The aim of the project is to take a multidisciplinary approach to investigate how different types of personal social relationships affect the spread of technological innovations and the transfer of knowledge, using the example of the Early and Middle Copper Age (4500–3700 cal BCE) in Hungary. What social relationships and factors enabled Early and Middle Copper Age communities to gain access to large quantities of objects made from long-distance raw materials and then to access technological knowledge? How were these reciprocated?

To answer our questions, we integrate methods from several disciplines into archaeological research.

On the one hand, we develop a multiscalar approach that can build upwards from decisions and personal relationships at the individual level to reveal the various relationships between larger social integration units and communities, leading to historical processes at the macrolevel. These multi-level social networks provide the communication pathways through which objects, ideas and knowledge can spread. We can do this through multiplex social network analysis and modelling. We locate these networks in space and time as accurately as possible, so we record all our data in a GIS system, dating it with Bayesian modelled AMS dates where possible.

On the other hand, we reconstruct the personal relationships between individuals that are archaeologically detectable. There are two main directions:

1. the study of individuals’ kinship, lineage, residence, mobility, based on anthropological material, using a combination of aDNA and strontium isotope measurements;

2. a complex study of material culture, which may indicate a wide range of social relationships (e.g. gift, exchange, learning and teaching) in addition to biological ones. It is assumed that grave goods are related to the deceased or to his/her personal social network. The chaîne opératoire approach to the analysis of pottery and lithics reveals the social relations of the transmission of technological knowledge, by defining communities of practice. The provenance of the raw material of the copper objects has been determined by large-scale lead isotope and chemical compositional measurements. Functional analysis and residue analysis will determine what these objects were used for. By combining these, we can distinguish between objects that were made locally and those that arrived in settlements, and determine the set of technological knowledge that the inhabitants of a given settlement possessed.

Third, a comprehensive study of the livestock population in the Carpathian Basin is also crucial. The strontium isotope and morphometric analysis of domestic animals provides an answer to the question of whether the animals were involved in a long-distance interaction system as products. This is because it allows us to see the possible mobility of animals and the morphometric similarity between the livestock of different settlements, indicating the mixing of livestock and thus their role in intercommunity contact. In addition to livestock, we also consider animal products. Therefore, we examine whether there is evidence of specialisation in hunting or livestock production. Do the traces of cuts on animal bone material and the contents of the vessels indicate an increased role for animal products, in particular dairy products? What was kept in vessels that were found in sites further away from where they were made?