EXCHANGE NETWORKS AND LOCAL TRANSFORMATIONS. Interactions and local changes in Europe and the Mediterranean from the Bronze to the Iron Age (original) (raw)

2016: Trade in a liminal zone: commercial encounter and transformation in the Iron Age North West Mediterranean

In: Armit, I., Potrebica, H., Črešnar, M., Mason, P. & Büster, L. (eds) 2016. Cultural Encounters in Later Prehistoric Europe. Budapest: Archaeolingua. This paper aims at analyzing cross-culture trade (i.e. trade between people of local origin and seaborne traders coming from Greek or Phoenician colonies or from Italy) in the northern part of the Iberian world (i.e. modern-days eastern Aragon, Catalonia and the southern part of the Languedoc), during the Iron Age and previously to the Roman invasion. It will discuss the prevalent and often implicit assumption according which trade would have been made according to norms established by the seaborne traders themselves. It will briefly review the institutions of trade typical of the ancient Eastern and Central Mediterranean, and outline the materiality of such institutions. Through comparison, it will emphasize the specificities of the Iberian trading practices, mainly based on interpersonal relationship and mutual trust, and show that the seaborne traders adapted themselves to this peculiar reality. Last, it will discuss the modalities of this adaptation, by reconsidering the well-known Greek text of Pech-Maho (Sigean, Aude, France).

From the Atlantic to the Mediterranean and Back: Sardinia, Iberia, and the Transfer of Knowledge in Late Bronze Age Networks

Open Archaeology, 2023

Sardinia was a hub of sea routes in the Final Bronze Age, c. 1200-850 BC, connecting the Aegean and the Levant in the East with the Iberian Atlantic façade in the West at its latitudinal extremes. Although situated some 1,200 nautical miles apart, bronze working techniques on the island, specific decorations, and implement typologies were clearly related to those in western Iberia, which was a pivotal node connecting the Atlantic and Mediterranean worlds. Without doubt, individuals have travelled between and beyond both regions, and transported objects alongside technological as well as theoretical information. Although serious challenges accompanied the multi-directional intensification of interactions, the local communities had innovative responses to them, managing to integrate new people and knowledge. The general aim of this contribution is to provide a theoretical framework with which to analyse the motivations and social mechanisms for cooperation and communication that facilitated technology transfer in an environment of dispersed, socially heterogeneous communities. The exchanges and interactions within this decentralised network must have been self-organised by individuals and communities, and encompassed all forms of entanglement. Consequently, practises of self-governance, hospitality, conflict management, and inter-group communication as well as shared symbols are of central interest.

Economy and Cultural Contact in the Mediterranean Iron Age. Perspectives from East and West

Martin Guggisberg and Matthias Grawehr (Eds.) Economy and Cultural Contact in the Mediterranean Iron Age Panel 5.9 Archaeology and Economy in the Ancient World – Proceedings of the 19th International Congress of Classical Archaeology, Cologne/Bonn 2018, 2022

In the past decades, the study of cultural contacts in the Mediterranean has tested an ever-increasing number of theoretical models to describe the exchange between people from different backgrounds, and, as one of the outcomes of the still ongoing discussion, the basic concept of culture, as a monadic entity has been questioned. A growing discomfort has been felt in dividing the people of the Mediterranean into distinct cultural entities, which then can come into contact with each other. As an alternative, in the panel "Economy and Cultural Contact in the Mediterranean Iron Age", an approach was chosen, that turns away from the discussion of theoretical models and instead tries to understand economy as a basic driving force of cultural exchange: Which commodities and objects were shifted from on place to another, and which were not? In our introductory contribution we will concentrate on the 8th century BC and develop two perspectives on the east and the west, both involving traders from the Aegean.