ABSTRACT
The importance of trade as a ‘prime mover’ in the development of human society has been acknowledged by archaeologists for many years (see, for example, Ucko et al. 1972). In the 1960s and 1970s, it was seen as one of the major forces driving society towards urbanism, and more recently, Wallerstein’s World Systems theory enjoyed a vogue as an explanatory model for understanding the rise of so-called secondary states (Renfrew 1969; Trigger 1972; Algaze 1986). This latter view has now been heavily modified (Stein 1999). On the other hand, it is generally agreed that the presence of complex trading networks has important implications for the organisation of society, encouraging the development of craft specialisation, mass production, new modes of transport, (Algaze 2004) and the emergence of what might loosely be called information technologies, such as the writing and sealing practices used to track the flow of goods.
