If the divide between the premodern and modern worlds is very real, we
must not forget that history is an organic rather than a mechanical process
and what exists in history has always come out of what had existed before it.
Modern patterns and methodologies of trade have their origins in the
exchange of seashells and obsidian and later in the Sumerian maritime link
with Dilmun and Melukha and the old Assyrian overland route to Kanesh. If
modern tankers carry petroleum rather than olive oil and textiles now tend
to be exported from peripheries to cores rather than vice versa, these are
variations and adaptations developed from an existing theme. And just as the
Silk Road, the Incense Road, and the Trans-Saharan went the way of the
Amber Route, the Kra portage, and the Jade Road, so will modern systems
evolve into new forms. While scientists mapping the human genome may
never isolate the gene for commerce, the driving force to trade will continue
to lie deep in the human psyche.
Epilogue 143