to display their status and wealth. Trade continued in espe-
cially fi ne fl int, as well as in some manufactured implements
such as stone axes and pottery vessels.
Until shortly before the Roman conquest, we have no
evidence for standards of value, such as coins. Instead of the
market-based economy of today, early Europeans seem to
have operated trade systems that were closely linked to social
relations rather than to market exchange. Research on trade
in Neolithic stone axes, for example, has shown how patterns
in the distribution of these objects suggest that the objects
played important roles in regulating social relations between
the communities that were participating.
During the Bronze Age trade came to play an increasingly
more important role in societies because many communities
had to trade to acquire metal. Both copper and tin are rela-
tively rare in nature. Th ey occur in deposits in mountainous
regions of Europe, such as the Austrian Alps and Cornwall,
and not on the North European Plain, for example. Yet from
the beginning of the Bronze Age on, communities all across
Europe had bronze ornaments and tools. Copper mines at
the Mitterberg near Salzburg in Austria show that hundreds
of workers were involved in mining, smelting, and trading
metal to communities throughout the continent. Along with
bronze, many other materials circulated along the trade net-
works. Trade systems were complex and varied. Large and
fi nely craft ed items, such as swords and cauldrons, were
transported great distances from their places of manufacture,
while smaller and more common objects, such as decorative
pins, were used near the places where they were made.
Th e Early Iron Age (800–450 b.c.e.) is distinguished
by the appearance of trade centers, places where communi-
ties grew as a result of expanding systems of commerce. Th e
best documented are a series of hilltop settlements, includ-
ing Mont Lassois in France, the Heuneburg in southern Ger-
many, Závist in Bohemia, and Belsk in Ukraine. At these
locations communities grew to populations of perhaps 500 to
1,000, and they were actively engaged in trade with groups in
diff erent parts of Europe. Especially evident are objects that
arrived into central Europe from the Mediterranean world.
Greek pottery and ornaments, Etruscan bronze vessels, and
branches of coral (to be cut and used for decoration on jew-
elry) are among the special imports that are found in con-
siderable quantities at and around such centers during the
sixth through fourth centuries b.c.e. Along with these luxury
imports, more common objects circulated as well, such as
bronze pins, glass beads, amber, and jet.
In the Late Iron Age, in addition to all the categories of
trade goods that circulated earlier, bulk commodities came to
play important roles in trade. Noteworthy are massive grind-
stones of basalt, quarried at diff erent locations, such as in Bo-
hemia and in the Middle Rhineland, and transported to still
other locations where they were employed for grinding grain.
In the fi nal two centuries before the Roman conquest com-
merce intensifi ed between communities in temperate Europe
and the Roman world. Much of this commerce was centered
on the large, city-like settlements known as oppida, but many
Roman imports occur at other sites as well. Th ese imports
included ceramic amphoras in which wine was transported,
fi ne pottery, coins, medicinal implements, bronze vessels, sil-
ver vessels, and glass bowls. Some communities in temperate
Europe began minting coins around the middle of the sec-
ond century b.c.e., and they show that exchange fl ourished
throughout Europe during the fi nal two centuries b.c.e.
Aft er the Roman conquest, which divided Europe roughly
into a southern and western half that belonged to the Roman
Empire and a northern and eastern half that remained un-
conquered, many new trade goods became available to com-
munities in the provinces, including exotic foodstuff s from
the Mediterranean world. Besides wine and olive oil, these
included dates, fi gs, olives, and the tangy sauce known as
garum that was a great favorite among Roman diners. Mass-
produced Roman pottery circulated widely, both in the impe-
rial lands and beyond it into far northern and eastern Europe.
New infrastructure contributed to the expansion and inten-
sifi cation of trade during the Roman Period, with large cargo
ships plying the Mediterranean shores and the major rivers
of Europe, roads constructed over much of the Roman prov-
inces, and bridges built across rivers where none had stood
before, such as that across the river Th ames in Roman Lon-
don (Londinium).
Trade across the frontier into the unconquered regions
of Germany, Scandinavia, Poland, and other lands was both
extensive and intensive. Th e imperial frontiers on the Rhine
and Danube rivers were no impediment to trade, as tens of
thousands of Roman-made objects found north and east of
those boundaries make clear.GREECE
BY CHRISTOPHER BLACKWELL
Th e ancient Greek world, from the Bronze Age in the second
millennium b.c.e. through the rise of Roman dominance in
the Mediterranean in the second century b.c.e., consisted of
independent city-states and kingdoms, dispersed across an
area that had the Greek peninsula at its center but that ex-
tended from what is now southern France through the east
coast of Italy, Sicily, parts of northern Africa, the west coast of
Turkey, and around the Black Sea. Th ese thousands of com-
munities were united by a common language, worship of a
more-or-less fi xed set of gods, and certain shared customs.
From time to time certain states would achieve political con-
trol over larger areas—the kingdom of Mycenae during the
Bronze Age, Euboea during the eighth century b.c.e., Athens
during the fi ft h century b.c.e., and Macedonia during the late
fourth and early third centuries b.c.e. Even so, it is impossible
to describe a single, unifi ed “Greece” in any meaningful sense
for any period of antiquity.
Th e economic history of the Greek world, then, must
consider diff erent places at diff erent periods and is limited
by the available evidence. For the Bronze Age, there survive362 economy: Greece