The Emergence of Complex Societies in the Aegean Bronze Age Introduction Renowned British archaeologist Colin Renfrew, in his seminal work The Emergence of Civilization: The Cyclades and the Aegean in the Third Millennium

Renowned British archaeologist Colin Renfrew, in his seminal work The Emergence of Civilization: The Cyclades and the Aegean in the Third Millennium B.C., provides a theory for the development of complex cultures, which he calls the multiplier effect. According to Renfrew, innovations in one aspect, or subsystem, of culture, such as craft production, enhances and affects, through positive feedback, other cultural subsystems like social organization or religious symbolism. In other words, innovation in one subsystem of culture stimulates innovation in other subsystems and ultimately creates the growth of new social, political, and economic conditions. In this way, Renfrew maintains, the cumulative effect of the influence of innovation on the interactions between such cultural subsystems is, in fact, the emergence of civilization. Renfrew’s account of the rise of complex cultures explores the diverse facets and factors of critical cultural change, such as, for example, the role of the environment, technological innovation, demographic trends, social relations, and new religious concepts, which all continue to drive cultures in new directions even at present.