ABSTRACT
This chapter proposes a reappraisal of Indian Ocean trade networks in Antiquity, with a special focus on spatial analysis of the cultural exchanges. Exhaustive quantification and GIS mapping of artefacts that were imported or imitated from the West in South Asia reveal different patterns of trade, depending on the socio-political and cultural background of each region, for example in Tamil Nadu and in the Deccan in India. Moreover, with the tools of social network analysis, a complete view of the East-West exchanges can be drawn, showing the complexity of the global networks in the western Indian Ocean during the first few centuries of our Era.
