ABSTRACT
This introduction presents an overview of key concepts discussed in the subsequent chapters of this book. The book discusses trade at a range of scales and in a wide variety of settings but are linked by their attention to its social dimensions. It considers several themes that have helped to organize the thoughts about the social aspects of exchange and the manifestation of these themes in the archaeological record. Trade studies in archaeology have tended to emphasize the circulation of things rather than the movement of more intangible aspects of culture, such as traditions, ideas, and values. The book focuses on how trading activities helped the ethnic concept of Phoenician take shape in the Iron Age Greek psyche, Susan Sherratt illustrates the power of long distances to influence not only ideas about trade items but also ideas about the places they came from and, most importantly, those who brought them.
