Premodern Trade in World History - Richard L. Smith

gold and silver objects, including coins. Another type of deposit consists of votive offerings left in a sacred place associated ...

archaeological evidence comes with no intrinsic meaning and must be interpreted, some forms of written evidence come already int ...

interlopers by conjuring up monsters, freaks, evildoers, bad weather, impas- sable geographical features, and other creative dev ...

is the even larger work of an author known today as Pliny the Elder, who lived a generation after Strabo. His great work, theNat ...

Ban Gu died in prison, and Sima Qian was castrated (for something he said rather than wrote), which has led to the observation t ...

Chapter 2 In the beginning If early hominids exchanged goods outside the immediate group to which they belonged, no archaeologic ...

each group came. This was likely done in a group setting, not as an indivi- dual activity. The guiding principle was reciprocity ...

and deposited as votive offerings, sometimes show considerable wear, indi- cating that at one time they were employed for practi ...

manufactured products for export, such as ceramics or tanned hides. One rock that did not have to be crafted into a product was ...

working, for example, on narrow ledges in exposed highland areas, even when acceptable substitutes were available closer to home ...

prestige goods as gifts determined the hierarchy, and wealth in the form of exotic valuables validated one’s social status. Luxu ...

these complex societies, Sumer and Egypt, arose in places that served as trade corridors. Sumer, in southern Mesopotamia, had th ...

make us think, well, perhaps. And a good deal offlux is apparent in the obsidian trade. Over a period of time, a particular site ...

any question that the Melian trade was not profit-driven. Obsidian was being hauled off the island before anyone lived there and ...

available in Central Europe. The north had to have something to exchange, which doubtless included perishables such as furs and ...

early Bronze Age but began to decline there just at the time it was becom- ing extremely popular in Mycenaean Greece. The Greeks ...

Chapter 3 The first link Once societies passed through the agricultural revolution, some began a process of transition toward so ...

was a resource-deficient area. Although it could produce a bounty of food once irrigation systems were in place, Sumer had no de ...

form of overland routes radiating outward in various directions. Trade routes and trading partners depended on changing circumst ...

Map 3.1 Southwest Asia and Northeast Africa 5000 BCE -^100 BCE ...