Almost lost between the lines: The concept of the Atlantic Bronze Age

Since its inception in the 1930s, the concept of an Atlantic Bronze Age has repeatedly undergone considerable change. Different authors have conceptualized it along very different and sometimes diametrically opposed lines, not least because hardly any explicit definitions have ever been put forward. Some scholars evidently conceptualized it purely in geographically and temporally circumscribed terms, while others perceived it very much as a culturally defined nexus. The old conundrum of viewing Britain either as apart from or a part of Europe also had to play its role in this. While until relatively recently the majority of British scholars used to envisage the Insular Bronze Age as something quite distinct from the Bronze Age of Atlantic Europe, the default perspective in Continental scholarship has always been to situate the Atlantic Archipelago at the heart of the Atlantic Bronze Age nexus.