Change and continuity in the long-distance exchange networks between western/central Anatolia, northern Levant and northern Mesopotamia, c.3200–1600 BCE

The hunter-fisher-gatherers of fourth- to third-millennium BC north-eastern Europe shared many characteristics traditionally associated with Neolithic and Chalcolithic agricultural societies. Here, the authors examine north-eastern European hunter-fisher-gatherer exchange networks, focusing on the Russian Karelian lithic industry. The geographically limited, large-scale production of Russian Karelian artefacts for export testifies to the specialised production of lithic material culture that was exchanged over 1000km from the production workshops. Functioning both as everyday tools and objects of social and ritual engagement, and perhaps even constituting a means of long-distance communication, the Russian Karelian industry finds parallels with the exchange systems of contemporaneous European agricultural populations.

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TESTING THE MIDDLE GROUND IN ASSYRO-ANATOLIAN MARRIAGES OF THE KĀRUM PERIOD

Iraq ◽

10.1017/irq.2017.10 ◽

2017 ◽

Vol 79 ◽

pp. 71-83

Author(s):

Yağmur Heffron

Keyword(s):

Bronze Age ◽

Social History ◽

Central Anatolia ◽

Middle Ground ◽

Long Distance ◽

Cultural Contact ◽

The Social ◽

History Of ◽

Middle Bronze Age ◽

Dynamic Time

Central Anatolia in the Middle Bronze Age is marked by a well-documented Old Assyrian presence during the kārum period (20th–17th century b.c.), a dynamic time of long-distance trade and cultural contact. One of the idiosyncrasies of the social history of this period is a special bigamous arrangement which allowed Assyrian men to enter second marriages on the condition that one wife remained at home in Aššur, and the other in Anatolia. In testing the extent to which a middle ground for cross-cultural compromise is recognisable in such Assyro-Anatolian marriage practices, this article considers whether the terminology used in reference to the first and second wives (amtum and aššatum respectively) can be interpreted as the crucial element of misunderstanding in middle ground formation.

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The Archaeological Record of Indian Ocean Engagements

10.1093/oxfordhb/9780199935413.013.46 ◽

2018 ◽

Author(s):

Sunil Gupta

Keyword(s):

Indian Ocean ◽

Bay Of Bengal ◽

Far East ◽

Archaeological Record ◽

Neutral Model ◽

Long Distance ◽

Archaeological Evidence ◽

Deep Time ◽

Exchange Networks ◽

The Far East

With the Bay of Bengal littoral as its focus, this chapter reviews the archaeological evidence for human expansions, migrations, formation of exchange networks, long-distance trade, political impulses, and transmissions of technocultural traditions in deep time, from around 5000 bc to 500 ad. In doing so, the author offers the idea of the Bay of Bengal Interaction Sphere, a “neutral” model of analysis that sets aside the constraints of the old Indianization debate for South-Southeast Asian interaction and situates the Bay within a broader global framework extending from the Mediterranean to the Far East in a new narrative of contact and change.

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First results of the hunter-gatherer weapon system studies in the middle basin of the Salado creek (Pampas Region, Argentina)

Journal of Lithic Studies ◽

10.2218/jls.2785 ◽

2018 ◽

Vol 5 (2) ◽

Cited By ~ 1

Author(s):

Paula Barros ◽

Guillermo Heider ◽

María Clara Álvarez ◽

Cristian Kaufmann ◽

Jonathan Bellinzoni

Keyword(s):

Late Holocene ◽

Long Distance ◽

Exchange Networks ◽

Triangular Points ◽

Projectile Points ◽

Weapon Systems ◽

Lithic Assemblage ◽

Archaeological Materials ◽

First Results ◽

Pampas Region

In this paper we present the results of the study of 32 projectile points from Hangar site, located in the Salado creek basin (centre of the province of Buenos Aires). Archaeological materials recovered from the site include some isolated human remains, several potsherds, faunal materials, and lithic artefacts. The presence of pottery and small triangular points, together with the radiocarbon dating results, indicate that the main occupations occurred during the end of the Late Holocene. Methodology used included the techno-typological study of the lithic assemblage. Results showed that the outcrops of some rocks present in the sample are found in the Humid Pampas (100-190 km distant from the site) and the Dry Pampas (400-530 km distant from the site). The projectile points show variability in design and size, attributes that have implications for distinguishing different weapon systems (e.g., arrow and dart). In the Pampas region, the Late Holocene is a period characterized by an increasing complexity in hunter-gatherer societies, as it is indicated by long-distance exchange networks and different strategies of intensification and diversification on faunal resources. In accordance with this scenario, we propose that the variability that is observed in the lithic points is a reflex of an increase in the amount of the hunted species in relation with technological innovations such as the introduction of the bow and arrow.

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Decentralizing the Economies of the Maya West

The Real Business of Ancient Maya Economies ◽

10.5744/florida/9780813066295.003.0023 ◽

2020 ◽

pp. 403-417

Author(s):

Charles Golden ◽

Andrew Scherer ◽

Whittaker Schroder ◽

Clive Vella ◽

Alejandra Roche Recinos

Keyword(s):

Economic Benefits ◽

Classic Maya ◽

Best Interests ◽

Long Distance ◽

Exchange Networks ◽

Regional Powers ◽

Trade Networks ◽

Goods And Services ◽

Piedras Negras ◽

Royal Courts

Reconstructions of Pre-Columbian Maya economies are frequently based on a centralized model of exchange, in which dynastic capitals acted as centers of production, and import-export hubs, while royal courts provided some form of management over long-distance trade networks. However, recent research in the Usumacinta River Valley of the western Maya Lowlands, suggests that it was often hinterland elites who maintained those long-distance networks. These elites functioned as critical allies, and must have provided goods and services, to the royal courts of regional powers. But hinterland sites were centers of production in their own right, with exchange networks that did not always intersect with those of the dynastic center. Hinterland elites pursued their own ambitions and sought local economic benefits that could diverge from the best interests of the courts. In this chapter, we present the results of research in the hinterlands of Yaxchilán and Piedras Negras, and consider these data in light of a decentered model of Classic Maya economies.

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Stability and change at Çadır Höyük in central Anatolia: a case of Late Chalcolithic globalisation?

Anatolian Studies ◽

10.1017/s0066154619000036 ◽

2019 ◽

Vol 69 ◽

pp. 21-57

Author(s):

Sharon R. Steadman ◽

Gregory McMahon ◽

Benjamin S. Arbuckle ◽

Madelynn von Baeyer ◽

Alexia Smith ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Material Culture ◽

Central Anatolia ◽

Exchange Networks ◽

North Central ◽

Stability And Change ◽

Anatolian Plateau ◽

The North ◽

Late Chalcolithic ◽

Global World

AbstractScholars have recently investigated the efficacy of applying globalisation models to ancient cultures such as the fourth-millennium BC Mesopotamian Uruk system. Embedded within globalisation models is the ‘complex connectivity‘ that brings disparate regions together into a singular world. In the fourth millennium BC, the site of Çadır Höyük on the north-central Anatolian plateau experienced dramatic changes in its material culture and architectural assemblages, which in turn reflect new socio-economic, sociopolitical and ritual patterns at this rural agro-pastoral settlement. This study examines the complex connectivities of the ancient Uruk system, encompassing settlements in more consistent contact with the Uruk system such as Arslantepe in southeastern Anatolia, and how these may have fostered exchange networks that reached far beyond the Uruk ‘global world‘ and onto the Anatolian plateau.

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Ostrich eggshell bead strontium isotopes reveal persistent macroscale social networking across late Quaternary southern Africa

Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences ◽

10.1073/pnas.1921037117 ◽

2020 ◽

Vol 117 (12) ◽

pp. 6453-6462 ◽

Cited By ~ 8

Author(s):

Brian A. Stewart ◽

Yuchao Zhao ◽

Peter J. Mitchell ◽

Genevieve Dewar ◽

James D. Gleason ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Late Quaternary ◽

Middle Stone Age ◽

Mutual Support ◽

Social Strategies ◽

Long Distance ◽

Exchange Networks ◽

Building Relationships ◽

Kalahari Desert ◽

Ostrich Eggshell

Hunter-gatherer exchange networks dampen subsistence and reproductive risks by building relationships of mutual support outside local groups that are underwritten by symbolic gift exchange.Hxaro, the system of delayed reciprocity between Ju/’hoãn individuals in southern Africa’s Kalahari Desert, is the best-known such example and the basis for most analogies and models of hunter-gatherer exchange in prehistory. However, its antiquity, drivers, and development remain unclear, as they do for long-distance exchanges among African foragers more broadly. Here we show through strontium isotope analyses of ostrich eggshell beads from highland Lesotho, and associated strontium isoscape development, that such practices stretch back into the late Middle Stone Age. We argue that these exchange items originated beyond the macroband from groups occupying the more water-stressed subcontinental interior. Tracking the emergence and persistence of macroscale, transbiome social networks helps illuminate the evolution of social strategies needed to thrive in stochastic environments, strategies that in our case study show persistence over more than 33,000 y.

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A Comment on the Breeding and Herding of Llamas and Alpacas on the North Coast of Peru

American Antiquity ◽

10.2307/281392 ◽

1987 ◽

Vol 52 (4) ◽

pp. 832-835 ◽

Cited By ~ 16

Author(s):

Theresa Lange Topic ◽

Thomas H. McGreevy ◽

John R. Topic

Keyword(s):

High Altitude ◽

Coastal Environment ◽

North Coast ◽

Long Distance ◽

Exchange Networks ◽

Southern Peru ◽

The North ◽

Self Sufficiency ◽

Northern Peru ◽

North Coast Of Peru

In presenting a case for the viability of llamas on the desert coast of northern Peru in prehispanic times, Shimada and Shimada (1985) suggest that alpacas might also have been adapted to the coastal environment. Alpacas are primarily wool producers however, best adapted to the high altitude pasturelands of central and southern Peru. Wool yarn used in coastal textiles, it is argued, was imported from the highlands. While coastal llama herding is an aspect of regional self-sufficiency, alpaca wool yarn was important in the long distance exchange networks which, in later Andean prehistory, distributed rare materials and products for elite consumption.

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Trade and Early State Formation in the Northern Titicaca Basin, Peru

Latin American Antiquity ◽

10.7183/1045-6635.24.3.289 ◽

2013 ◽

Vol 24 (3) ◽

pp. 289-308 ◽

Cited By ~ 4

Author(s):

Abigail Levine ◽

Charles Stanish ◽

P. Ryan Williams ◽

Cecilia Chávez ◽

Mark Golitko

Keyword(s):

Social Evolution ◽

Theoretical Work ◽

Long Distance ◽

Data Set ◽

Exchange Networks ◽

Multiple Strategies ◽

Regional Center ◽

Recent Theoretical Work ◽

Titicaca Basin ◽

Archaic States

Recent theoretical work has underscored the importance of multiple strategies in the dynamic political and economic landscapes in which archaic states developed. This research emphasizes how the interaction among various non-state polities drives the growth of political centers within a region. It is in this context that numerous intermediate peer-polities emerged, and, on rare occasions in a few places around the world, it is the context of state development. War and trade have emerged as particularly important forms of strategic interaction in the theoretical literature, representing strategies of both cooperation and competition between and within complex, non-state polities. In this paper we present a detailed case study that tests and illustrates one of these theoretical propositions. We examine the role of trade in this process of social evolution as evidenced in the northern Titicaca Basin ca. 500 B.C.—A.D. 300. Based on intensive analyses of a large excavated data set, we suggest that the emergence of one regional center, called Taraco, is strongly linked to strategic participation in local and long-distance exchange networks.

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METALLURGY, MAYAPAN, AND THE POSTCLASSIC MESOAMERICAN WORLD SYSTEM

Ancient Mesoamerica ◽

10.1017/s0956536108000291 ◽

2008 ◽

Vol 19 (1) ◽

pp. 43-66 ◽

Cited By ~ 14

Author(s):

Elizabeth H. Paris

Keyword(s):

World System ◽

Washington Dc ◽

Carnegie Institution ◽

Native Metal ◽

Metal Artifacts ◽

Long Distance ◽

Exchange Networks ◽

Commercial Exchange ◽

The World ◽

Carnegie Institution Of Washington

AbstractResidents of Mayapan produced and consumed metal artifacts through long-distance commercial exchange networks in the Postclassic Mesoamerican world system. In this paper, I perform a stylistic and typological analysis of metal artifacts and debris from lost-wax casting from recent excavations at Mayapan, with reference to previously excavated collections by the Carnegie Institution of Washington, DC. The distribution of metal artifacts suggests that metal objects were not sumptuary goods restricted to elites, but luxury goods availble to those who could afford them. I then compare Mayapan with other sites in the Postclassic Mesoamerican world system that were involved in the interregional distribution of metal artifacts. Although Mayapan did not have local sources of native metal or a longstanding traditions of metalworking, it was able to use its economic influence in the world system to obtain and create metal objects specific to its needs.

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