Elite Strategies and the Spread of Technological Innovation: The Spread of Iron in the Bronze Age Societies of Denmark and Southern Korea

I look at the process and speed of innovation spread, examining the economic aspects from the perspective of those who adopt the innovation. Defining innovation adoption as an investment which requires initial cost and risks, I argue that at the time of introduction of a new technology that is expected to have socioeconomic importance, elites of adopting societies try to avoid the initial cost and risks of adoption, actively intervening in the process of its spread. Thus, it is crucial to analyze the strategies and needs of elites, which strongly influence the speed of spread. One of these strategies is to change innovation's role by locating the innovation in a different realm of economy. Comparing the spread of iron technology in the Danish and southern Korean Bronze Ages, I demonstrate that differences in what elites needed to obtain through iron technology in different contexts critically affected the speed and process of iron spread into the two regions.