working, for example, on narrow ledges in exposed highland areas, even
when acceptable substitutes were available closer to home and under far
more favorable conditions.
The increased prominence of prestige items in the archaeological record
indicates an important socio-political change that appears in later Neolithic
societies. Hunter–gatherers and early agriculturalists lived in basically egali-
tarian, acephalous societies. Different people enjoyed different status as, for
example, elders and shamans, but there were no social hierarchies. Beginning
in the fourth millennium BCE, the importance of social dominance and
eventually the appearance of ranking and the assumption of power became
more evident. In the struggle to determine who would emerge on top, the
control over access to outside exchange networks became a key factor. Long-
distance trade, social differentiation, and power concentration were all fueled
by the development of metallurgy. During the Bronze Age, which beganc.
3000 BCE, the trade in both raw metals andfinished metal products grew
enormously. Metals became associated with high prestige. Ornaments of gold
replaced shell, and ceremonial axes came to be made of copper and bronze.
Daggers and spears, drinking cups, lurs (large S-shaped bronze trumpets),
equipment used for horseriding and charioteering, jewelry and other orna-
ments, and, above all, swords became the items of choice in exchange
systems. Other products became available with the use of wool-producing
sheep, which provided a basis for the textile industry, and the spread of horse
domestication. Local communities became more interconnected, and regional
exchange systems became interregional.
Trade helped to promote the rise of political power and the development
of social inequality: where wealth accumulated, leaders emerged, and even-
tually states formed. If the key to power was control over wealth, those who
controlled long-distance trade may have imposed themselves over the old
kinship structure of society and emerged as a ruling class. Or perhaps the
ruling class did not emerge from traders but came instead from the ranks of
the tribal chiefs, that is, people who already had political power. Again,
however, the procurement and distribution of wealth was the means to
power. Wealth from trade provided a leader with the ability to pay for an
army that could be used to get the rest of the community to obey him. And,
by controlling trade, he had access to prestige goods from the outside, which
he used to attract clients, creating a system of ranks in a structure that
became the state.
In such a system, the ruler determined who would have access to what; in
other words, he regulated demand as well as supply. The ruler and the elites
who supported him would also have control over local specialists who made
luxury items to be used as exports. Such a system was not based on com-
mercialized market conditions in which luxury goods were sold to whoever
was able to pay for them. Rather rulers defined the social and political status
of others by controlling the system of wealth distribution. Theflow of
In the beginning 17