Blurb:

Mike Rowlands and Johan Ling describe exchange as part of a ‘civilisational cosmology’ that led to the spread of uniformities in material culture, settlements and landscape in the Bell Beaker period, thus starting off the European Bronze Age. They argue that the development of a comparative advantage set within this wider cosmological frame depended on defining differences in the contributions made to the reproduction of the totality. Building a comparative advantage in technology and the production of distinctive local forms made a difference in terms of the value and wealth created within a particular region.