A small change revolution. Weight systems and the emergence of the first Pan-European money

In the Bronze Age (c. 2300–800 BC), European communities gave up their economic independence and became entangled in a continental trade network. In this paper, we will test the hypothesis that the adoption of a ‘Pan-European’ currency has favoured the development of such a network. We define a methodology to test the money-hypothesis in pre-literate economies, based on analogies with the material characters of metallic money in the Ancient Near East. The statistical properties of metals from European hoards are compared with those of balance weights, in order to test the following expectation: if they were used as money, complete objects and fragments are expected to comply with standard weight systems. The results meet the expectation, and indicate that bronze fragments possess the same statistical properties as hack-silver money in the Ancient Near East. The sample includes approximately 3000 metal objects, collected from two test-areas: Italy and Central Europe. The sample of balance weights includes all the items known to date for pre-literate Bronze Age Europe, collected within the framework of the ERC Project ‘Weight and Value.’