Trade Mechanisms in Indus-Mesopotamian Interrelations

Abstract

TRADE MAY BE UNDERSTOOD in its widest sense as the reciprocal traffic of materials or goods directed by human agency from one place and/or individual to another. Polyani (1957:159) divides the mechanics of trade into four major constituents which provide a suitable framework within which to examine trade: two-sidedness, goods, personnel and carrying. Our emphasis will be upon the first three. Our information on the last for the time period involved, save for the presence of sea-faring, is virtually nil. Additionally at least three different processes in long distance trade can be profitably distinguished. 1. Direct Contact Trade: face to face contact is established between two different places for the purposes of trade. Goods are traded between places A and B without direct assistance by or relations with intermediary sites. This may include the actual presence of trading colonies established by peoples of place A at site B for the trade of specific materials of standardized value. This type of trade is usually centrally organized and administered by one of the principals involved. 2. Exchange: this form in the dissemination of goods differs from the above by lacking a definite organization or standardized value of specific materials. Goods are passed from place to place without specific design or purpose. Thus materials from site A and their arrival at site B represent an arbitrary exchange of merchandise from site to site. It is often difficult to isolate whether an object was brought into a site through exchange or independently produced through stimulus diffusion of a style or functional tool type. 3. Central Place Trade: is evident when goods are either produced, or resources present, at a few necessarily central points. Thus site C may be located beyond the spheres of influence of sites A and B and control the means of production and/or resources which are desired by sites A and B. Site C, acting as a Central Place, may then either transship materials produced in