Paper long abstract

This contribution will examine the floruit of craft skills between 2500 and 1500 BC, and particularly from the 22nd century, in Britain and Ireland to show how the choice of raw materials and the specialised skills that were applied to them articulated with systems of belief and value to create artefacts that were powerful agents in their own right. Concepts such as the politics of envy, and of supernatural power dressing, will be explored, and the reasons for the shifting epicentre of innovation and trend-setting as previously identified by Stuart Needham will be investigated. The contribution will aim to highlight the fruits of an integrated approach to the study of material culture, in which the key element is to ask the appropriate questions and to apply the most informative methods to addressing them.