CHAPTER THIRTEEN
TRADE AND EXCHANGE
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Peter S. Wells
INTRODUCTION
T
rade and exchange - peaceful means by which people obtain goods not available
to them in their local environments - are mechanisms complementary to
resource procurement and industry. Together they constitute the means by which
people acquire things they want. Here I define 'trade' as the peaceful transmission of
goods for other goods, and 'exchange' as the transmission of goods primarily for
social or political purposes, as in gift exchange or tribute payment. The two blend
together in real life, and archaeologically it is not always possible to distinguish
between them.
Archaeological evidence demonstrates the regular transmission of goods between
peoples inhabiting different regions of Europe at least from the Early Neolithic
period onward Uankuhn 1969), and by the Celtic Iron Age, systems of trade and
circulation operated intensively and extensively throughout Europe.
The results of trade are often very apparent archaeologically, in the presence of
goods in a context that is foreign to that cultural or physical environment (Stjernquist
1985). Less apparent are the mechanisms of circulation and the meaning of the trade
or exchange for the people involved. All systems of trade and exchange depend upon
the social and economic structure of the participating communities. The close
connection between social systems and circulation of goods is especially clear in the
rich burials of Celtic Europe - exotic trade goods from distant lands often distinguish
these graves from the majority of burials.
One reason for trade is to obtain raw materials not available in the local environ-
ment. We have good evidence during the Celtic Iron Age for trade in iron, copper and
tin, graphite, salt, coral, stone, lignite, jet, sapropelite, amber, gold and silver.
Communities that did not inhabit lands where these materials were naturally available
had to acquire them through trade, though other less peaceful means were probably
used sometimes. At the salt-mining sites of Hallstatt and the Diirrnberg, iron deposits
in the middle Rhineland, and graphite-clay sources in south-east Bavaria and
Bohemia, communities developed to produce raw materials for trade (see Chapter 12
for discussion and references).
The second main reason for trade in Celtic Europe was to acquire manufactured