This book provides the first global analysis of the relationship between trade and civilisation from the beginning of civilisation 3000 BC until the modern era 1600 AD. Encompassing the various networks including the Silk Road, the Indian Ocean trade, Near Eastern family traders of the Bronze Age, and the Medieval Hanseatic League, it examines the role of the individual merchant, the products of trade, the role of the state, and the technical conditions for land and sea transport that created diverging systems of trade and in the development of global trade networks. Trade networks, however, were not durable. The book focuses on the establishment and decline of great trading network systems, and how they related to the expansion of civilisation, and to different forms of social and economic exploitation. Case studies focus on local conditions as well as global networks until the sixteenth century when the whole globe was connected by trade.
Author(s): Kristian Kristiansen (editor), Thomas Lindkvist (editor), Janken Myrdal (editor)
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Year: 2018
Language: English
Pages: xii+554
Trade and Civilisation. Economic Networks and Cultural Ties, from Prehistory to the Early Modern Era
Contents
List of Contributors
Preface
1 Theorizing Trade and Civilization
Introduction
Cognitive Geographies and Trade Networks
The Rise of Mobile Technologies and Institutions
Traders and Their Institutions
Comparative Advantage and Regional Division of Labor
Agents of the International Trade Networks
Technologies of Trade and the Civilizational Process
The Risks of Trade – Predictable and Unpredictable
From World System to Value System: Networks and the Transmission of Values and Institutions
Civilizations in the Making
References
2 Cloth and Currency: On the Ritual-Economics of Eurasian Textile Circulation and the Origins of Trade, Fifth to Second Millennia BC
Civilization and the Origins of Trade
“Trade” in Plain Light: Old Assyrian Textile Circulation
Ethnographic Notes on Textile Circulation and Textile Currency
Lele and Raffia Cloth
Trobrianders and Banana Palm Bundles
Samoa and ’Ie Toga/Pandanu Mats
The Archaeology of Textile Circulation in the Fourth and Third Millennia BC
Textiles and Metals: A Contagious Nexus for Urban Trade?
Trade as Centrifugal Force of Civilization
References
3 Prices and Values: Origins and Early History in the Near East
Introduction
The Bronze Age Near East
The System of Measurement
Equivalencies and States
Kings, Gods, Preciosities, and Markets
Core-Periphery Relations, Labor, and Compensations
The Origins of Abstraction and Value
Money and Values
Weights and Justice
The Genesis of Money
The Early to Middle Bronze Age Transformation
Conclusions
Notes
References
4 The Rise of Bronze Age Peripheries and the Expansion of International Trade 1950–1100 BC
Introduction
Foreign Traders and Exchange Values
1950–1750 BC: First Commercial Contacts and the Rise of Wealthy Peripheries in the Caucasus and Beyond
Trialeti and Trade in Metal and Horses
1750–1500 BC: Going West
Minoans and Mycenaeans Trading Tin from Wessex, Salt and Silver from the Carpathians, and Amber from South Scandinavia
1500–1200 BC: Going North
The Integration of South Scandinavia into the Mediterranean Trade System
1200–1100 BC: The Periphery Hits Back
Mercenaries, Sea Peoples and the Fall of the East Mediterranean Palace Economies
Conclusion: From Bronze Age World System to Bronze Age Value System
References
5 Interlocking Commercial Networks and the Infrastructure of Trade in Western Asia During the Bronze Age
References
6 Mycenaean Glocalism: Greek Political Economies and International Trade
Sources of Variation
Geography
History
Boundaries
Agency
Mycenaean States Compared
The Argolid and Messenia
Political Economy
Mycenaean Glocalism
Burial Customs
Wanax and Damos
Pots and Ports
Mycenaeans in the Adriatic
Conclusion
Notes
References
7 Deconstructing Civilisation: A ‘Neolithic’ Alternative
Introduction
The Unity of Africa
‘Neolithic’ Ancient and Modern Civilisations in Africa
Long-Term Flows and Connnectivities
Expansion and Ritual Integration
Conclusion
References
8 Marginalizing Civilization: The Phoenician Redefinition of Power circa 1300–800 BC
Introduction: Where in History Do the Phoenicians Belong?
Reviewing Phoenician Textual Evidence
Recent Phoenician Archaeological Evidence
Keeping the Maritime in Perspective
Rethinking the Assyrian Pressure Paradigm
In Search of a New Paradigm: Rethinking Phoenician “Civilization”
Conclusions: Defining Power From the Margins
Notes
References
9 The Birth of a Single Afro-Eurasian World System (Second Century BC–Sixth Century CE)
Notes
References
10 On the Silk Road: Trade in the Tarim?
Background and Issues
The Material Evidence 1: Buddhist Shrines of the Tarim
Architectural Diffusion
Buddhism and Merchants in the Tarim
The Material Evidence 2: Paintings of the Tarim
Conclusions
Notes
References
11 Trade, Traders, and Trading Systems: Macromodeling of Trade, Commerce, and Civilization in the Indian Ocean
Introduction
The Trading Systems Model
Indian Ocean Trade prior to 500 BCE
Late Axial/Early Common Era Global Trade
From the Dark Ages Into the Long Eighth Century
Trade and Commerce 800–1300 AD and Its Limitation
The Islamic Détente and the Rise of Globalized Integrated Economies
Applying the Trading Systems Model to This Vast Period
Conclusion
Notes
References
12 Trade and Civilization in Medieval East Africa: Socioeconomic Networks
Introduction
Global Connections: Africa, Asia, and Mediterranean Europe
The Issues: Social and Economic Networks and the Origins of Civilization
Scale One: Mtwapa and the Villages along Mtwapa Creek
Around Mtwapa – The Village of Kizingitini
Scale Two: The Interior and the Coastal Interaction Spheres
Macropatterns or Site Clusters in Tsavo
The Significance of Mosaics in Fostering Social and Economic Networks
Scale Three: The Transcontinental Scale
Conclusions
References
13 Conflictive Trade, Values, and Power Relations in Maritime Trading Polities of the Tenth to the Sixteenth Centuries in the Philippines
Introduction
The Complexities of Political Landscapes, Social Networks and Trade in the Tenth–Sixteenth Centuries in the Philippines
The Perspective From Tanjay: A Twelfth–Sixteenth Centuries Maritime Trading Polity of the Central Philippines
Foreign Trade, Feasting, and Social Display at the Chiefl y Center of Tanjay
A Regional Perspective: Coastal- Interior Trade and Culturally Constructed Value
The Transmission of Innovation through Slave Raiding
Conclusions
Notes
References
14 The Hanseatic League as an Economic and Social Phenomenon: Archaeo-Ceramic Case Studies in Cultural Transfer and Resistance in Western and Northern Europe, circa 1250–1550
Introduction
The Hansa in the North Sea and Baltic: Commercial and Cultural Networks
Archaeology of the Hansa
The Baltic Ceramic Market, 1200–1600
Red Earthenware and Stoneware: The Emergence of a Common Market Area
The Smokeless Ceramic Tiled Stove: Type-Fossil of Hanseatic Cultural and Technological Transfer
Urban Merchant Fashion
Cultural Transfer and Resistance in the Pottery Market
From Imported Trade Goods to a Shared Community Identity
References
15 Elliot Smith Reborn? A View of Prehistoric Globalization from the Island Southeast Asian and Pacific Margins
Introduction
Who Was GES?
Problems in the Analysis of Neglected Regions
Island Southeast Asia and the Western Pacific (ca. 2000–1 BCE): The Evidence for Two Phases of Long-Range Connectivity
Neolithic
Metal Age
Outside the System? The Pacific in the Subsequent 1,500 Years to European Contact
Conclusions
Acknowledgments
Notes
References
16 Trade-Light: The Political Economy of Polynesian and Andean Civilizations
The Political Economy as a Theoretical Formulation
Studying Trade in Prehistory From a Political Economy Perspective
Complex Societies without Significant Trade: The Lesson from the Hawaiian Islands
Trade and the Political Economy of Andean Prehistory
An Andean Model for Civilization without Major Long-Distance Trade
Concluding Remarks
References
17 Long-Distance Exchange and Ritual Technologies of Power in the Pre-Hispanic Andes
Introduction
Is World-Systems Analysis Applicable to the Pre-Hispanic Andes?
Political Economy, Ritual Technologies, and Long-Distance Exchange in the Ancient Andes
Conclusions: World-Systems Dynamics in the Pre-Hispanic Andes
Notes
References
18 Empire, Civilization, and Trade: The Roman Experience in World History
Empire: The Mobilization of Resources
Civilization: The Pattern of Consumption
Postscript
Notes
References
19 World Trade in the Fifteenth and Early Sixteenth Centuries
Introduction: Winds of Change
The Network Around 1000
The Late Medieval Expansion
An Interpretation of the Late Medieval Change
Why Not America?
Summary
Appendix: Constructing a Map over Trade Routes in the Fifteenth Century
References
20 Postscript: Getting the Goods for Civilization
External Exchange and the Constitution of the Social Order
Imperial Cultures and Identities
Conclusion
References
Index