TRANSPORT AMPHORAS AND MARKET PRACTICES 259
relative frequency of purchases, and the nature of the goods involved (e.g.,
perishable products as opposed to those with unlimited ‘shelf life’). Exchanges
in theoretically ‘imperfect’ markets can also be facilitated by holding certain
variables related to a product – such as demand or price – constant and thus
limiting the scope of uncertainty. For example, trade in Anglo-Saxon England
focused on goods with ‘inelastic demand, that were able to bear the costs and
yield profits commensurate with the risks borne ... slaves, wine, quality textiles,
furs, and potter’ (Jones 1993 : 663).
Markets and Social Networks
Social networks have come to be seen as a strategy for reducing transaction costs
and hence link markets and price formation with social relations (Granovetter
1983 ; 2005 ; Clark 1991 ; Podolny 1994 ; DiMaggio and Louch 1998 ; Zafirovski
2000 ; Goyal 2005 ; Hancock 2005 , and many others). Considerable work has
been done in identifying the roles of such ties in modern economies as well as
the economic impact of networks on market exchange. While such networks
can impede free competition and choice (e.g., Gutelius 2002 ), in practical
terms the success of market systems depends heavily on them (most recently,
now entering the mainstream media, Ormerod 2012 ).
The presence of connected actors as opposed to isolated, self-interestedindividuals as well as the various contradictions and complications to the the-
oretical paradigm of the free market just surveyed, however, do not necessarily
exclude such behaviors from the economic realm or even from being con-
sidered under the rubric of the market economy. Likewise the coexistence
of other systems of allocations of resources, such as reciprocity, redistribution,
or householding does not exclude discussion of concurrent and coexisting
market systems (as noted earlier in this chapter with reference to Polanyi’s
approach). Indeed, it is precisely the potential for sliding between and merging
diverse systems of allocation that might form significant elements of change in
a particular historical economic system (Polanyi 1957b: esp. 255–6); Gudeman
( 2009 : 18) emphasizes the dynamic interaction between ‘mutuality and market,
or community and impersonal trade’.
Archaeology of Markets
In sum, markets are defined here as institutionalized exchanges based on bar-
gaining transactions, with supply shaped both by sellers’ needs and interests
and by the nature of the products involved, and demand shaped by the buy-
ers’ needs, interests, and awareness of the qualities of the goods on offer. This
definition does not pre-suppose a particular set of behaviors for the mar-
ket, nor does it require that all allocations and accumulation of resources be