Book contents
- Trade before Civilization
- Trade before Civilization
- Copyright page
- Contents
- Contributors
- Chapter One New Perspectives on Long-Distance Trade and Social Complexity
- Part I Exchange and Social Evolution: Forms of Trade in Egalitarian, Transegalitarian, and Chiefdom Societies
- Part II The Role That Specific Institutions And Agents Played in Long-Distance Exchange
- Part III The Role of Political Economy and Elite Control in Long-Distance Exchange
- Part IV Marxian And Post-Colonial Approaches as well as World System Theory in Relation to Gift Exchange and MacroRegional Exchange
- Part V Commentary on Contributions to This Volume
- Chapter Sixteen Political Economy Perspectives in Trade before and beyond Civilizations
- Index
- References
Chapter Sixteen - Political Economy Perspectives in Trade before and beyond Civilizations
from Part V - Commentary on Contributions to This Volume
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 25 August 2022
Book contents
- Trade before Civilization
- Trade before Civilization
- Copyright page
- Contents
- Contributors
- Chapter One New Perspectives on Long-Distance Trade and Social Complexity
- Part I Exchange and Social Evolution: Forms of Trade in Egalitarian, Transegalitarian, and Chiefdom Societies
- Part II The Role That Specific Institutions And Agents Played in Long-Distance Exchange
- Part III The Role of Political Economy and Elite Control in Long-Distance Exchange
- Part IV Marxian And Post-Colonial Approaches as well as World System Theory in Relation to Gift Exchange and MacroRegional Exchange
- Part V Commentary on Contributions to This Volume
- Chapter Sixteen Political Economy Perspectives in Trade before and beyond Civilizations
- Index
- References
Summary
Civilization is often considered to be the culture of state societies, in which urbanism, specialized market exchanges, foreign trade, and traders developed to support large-scale political societies with social stratification, wealth inequalities, and high arts (Childe 1952). The present volume, Trade before Civilizations, as well as the Gothenburg University conference on which it is based, consider the social and political dynamics associated with distant trading as it existed before states, and we have been asked to be discussants and now commentators. Our common research agenda has focused on how political economies underlay the formation of centralized power and social inequality. for both of our lifetimes, we have studied the evolution of intermediate-scaled societies that emerged both before state formation and beyond the domination of states. These societies represent varying political scales and centrality that we have glossed as “trans-egalitarian” and “chiefly” (Earle 1987, 1997; Hayden 1995, 2001a, 2014). In prehistory and history, such societies existed around the world without states and on the periphery of states. The elaboration and significance of trade (long-distance exchange) in these societies involved trans-regional movements of prestige goods (wealth) and people. Such objects carried meaning that structured social relationships in terms of status, roles, values, and authority. To understand wealth-based trade helps us to understand the nature of how social complexity emerged and operated.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- Trade before CivilizationLong Distance Exchange and the Rise of Social Complexity, pp. 385 - 416Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2022
References
Arnold, J. (2001). The Channel Islands Project. In Arnold, J. ed., The Origins of a Pacific Coast Chiefdom: The Chumash of the Channel Islands. Salt Lake City: University of Utah Press, pp. 21–52.Google Scholar
Aubet, M. (1993). The Phoenicians and the West. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Brumfiel, E., and Earle., T. (1987). Specialization, Exchange and Complex Societies. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Brusgaard, N., Fokkens, H., and Kootker, L. (2019). An Isotopic Perspective on the Socio-economic Significance of Livestock in Bronze Age West-Frisia, the Netherlands (2000–800 BCE). Journal of Archaeological Science: Reports 27, pp. 1–10.Google Scholar
DeMarrais, E., and Earle, T. (2017). Collective Action Theory and the Dynamics of Complex Societies. Annual Reviews in Anthropology 46, pp. 183–201.Google Scholar
DeMarrais, E., Earle, T., and Castillo, L. J. (1996). Ideology, Materialization and Power Strategies. Current Anthropology 37, pp. 15–31.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Childe, V. G. (1950). The Urban Revolution. Town Planning Review 21, pp. 3–17.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Cobb, C. (2016). The Role of Mississippian Trade Networks in Assembling Relations and Relational Assemblages. Paper presented at the Conference on Trade before Civilization, Gothenburg University.Google Scholar
D’Altroy, T. N., and Earle, T. K. (1985). Staple Finance, Wealth Finance, and Storage in the Inka Political Economy. Current Anthropology 26, pp. 187–206CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Dalton, G. (1977). Aboriginal Economies in Stateless Societies. In Earle, T. and Ericson, J., eds., Exchange Systems in Prehistory. New York: Academic Press, pp. 191–212.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Donald, L. (1997). Aboriginal Slavery on the Northwest Coast of North America. Berkeley: University of California Press.Google Scholar
Earle, T. (1978). Economic and Social Organization of a Complex Chiefdom. Anthropology Paper 63. Ann Arbor, Michigan: University of Michigan Museum of Anthropology.Google Scholar
Earle, T. (1982). The Ecology and Politics of Primitive Valuables. In Kennedy, J. and Edgerton, R., eds., Cultural Ecology. Washington, DC: American Anthropological Association, pp. 65–83.Google Scholar
Earle, T. (1987). Chiefdoms in Archaeological and Ethnohistorical Perspective. Annual Review of Anthropology 16, pp. 279–308.Google Scholar
Earle, T. (1997). How Chiefs Come to Power: The Political Economy in Prehistory. Stanford: Stanford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Earle, T. (2004). Culture Matters: The Neolithic Transition and Emergence of Hierarchy in Thy, Denmark. American Anthropologist 106, pp. 111–125.Google Scholar
Earle, T. (2017). An Essay on Political Economies in Prehistory. Graduiertenkolleg 1878 Beiträge zur Wirtschaftsarchäologie Band 2. Bonn: Habelt.Google Scholar
Earle, T., and Kristiansen, K. (2020). Modes of Production Reconsidered. In Diaz, P., Lillios, K., and Sastre, I., eds., The Power of Reason, the Matter of Prehistory. Papers in Honour of Antonio Gilman Guillién. Madrid: Editorial CSIC.Google Scholar
Earle, T., and Kolb, M. (2010). Regional Settlement Patterns. In Earle, T. and Kristiansen, K., eds., Organizing Bronze Age Societies. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, pp. 57–86.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Earle, T., Ling, J., Uhner, C., Stos-Gale, Z., and Melheim, L. (2015). The Political Economy and Metal Trade in Bronze Age Europe: Understanding Regional Variability in Terms of Comparative Advantages and Articulation. European Journal of Archaeology 18, pp. 1–25.Google Scholar
Earle, T., and Spriggs, M. (2015). Political Economy in Prehistory: A Marxist Approach to Pacific Sequences. Current Anthropology 56:4, pp. 515–544.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Falvey, L. (1977). Ruminants in the Highlands of Northern Thailand. Thai-Australian Highland Agronomy Project. Chiang Mai: Tribal Research Institute.Google Scholar
Fargher, L., and Heredia, V. Y. (2016). Alternative Pathways to Complexity. Boulder: University of Colorado Press.Google Scholar
Furholt, M., Grier, C., Spriggs, M., and Earle, T. (2019). Political Economy in the Archaeology of Emergent Complexity: A Synthesis of Bottom-up and Top-down Approaches. Journal of Archaeological Method and Theory (online).Google Scholar
Gamble, L. H. (2008). The Chumash World at European Contact: Power, Trade, and Feasting among Complex Hunter-Gatherers. Berkeley: University of California Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hayden, B. (1995). Pathways to Power: Principles for Creating Socioeconomic Inequalitbies. In Price, T. and Feinman, G., eds., Foundations of Social Inequality. New York: Plenum, pp. 15–85.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hayden, B. (1998). Practical and Prestige Technologies: The Evolution of Material Systems. Journal of Archaeological Method and Theory 5, pp. 1–55.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hayden, B. (2001a). Richman, Poorman, Beggarman, Chief: The Dynamics of Social Inequality. In Feinman, G. and Price, T., eds., Archaeology at the Millennium. New York: Kluwer Academic/Plenum Publishers, pp. 231–272.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hayden, B. (2001b). The Dynamics of Wealth and Poverty in the Transegalitarian Societies of Southeast Asia. Antiquity 75, pp. 571–581.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hayden, B. (2003). Shamans, Sorcerers, and Saints: The Prehistory of Religion. Washington, DC: Smithsonian Books.Google Scholar
Hayden, B. (2009). Funerals as Feasts: Why Are They So Important? Cambridge Archaeological Journal 19, pp. 29–52.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hayden, B. (2014). The Power of Feasts. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hayden, B. (2018). The Power of Ritual in Prehistory: Secret Societies and the Origin of Inequalities. New York: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Herskovits, M. (1940) [1978]. Crystals in the Sky: An Intellectual Odyssey Involving Chumash Astronomy, Cosmology and Rock Art. Socorro: Ballena Press.Google Scholar
Hung, H., and Chao, C. (2016). Taiwan’s Early Metal Age and Southeast Asian Trading Systems. Antiquity 90, pp. 1537–1551.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hung, H., Nguyen, K., Bellwood, P., and Carson, M. (2013). Coastal Connectivity: Long-term Trading Networks across the South China Sea. Journal of Island and Coastal Archaeology 8, pp. 384–404.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Johnson, A., and Earle, T. (2000). The Evolution of Human Societies. 2nd ed. Stanford: Stanford University Press.Google Scholar
Johnson, J. (2004). Social Responses to Climate Change among the Chumash Indians of South-Central California. In Mark Raab, L. and Jones, T., eds., Prehistoric California: Archaeology and the Myth of Paradise. Salt Lake City: University of Utah Press.Google Scholar
Kaul, F. (1998). Ships on Bronzes: A Study in Bronze Age Religion and Iconography. Copenhagen: National Museum.Google Scholar
Kristiansen, K. (2018). Theorizing Trade and Civilization. In Kristiansen, K., Lindkvist, T., and Myrdal, J., eds., Trade and Civilization. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, pp. 1–24.Google Scholar
Kristiansen, K., and Larsson, T. B. (2005). The Rise of Bronze Age Society: Travels, Transmissions and Transformations. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Launay, R. (1982). Traders without Trade. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lebot, V. (1995). The Origin and Distribution of Kava. Canberra Anthropology 18:1–2, pp. 20–33.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Levi, M. (1981). The Predatory Theory of Rule. Politics and Society 10, pp. 431–466,CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ling, J. (2008). Elevated Rock Art: Towards a Maritime Understanding of Bronze Age Rock Art in Northern Bohuslän, Sweden. Göteborg: Gotarc Serie B, Gothenburg Archaeological Thesis 49.Google Scholar
Ling, J., Earle, T., and Kristiansen, K. (2018). Maritime Mode of Production: Raiding and Trading in Seafaring Chiefdoms. Current Anthropology 59, pp. 488–524.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Meller, H. (2016). Long-Distance Connections of the Únětice Culture in Central Germany. Paper presented at the Conference on Trade Before Civilization, Gothenburg University.Google Scholar
Meller, H. (2019). Princes, Armies, Sanctuaries: The Emergence of Complex Authority in the Central German Únětice Culture. Acta Archaaeologica 90:1, pp. 39–79.Google Scholar
Parker Pearson, M. (2007). The Stonehenge Riverside Project. In Larsson, M. and Parker Pearson, M., eds., From Stonehenge to the Baltic. BAR International Series 1692. Oxford: BAR, pp. 125–144.Google Scholar
Pauketat, T., and Emerson, T. (1997). Cahokia: Domination and Ideology in the Mississippian World. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press.Google Scholar
Pulak, C. (1988). The Bronze Age Shipwreck at Ulu Burun, Turkey: 1985 Campaign. American Journal of Archaeology 92:1, pp 1–37.Google Scholar
Pétrequin, P., Classen, S., Errera, M., Pétrequin, A.-M., Sheridan, A., and Klassen, L. (2013). The Value of Things: The Production and Circulation of Alpine Jade Axes during the 5th to 4th Millennia in a European Perspective. In Kerig, T. and Zimmermann, A., eds., Economic Archaeology. Bonn: Habelt, pp. 65–82.Google Scholar
Polanyi, K. (1957). The Economy as Instituted Process. In Polanyi, K., Arensberg, C., and Pearson, H. eds., Trade and Market in the Early Empires. New York: Free Press, pp. 243–270.Google Scholar
Renfrew, C. (1974). Beyond a Subsistence Economy, the Evolution of Social Organization in Prehistoric Europe. In Moore, C. ed., Reconstructing Complex Societies. Bulletin of the American School of Oriental Research 20, pp. 69–95.Google Scholar
Renfrew, C. (1975). Trade as Action at a Distance: Questions of Integration and Communication. In Sabloff, J. and Lamberg-Karlovsky, C. C., eds., Ancient Civilization and Trade. Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, pp. 3–59.Google Scholar
Ricardo, D. (1817). On the Principles of Political Economy and Taxation. London: J. Murray.Google Scholar
Rowlands, M., and Ling, J. (2013). Boundaries, Flows and Connectivities: Mobility and Stasis in the Bronze Age. In Bergerbrant, S. and Sabatini, S., eds., Counterpoint: Essays in Archaeology and Heritage Studies in Honour of Professor Kristian Kristiansen. Oxford: Archaeopress, pp. 517–529.Google Scholar
Sabatini, S., and Bergerbrant, S., eds. (2020). The Textile Revolution in Bronze Age Europe: Production, Specialisation, Consumption. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Service, E. (1962). Primitive Social Organization: An Evolutionary Perspective. New York: Random House.Google Scholar
Sheehan, G. (1985). Whaling as an Organizing Focus in Northwestern Alaskan Eskimo Societies. In Douglas Price, T. and Brown, J., eds., Prehistoric Hunter-Gatherers: The Emergence of Cultural Complexity. Orlando: Academic Press, pp. 123–154.Google Scholar
Shennan, S. (1985). Central Europe in the Third Millennium B.C. Journal of Anthropological Archaeology 5, pp. 115–146.Google Scholar
Sjögren, K.-G., Axelsson, T., Vretemark, M., Meiggs, D., Douglas Price, T., and Pike., A. (in press). Complex Cattle Exchange in the Scandinavian Funnel Beaker Culture. The case of Falbygden, Sweden. In Salmi, A.-K. and Niinimäki, S., eds., Animals on the Move. Themes in Contemporary Archaeology. Cham: Springer International.Google Scholar
Tartaron, T. (2013). Maritime Networks in the Mycenaean World. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Terpstra, T. (2019). Trade in the Ancient Mediterranean. Princeton: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Trigger, B. (1990). Monumental Architecture: A Thermodynamic Explanation of Symbolic Behavior. World Archaeolology 22, pp. 119–132.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Vandkilde, H. (2006). Archaeology and War: Presentations of Warriors and Peasants in Archaeological Interpretations. In Otto, T., Thrane, H., and Vandkilde, H., eds., Warfare and Society: Archaeological and Social Anthropological Perspectives. Aarhus: University Press Aarhus, pp. 57–73Google Scholar
Vaughn, K. (2005). Crafts and the Materialization of Chiefly Power in Nasca. Archaeological Papers, American Anthropological Association 14, pp. 113–130.Google Scholar
Willer, R., Kuwabara, K., and Macy, M. W. (2009). The False Enforcement of Unpopular Norms. American Journal of Sociology 115: 2 (September), pp. 451–490. doi.org/10.1086/599250.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
- 1
- Cited by