Exchange Systems in Prehistory

In this unique volume, archaeologists examine the changing economic structure of trade in North America over a period of 6,000 years. Organined by geographical and chronological divisions, each chapter focuses on trade in one of nine regions from the Arachiac through the late prehistoric period. Each contribution explores neighboring areas to llustrate the complexity of North American exchange. By charting the econmic structure of these regions, archaeologists, economic anthropologists, and economic geographers gain greater insight into the dynamics of North American trade and exchange on a continental wide basis.

Long before the advent of the global economy, foreign goods were transported, traded, and exchanged through myriad means, over short and long distances. Archaeological tools for identifying foreign objects, such as provenance studies, stylistic analyses, and economic documentary sources reveal non-local materials in historic and prehistoric assemblages. Trade and exchange represent more than mere production and consumption. Exchange of goods also led to an exchange of cultural and social experiences. Discoveries of the sources of alien objects surpass archaeological expectations of exchange and geographic distance, revealing important technological advances. With thirteen case studies from around the world, this comprehensive work provides a fresh perspective on material culture studies. Evidence of ongoing negotiation between individuals, villages, and nations provides insight into the impact of trade on the micro-, meso-, and macro-level. Covering a wide array of time periods and areas, this work will be of interest to archaeologists, anthropologists, and anyone working in cultural studies.

Economic behavior is governed by two major sets of boundary conditions: environmental and technological factors on the one hand, and conditions of social organization on the other hand. Indeed, social scientists are often particularly interested in the framework of exchange relationships: exchange of goods, services, personnel, and information. Economic exchanges lend concrete manifestations to social relations that themselves may transcend the economic realm and that otherwise are often difficult to trace. Yet in social science research in Southeast Asia, the area of economic studies has lagged behind, despite the great study potential represented by the tremendous diversity of its physical and human environment. Economic Exchange and Social Interaction in Southeast Asia attempts to take advantage of that opportunity. As a number of the contributions to this volume show, many if not most of the systems organized on very different levels of integration interact with each other. Taken as a whole, they provide evidence of the incredible diversity of economic and social systems that may be investigated in Southeast Asia.

Provides the first global analysis of the relationship between trade and civilisation from the beginning of civilisation until the modern era.

The papers presented at the April 1992 'Trade and Exchange' conference at the University of Bristol are now available in this volume. Contents include: Trade beyond the material (C. Renfrew); Exchange, foraging and local Hominid networks (C. Gamble); Neolithic quarries, the exchange of axes and social control in the southern Vosges (P. Petrequin, F. Jeudy and C. Jeunesse); Trade in Neolithic jadeite axes from the Alps (M. R. Bouard); The polished stone axe in earlier Neolithic Britain (M. Edmonds); Megalithic tombs and Megalithic art in Atlantic Europe (E. S. Twohig); The exchange of obsidian at Neolithic sites in Italy (A. J. Ammerman and C. Polglase); The origin of metal used for making weapons in Early and Middle Minoan Crete (Z. Stos-Gale); The circulation of amber in Prehistoric Europe (C. du Gardin); Europe and the Mediterranean in the Bronze Age (A. Harding); Displacement and Exchange in Archaeological Methodology (S. Needham); East-West Relations in the Paris Basin During the Late Bronze Age (P. Brun); Relations Between Brittany and Great Britain during the Bronze Age (J. Briard); Feasting in the Late Bronze Age (J. G. de Soto); Prehistoric Seafaring in the Channel (S. McGrail); Cheshire Cats, Mickey Mice, the New Europe and Ancient Celtic Art (J. V. S. Megaw and M. R. Megaw); Germans, Celts and Romans in the Late (pre-Roman) Iron Age (A. P. Fitzpatrick); Dependence and idependence in European Prehistory (A. Sherratt).

This book brings together a classic collection of Andrew Sherratt's work on the economic foundations of prehistoric Europe, which have put forward important new ideas about the development of farming, pastoralism, early technology and trade. In a series of contributions that have included wide-ranging syntheses and detailed local studies, he discusses their implications for the understanding of settlement-patterns, social structures, material culture, and less tangible aspects of prehistoric life such as the spread of languages and the use of narcotics.