Were Nomads The World’s First Traders?

Science, Vol. 358, Issue 6370, pp. 1518-1519 ^ | 22 Dec 2017 | Andrew Lawler

[SunkenCiv]

Summary: Who helped build the first trading networks in the earliest civilization? Scholars long thought that wandering nomads moving their flocks in the Near East helped spur urban growth by bringing stone, wood, and metals to the plains of Mesopotamia. That assumption was built, in part, on studies of modern-day nomads in Anatolia, Iraq, and Iran. Thanks to recent isotopic analyses from ancient sites, that view is under siege. Archaeologists like Emily Hammer from the University of Pennsylvania suggest that pastoralists did not stray far from home until long after cities like Ur and Mari flourished around 2000 B.C.E. That assertion, however, has met with skepticism from many researchers, who insist that nomads played a key role in the birth and evolution of the first cities.

[SunkenCiv]

The earliest evidence of long-distance trade in obsidian occurs during the late-glacial period, in the still-open landscapes before the spread of forests, when it circulated among Epipalaeolithic hunting and foraging groups around the Fertile Crescent. Two chains of connection are already evident: obsidian from the Bingöl region of south-east Turkey reached Iraqi Kurdistan (via the Hilly Flanks route), and obsidian from the Cappadocian area of central Turkey was carried across the Taurus to the middle Euphrates and the northern Levant (the Levantine Corridor).

[SunkenCiv]

[SunkenCiv]

Mayan trade routes:

https://ucfant3145fall2012map.wikispaces.com/Maya+Trade+Kerce?responseToken=007245e46a771d4009737f2ba4cce1bf3

[LukeL]

I thought that was common sense.

[CurlyDave]

I thought that was common sense.

I don't think it is common sense at all. The trade goods nomadic herders "carried" with them were their flocks. Which weren't carried at at all, but walked on their own four feet.

Carrying other stuff would have made tending the flocks very difficult.

[PGalt]

Interesting. Thanks for posting.

[spintreebob]

When Abraham went to Egypt about 2090 BC, long before Isaac was born, Abraham took with him many sheep, cattle, and much gold and silver and a whole list of other things.

Gold and silver are the marks of a trader who has traded with other traders.

[COBOL2Java]

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[trebb]

The first traders (of this sort) were folks who roved around like nomads while carrying goods to trade with.....

Sorry for the flippant remark, but I obviously don't have the intellectual drive to ponder such that actual historians do......glad there are such as you to keep a little bit of educational interest in so many fascinating things about civilization and development.

[Wuli]

I would have thought it axiomatic that nomads, in multiple areas of the world, were the first traders.

Nomads would most likely bring some item(s) with them either not found or rare in some place they travel to, and trade them for some item found in the area they travel to; often an item rare or not found in their homeland. The naturalness of it is without question; not a “revelation”.

[bert]

A good obsidian salesman would actually hunt up the nomads to peddle his wares.

That’s what salesmen do

Nomad daughters anxiously awaited the coming of the salesmen
***********
A traveling salesman is in Nineveh when he comes upon a house with a little boy sitting on the front steps.

“Son, is your mother home?” The little boy nods yes.

“Can I see her please?” The boy nods again, and they go around to the back of the house where they find the mother on the ground, humping away with a sheep.

“Son, do you see what your mother is doing?” The boy nods yes.

“Do you know what that is?” The boy nods.

“Doesn’t that bother you?”

“Naaaaaaaaaaaah!”

[SunkenCiv]

I agree, other than that the usual idea of how change or "progress" was in slow, "logical" steps -- nomads aren't hunter-gatherers, they're generally herders; traders who travel all the time and do nothing but trade are, uh, nomadic; and markets where trades take place are and were found in settled places, which were made possible through agriculture and animal husbandry... uh-oh, sounds like irreducible complexity strikes again!

[SunkenCiv]

My pleasure. The obsidian trade, which is at least twice as old as recognized literacy, goes back well before the supposedly controversial beginning of trade in this paper, so I got in a touché as well. :^)

[SunkenCiv]

Thanks to the lapis lazuli in archaeological contexts, the wide range of trade in that commodity can be found in 3300 BC contexts; obsidian goes back 14,000 years or more; it’s a reasonable guess that perishable items were in trade, but haven’t survived in the archaeological record — a very reasonable guess, otherwise it ain’t trade, eh?

http://lapislazuli.jewelry/lapis-lazuli-magical-trade-routes/

[Cincinnatus.45-70]

Thanks for posting!

[SunkenCiv]

:') Having herds to drive would automatically made a nomad a trader, it seeems to me. Other goods would be things they'd picked up along the way but didn't need, presumably pretty compact things. And like any other durable population, their largest asset was their skill set.

[CurlyDave]

...Gold and silver are the marks of a trader who has traded with other traders...

They are the marks of a man who took money with him.

Back before Visa and MaasterCard, when I traveled I took cash and Traveler's Checks (remember them?) with me. Modern traders used the same forms of money, but having money didn't make me a trader.

Sheep and cattle actually make him a farmer, or maybe a rancher. Ranchers sell their livestock for money, and this is where he got his gold and silver.

Traders make their living primarily from performing arbitrage -- moving goods from places where they are cheap and plentiful to other places where they are scarce and expensive. There is no indication that this was Jacob's primary occupation.

[gleeaikin]

In her 6 volume Earth’s Children series starting with Clan of the Cave Bear, Jean Auel covers many aspects of humans 30,000 years ago. Trading was one of them, I think in the 4th or 5th book of the series. In this case, some characters had the wandering/exploring instinct and carried items to trade in their travels. It also appears, that like the esquimos (sp?), strange DNA was sometimes welcomed.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Earth%27s_Children [Her is a summary of all 6 books, and evaluation of some of the major subjects displayed in these novels.]

https://www.washingtonpost.com/entertainment/books/book-world-elizabeth-hand-reviews-the-land-of-painted-caves-by-jean-m-auel/2011/03/07/AF5Ue7cF_story.html?utm_term=.f5d31624c0e8 [The criticisms in this mostly favorable review are valid based on my reading all 6 books, but still did not interfere with my enjoyment of them all.]