Unhierarchical and Hierarchical Core‐Periphery Relations: North Fennoscandian Trade Network from the Middle Ages to the Post‐Sixteenth Century

Abstract

Equally disturbing for the critics has been the economic-deterministic approach of the theory and the following disregard of complexities of socio-political structures and their nuances, which may manifest for example as syncretism and creolisation (Webster 1997; 2005), bilateral borrowing and adaptation of cultural elements (Price 2002), selective adaptation, abandonment and re-adaptation of cultural elements (Webster 1999; Nurmi 2009; Kuusela et al. 2016) or simply as internal factors within a society that drive cultural change forward (Stein 1999; 2002). Put simply, the critics point out that the theory enforces a "one size fits all"-model on a sweeping manner ignoring local unique circumstances and resulting historical processes (McGuire 1996, 51; Galaty 2011, 4). Alternatives and amendments Colin Renfrew was among the early and arguably most famous critics of the use of the worldsystem theory in archaeological research, and he presented an alternative model, which he termed peer polity interaction (Renfrew 1986). Peer polity interaction, like world-system theory (from an archaeological perspective), tackles the problem of culture change and interregional interaction, and like world-system theory it, too, acknowledges that the latter is an integral part in these dynamics, and it shares with the world-system theory a systemic approach to the relations of human societies (McGuire 1996, 54). Where it significantly differs is that it does not acknowledge a power asymmetry or a dominative relationship between interacting parties but, like its name denotes, assumes such interactions take place between autonomous peers (Renfrew 1986, 1).

Northern Archaeology and Cosmology

“…Their study shows that birkarls -who were apparently elected by their communities -divided their time and operated between the northern Baltic Sea coast and inland and were in charge of constructing and maintaining the infrastructure that the trade required. This system presumably operated in a more or less similar manner already in the Iron Age under the semi-mythical Kvens (see also Kuusela et al 2018).…”

“…However, there is no evidence for permanent occupation, leading the excavators to suggest that it may have been an early marketplace. Such market places at river mouths regained a much more conspicuous role as central places in the northern Baltic Sea world in the following, late Iron Age and the early medieval period (Kuusela et al 2016(Kuusela et al , 2018Kuusela 2018).…”

“…In addition to the historical sources, he also briefly considered the potentially relevant archaeological material, including some of the then-recently excavated central places on northern river mouths, such as the Iron Age site of Rakanmäki at the mouth of River Tornio, but he admitted that it was scarce and, in some ways, incongruent with the historical snippets of information about Kvenland. The recent discovery of more such sites dating to the late Iron Age and early medieval period has, however, prompted a rather fundamental reassessment of the character of river-mouth sites and how they are linked to the semi-mythical northern realms, on the one hand, and historical realities on the other (Kuusela 2013(Kuusela , 2018Kuusela et al 2016Kuusela et al , 2018.…”

New Digs: Networks, Assemblages, and the Dissolution of Binary Categories in Anthropological Archaeology

“…Similar to the emphasis on socionatures, there are strong currents within the scholarly literature that are dissolving the categories (e.g., chiefdoms, states, horizons) that have long been the mainstays of political archaeology. Contemporary archaeologists have grown uncomfortable with approaches that assume binaries of king and commoner, colonizer and colonized, core and periphery, and even change and continuity (Baitzel ; Brown ; Garrido and Salazar ; Gron and Sørensen ; Jaffe, Wei, and Zhao ; Kuusela, Nurmi, and Hakamäki ). By and large, research is turning from state or imperial politics to shed light on decentralized complexity, whether the interactions by which people composed networks and communities without the state (e.g., Boivin and Frachetti ; Kristiansen, Lindkvist, and Myrdal ), the “bottom‐up” tactics by which people in rural or peripheral environments endured or withstood centralized rule (Düring and Stek ; LaViolette and Fleisher ), or the “epi‐historical” struggles of Indigenous people who underwent successive colonial projects.…”

“…The authors suggest that archaeologists develop analyses of ancient political landscapes that consider multiple and overlapping kinds of authority, including heterarchy between towns and hierarchy within them. At a more regional scale, archaeologists are tracing the economic trade relationships that fostered regional interactions, in particular by challenging and testing ideas regarding the roots and branches of early “world‐systems.” Kuusela, Nurmi, and Hakamäki () critique classic world‐systems theory's assumption of asymmetrical core‐periphery relationships, arguing for a more heterarchical or nonhierarchical understanding of regional complexity emerging from reciprocal flows of raw material and manufactured goods between southern and northern towns of the Bothnian Sea (also Kuusela ). Likewise, Ling, Earle, and Kristiansen () suggest that the economic transactions that defined a “maritime mode of production” in Viking Age northern Europe fostered the development of a decentralized network of interaction and dependency.…”