Social Archaeologies of Trade and Exchange: Exploring Relationships among People, Places, and Things

Description

This volume focuses on the anthropological concept of trade as a fundamentally social activity concerned not only with the movement of goods, but also on the social context and consequences of that exchange. The distinguished contributors discuss trade on a range of scales―from a solitary confinement cell to trans-oceanic networks―in settings around the world and over the past 3000 years. They address themes such as exchange as a communicative act, the ways in which exchange transforms the relationship between people and things, the significance of agency and power in contexts of trade, and how sites of consumption and discard speak to processes of exchange. The volume merges traditional archaeological concerns about trade and exchange with more contemporary issues of agency, identity and social meaning. Cover Half Title Title Page Copyright Page Table of Contents Foreword Preface 1. Rethinking Trade as a Social Activity: An Introduction 2. Trade and Interaction in Archaeology 3. Landscapes of Circulation in Northwest Argentina: The Workings of Obsidian and Ceramics during the First Millenium AD 4. Social Aspects of the Tobacco Pipe Trade in Early Colonial Virginia 5. Arenas of Action: Trade as Power, Trade as Identity 6. Greeks and Phoenicians: Perceptions of Trade and Traders in Early First Millenium BC 7. Those Who Were Traded: African-Bahamian Archaeology and the Slave Trade 8. Broads, Studs, and Broken Down Daddies: The Materiality of "Playing" in the Modern Penitentiary 9. Buying a Table in Erfelek: Socialities of Contact and Community in the Black Sea Region 10. Objects, Social Relations, and Cultural Motion About the Authors Index