The role of the Apliki mine region in the post c. 1400 BC copper production and trade networks in Cyprus and in the wider Mediterranean

Author(s):  
Noël H Gale ◽  
Zofia A Stos-Gale
Author(s):  
LINDA A. NEWSON

In the context of debates about the definition and origins of globalisation and the role of African agency in the Atlantic slave trade, this chapter examines the commodities traded by Portuguese New Christian slave traders on the Upper Guinea coast in the early 17th century. Based on detailed account books of three slave traders discovered in the Inquisition section of the Archivo General de la Nación in Lima, Peru, it shows how Africans often determined the types and prices of goods exchanged and forced Europeans to adapt to local trade networks. Hence while commodities such as Indian textiles and beads reflected the position of the Portuguese slave traders in a global trading network, at the same time they were actively involved in trading locally produced cloth and beeswax as well as slaves.


Author(s):  
Anik Saha

Rural–urban linkages play a fundamental role in the generation of service, development, health treatment and wealth. Yet, for various reasons the importance of such linkages is not recognized and thus unnoticed in rural economic and trade policies. The present paper investigates infrastructure problem, institutional constraints and dependency rural area on near rural service trade barriers that tend to discourage linkages between rural and urban areas and thus prevent a process of rural empowerment and economic development. The findings of our review indicate that clustering rural and urban areas into regional planning units may create the necessary enabling environment for extensive trade networks and knowledge switch over between the city and the neighbor rural-side. As such, stronger rural–urban linkages could also play a crucial role in fulfill rural areas demand in developing countries.


2018 ◽  
Vol 16 (2) ◽  
pp. 125-144 ◽  
Author(s):  
A.C. Christie ◽  
A. Haour

AbstractThe lost caravan of Ma’den Ijafen, Mauritania, with its cargo of cowries and brass, is widely discussed in African archaeology, providing significant insight into the nature of long-distance trade in the medieval period. While the brass bars recovered by Théodore Monod during his expedition to the site in 1962 have received considerable attention, the cowrie shells described in his comprehensive publication of the assemblage in 1969 have received much less coverage. This issue was addressed during a recent visit to the Institut Fondamental d’Afrique Noire (IFAN) in Dakar, Senegal in May 2017, when the authors re-examined the shells as part of a wider project which also involved archaeological and environmental surveys in the Maldives, the oft-assumed source of these shells. Examinations of natural history collections of cowries, ethnographic interviews in the Maldives, and environmental surveys in East Africa were also carried out. Drawing on insights from these surveys, we systematically compared the Ma’den Ijafen cowrie assemblage to three others from the Maldives, focussing on four criteria: species composition and diversity, shell size and evidence of modifications. This analysis enabled us to shed new light on the nature of the Ma’den Ijafen cowries and their wider significance to understanding the role of the shells in West African trade networks.


Complexity ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 2020 ◽  
pp. 1-9
Author(s):  
Zhuo-Ming Ren ◽  
Xiao Pan ◽  
Yi-Cheng Zhang

The hierarchically nested structure is widely observed in a broad range of real systems, encompassing ecological networks, economic and trade networks, communication networks, among many others. However, there remain statistical challenges of the prevalence of nestedness. In response to this problem, we focus on the effect of incomplete information and the inputted matrix size, the role of network density and degree sequences, and the relevance of degree-degree correlation to conduct systematic research on the significance of the nested structure according to multiplex world trade networks. Firstly, the nested structure can observe significantly when suffering incomplete information and varying inputted matrix size. Secondly, to analyze the role of network density and degree sequences in nested structure, we use “swappable rows, swappable columns” null model which conserves the network size and density, and “fixed in-degree, fixed out-degree” null model which not only preserves the network size and density but also keeps node degree to do randomization tests of nestedness. The randomizations of two null models remark that most nested structures are not determined by network density and degree sequences but closely related to them. Finally, we investigate degree-degree correlation in nested networks, and the results show that the nested structure is negatively related with degree-degree correlation of the network. Following the empirical analysis train of thought, we argue that nestedness is still a unique feature of the network.


2019 ◽  
pp. 86-99
Author(s):  
Madia Thomson

Drought and famine have been long been important events in Moroccan history and the second-half of the nineteenth century was no different. A series of such crises occurred from the 1860’s to the 1880’s, at a time when Morocco was already feeling the pressure of European expansion and the subsequent strain on its traditional trade networks. The disruption of trade networks as well as local food shortages resulting from these climatic disturbances often pushed people to migrate to major cities in search of relief. Often unable to migrate as families, individuals might leave their children in the care of others with the hope of collecting them after the crisis. An unfortunate choice but one that might just allow someone to survive. Environmental crises resulting in famine have long been a cause of global concern. In his seminal work Poverty and Famines: an essay on entitlement, Amartya Sen explains the critical role of entitlement in mitigating the effects of famine on a given population (1981). For the purposes of this article, we will focus primarily on his concept of ‘own labour’ and “production- based” entitlement. In its discussion of nineteenth-century Morocco, the article lends an historical perspective to the modern system of national and international cooperation during environmental crises. That one no longer hears of people dying from such crises in Morocco suggests that death and famine are not necessary consequences of environmental disaster but rather the result of a lack of ideas and infrastructure.


2000 ◽  
Vol 65 (1) ◽  
pp. 79-101 ◽  
Author(s):  
Thomas E. Emerson ◽  
Randall E. Hughes

AbstractAt the pinnacle of Eastern Woodlands’ prehistoric cultural development, Cahokia has been interpreted as a political and economic power participating in prestige-goods exchanges and trade networks stretching from the Great Plains to the South Atlantic. Among the more spectacular of the Cahokian elite artifacts were stone pipes and figurines made from a distinctive red stone previously identified as Arkansas bauxite. In this research, we used a combination of X-ray diffraction, sequential acid dissolution, and inductively coupled plasma analyses to establish the source of the raw material used in the manufacture of the red figurines and pipes that epitomize the Cahokian-style. Our research demonstrates that these objects were made of locally available flint clays. This finding, in conjunction with other evidence, indicate Cahokian exploitation of many mineral and stone resources focuses on the northern Ozark Highlands to the exclusion of other areas. These findings indicate that we must reassess the direction, extent, and role of Cahokian external contacts and trade in elite goods.


1995 ◽  
Vol 6 (1) ◽  
pp. 70-84 ◽  
Author(s):  
Maria A. Masucci

Spondylus and Strombus shells are believed to have been sacred items in Latin American societies, often traded over long distances. Studies of the manufacturing sites of these and other prized marine shells have been mainly undertaken to investigate the long distance trade networks and symbol systems of the ancient societies. In contrast, this report examines evidence from small, inland sites of the Regional Developmental Period-Guangala Phase in southwest Ecuador to understand the role of shell working as a craft activity within the local socioeconomic system. It is shown that this activity, which involves interaction between littoral and inland dwellers, played an important role in subsistence adaptations to the semi-arid southwest coast of Ecuador. These findings will also be of interest to scholars of the subsequent period seeking to understand the organization of the late prehistoric Ecuadorian trading chiefdoms.


PLoS ONE ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 16 (12) ◽  
pp. e0260518
Author(s):  
David Luria

Following the Egyptian withdrawal in the mid-12th century BCE from their involvement in the Arabah copper production, and after an additional period of organization, the degree of copper efficiency and production at Timna and Faynan increased in the Early Iron Age (11th–9th centuries), rendering the region the largest and most advanced smelting centre in the Levant. The existing paradigm offered as an explanation for this technical and commercial success is based on extraneous influence, namely, the campaign of Pharaoh Sheshonq I near the end of the 10th century BCE that spurred a renewed Egyptian involvement in the Arabah copper industry. An alternative paradigm is suggested here, viewing the advances in Arabah copper technology and production as a linear development and the outcome of continuous and gradual indigenous improvements on the part of local craftsmen, with no external intervention. Behind these outstanding technical achievements stood excellent managerial personnel, supported by an innovative technical team. They employed two techniques for copper-production optimization that can be defined based on concepts taken from the world of modern industrial engineering: (i) "trial and error", in which the effect of each production variable was tested individually and separately, and (ii) "scaling-up", in which the size of some production elements (i.e., tuyère) was increased by using existing techniques which required minimum developmental costs and experimental risks.


Author(s):  
Eberhard Crailsheim

This chapter studies the commercial networks through which maritime traders on foreign soil connected with the global world of business. Using French and Flemish settlers in Seville in 1620, it deconstructs Seville’s status as a ‘proto-global economy’; examines the trade activity on the Dunkirk-Seville route; the textile trade; and case studies of prominent merchants in the region in attempt to determine the role of foreign merchants in the trade network between American and Europe. It concludes that despite laws preventing foreigners from participating in American trade, networks built from social, familial, political, and economic frameworks made such trade possible.


2019 ◽  
pp. 61-88
Author(s):  
Sasha D. Pack

This chapter explores various ways that imperial enclaves could project power over their borders. Examples include the increasing power of European consuls in Tangier to adjudicate conflicts between Jews and Muslims throughout Morocco; the processes by which officials in Gibraltar and Melilla asserted control over regional trade networks by protecting smugglers; and the role of French Oran in serving as a landing point for Spanish and Moroccan refugees and dissidents. Taken together, these examples illustrate the formation of a constellation of power in the trans-Gibraltar borderland that curtailed the ability of the Spanish and Moroccan governments to administer their own laws. The chapter ends with a discussion of the crisis of 1898, which set in motion a cooperative effort by Spain, Britain, and France to clearly delineate imperial spheres of influence, producing the Entente Cordiale of 1904.


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