Austvoll/Seaways to Complexity, 7. Seaways to Complexity

The book’s research strategy has provided insight into how local sociopolitical societies developed alternative strategies through effective use of the local ecology. These results are in this chapter drawn upon to discuss the final research question; to what extent did interregional communication play part in local societies development? No man is an island and the developments presented so far cannot be understood without seeing them in causality with both neighbouring and interregional developments. The final chapter examines this more specifically by drawing on both the theoretical and empirical framework that emerged in the foregoing chapters.