Throwing their weights around? Anthropological perspectives on commodity and gift exchange at the dawn of the Early Bronze Age in Western Anatolia

Author(s)

Sabina Cvecek

Abstract

The growing body of literature regarding cultural changes associated with long-distance trade networks between Western Anatolia and Cilicia in the third millennium BC still lacks synthesis concerning social processes and types of exchange involved between trading groups. This paper aims to address the issue by focusing on long-distance transactions of metals in Western Anatolia at the dawn of the Early Bronze Age (EBA) I and shows that contact between a somewhat decentralized pre-state and an early state society does not necessarily lead to immediate centralization. The following contribution derives from empirical evidence of Near Eastern balance weights at the EBA I (2950-2750 BC) settlement of Çukuriçi Höyük, a coastal site in Western Anatolia. Due to the scarcity of data on balance weights in Western Anatolia and Mesopotamia in this period, the paper draws extensively on ethnographic records of metal trading societies and economic anthropology, in which assiduous attention is given to exchange conducted outside of the “cultural sphere". Instead of studying weights on their own, the paper addresses wider social implications that weighting and metrology may trigger in a pre-literate society. The argument seeks to demonstrate that restricted commodity exchange may not necessarily lead to abrupt centralization, but rather to a new spectrum of transactions that always depend on social distance.

Organisation(s)

Department of Social and Cultural Anthropology

Journal

Ägypten und Levante (= Egypt and the Levant)

Volume

30

Pages

283-300

No. of pages

18

ISSN

1015-5104

Publication date

2020

Peer reviewed

Yes

Austrian Fields of Science 2012

601021 Prehistory, 504009 Ethnology, 504017 Cultural anthropology

Portal url

https://ucrisportal.univie.ac.at/en/publications/4ce422d7-b320-4336-87c0-f2baefef704b