACE vii!
1. HISTORY AS BIOLOGY 1!
GENES, MEMES AND COMPETITION 2!
COMPLEXITY 5!
WAR 14!
BARBARISM AND CIVILIZATION 18!
STATES AND WRITING 26!
THE LAWS OF HISTORY 33!
2. THE URNFIELD EXPANSION 40!
CATASTROPHE AT THE END OF THE BRONZE AGE 40!
THE EXPANSION CYCLE 46!
AFTER EFFECTS 53!
3. THE CITIES OF GREECE 58!
THE GREEK SYSTEM 58!
THE GREEK EXPANSION 68!
THE END OF THE GREEK SYSTEM 77!
THE HELLENISTIC WORLD 80!
4. THE GAULS 85!
THE CELTIC PREDECESSORS 86!
COMPETITION AND IRON 91!
THE GALLIC EXPANSION 96!
ELITIZATION 100!
5. THE RISE OF ROME 112!
ON THE ETRUSCAN FRONTIER 112!
RISE TO EMPIRE 119!
THE END OF EXPANSION 128!
ROMANS AND BARBARIANS 132!
6. GERMANIC EXPANSION AND THE FALL OF ROME 141!
EARLY EXPANSION 142!
ELITIZATION AND STATEHOOD 150!
EXPANSION RENEWED 159!
v
THE THIRD WAVE 164!
THE REORGANIZATION OF THE WEST 170!
7. BETWEEN ANTIQUITY AND THE MIDDLE AGES. 183!
IRELAND 183!
THE ANGLO-SAXONS 186!
THE SLAVS 192!
THE VIKINGS 197!
ICELAND 211!
8. EUROPE IN THE MIDDLE AGES 229!
THE SYSTEM TAKES SHAPE 229!
THE ITALIAN SUBSYSTEM 239!
KNIGHTS AND SOLDIERS 244!
THE RISE OF POPULAR POWER 250!
TOWARDS EUROPE 257!
9. THE EUROPEAN SYSTEM IN THE MODERN PERIOD 264!
INTENSIFIED COMPETITION 265!
FRONTIER EMPIRES: THE BENEFITS OF SIZE 268!
EXPANSION POSTPONED 275!
THE MODERN EXPANSION CYCLE 278!
THE WORLD SYSTEM 290!
10. OVERVIEW 295!
CONDITIONS 297!
COMPETITIVE SYSTEMS 300!
EXPANSION CYCLES 309!
ELITIZATION 317!
APPENDIX 1: COMPETITION AND EXPANSION OUTSIDE
EUROPE 324!
BIBLIOGRAPHY 327!
PRIMARY SOURCES 327!
GENERAL 330!
INDEX 357!

vi
Preface
May 23rd, 2004 was a fine spring Sunday and I spent the morning
lying comfortably on my sofa, reading K. Kristiansen’s excellent
archaeological study Europe Before History. A few months earlier,
after some unpleasantness, I had quit my humdrum job as the curator
of the Borgarfjörður Heritage Centre. Since then I had done a lot of
reading and Kristiansen’s book was proving to be the most inspiring
yet. While reading about the problem of oscillating social stratification
in prehistoric Europe, I was struck by an idea that I felt could explain
these changes. I soon realized that this could have much wider
implications and the same sort of thing could easily have occurred in
many different places at different times. Most of the day was spent
briefly reviewing several likely cases and, finding that all of them
seemed to fit my hypothesis, I started writing this book in the
evening. There was nothing else I could do.
Starting the book was easy, finishing it took longer than
anticipated, and it was only in January 2009 that I could say it was
more or less complete. These five years were the most productive and
enjoyable of my academic life. The work was not only its own reward
but also spawned several new ideas that I suspect will last me for the
rest of my life. At the same time I had to reinvent myself as a
historian. Up until this time I had primarily been concerned with
Icelandic medieval and early modern history. Now, I rediscovered why
I had decided to study history in the first place. A quarter of a century
earlier, I had entered the University of Iceland wanting to study the
history of mankind but all I got was the history of Iceland. It was a
small national university burdened with the patriotic sentiments of a
newly independent nation. Everyone, professors and students alike,
concentrated on Icelandic history, at most seeing world history as a
sort of background.
I am not proud to say that I gradually fell in line with this way of
thinking, although I would like to believe that I was among those
Icelandic historians that were open to outside ideas. Having the idea
for this book came as a wake-up call. Not only did I have to begin
thinking seriously about more than just my homeland’s history but, as
a result of the nature of the idea, also about larger patterns in human
history – something historians rarely do. I became a macro-historian,
someone not just concerned with telling stories or explaining specific
events but rather engaged in discovering general rules and patterns of
human history – the laws of history, if you like. Since most historians
are rather down-to-earth, concrete thinkers it shouldn’t come as a
surprise that few of them take much notice of macro-history. Most
vii
macro-historians have a background in sociology, political science or
anthropology and a macro-historian who actually is a historian can
get rather lonely at times.
The positive side to this, of course, is getting acquainted with all
sorts of new and important ideas that are not usually employed in
historical study but which can nevertheless help shed a completely
new light on human history. My first divergence from traditional
historical thought came when I spent a year in Copenhagen in the
early nineties and became rather bored. For me, boredom is the
mother of inspiration since my thoughts and interests tend to wander
to new places. In this case they wandered to complexity theory, which
to me provided a completely new way of thinking about human society
and its history. This became an important theoretical foundation for
my approach to history, lately joined by evolutionary theory,
especially multilevel and group selection as advanced by D.S. Wilson.
In my mind the two are closely related, and had I come to know
Wilson’s work sooner, the first chapter of this book would have been
written somewhat differently, even if the basic thought would be the
same. As I write this, I am looking forward to meeting Wilson for the
first time, as he will be visiting Iceland next month.
The time I spent writing this book was both rewarding and
enjoyable. However, it was also a difficult time. For me, as for most
independent scholars, research is more of a calling than a profession
and one has to be ready to accept severe financial difficulties. The
academic grants system has a habit of viewing every original idea
with deep suspicion, especially if it comes from someone without
university tenure. Nevertheless, Hagþenkir, The Icelandic Association
of Academic and Educational Authors (http://hagthenkir.is),
supported the conclusion of this work, for which I am especially
grateful.
Another kind of difficulty comes from inhabiting a small country
where the largest university library is poorly financed and has a
correspondingly poor selection of scholarly works, especially ones that
have no special relevance to Iceland. The Icelandic countrywide access
portal to electronic databases and e-journals (http://hvar.is) proved to
be very useful for accessing international journals. However, as the
portal neither includes every important publication nor provides full
access to all articles, it is no substitute for a real university library.
Inevitably, I was sometimes forced to cut corners when trying to find
relevant sources but I hope this is not too noticeable and that I may be
forgiven such imperfections.
This book is published in cooperation with the Reykjavík Academy
(http://www.akademia.is), an organization of independent scholars of
viii