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Tying the Threads of Eurasia: Trans-regional Routes and Material Flows in Transcaucasia, Eastern Anatolia and Western Central Asia, c. 3000–1500 BC . By Toby C. Wilkinson. Leiden: Sidestone, 2014. Pp. 406. €49.95

2017; University of Chicago Press; Volume: 76; Issue: 1 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1086/690767

1545-6978

MitchellS. Rothman,

Yersinia bacterium, plague, ectoparasites research

Previous articleNext article FreeBook ReviewsTying the Threads of Eurasia: Trans-regional Routes and Material Flows in Transcaucasia, Eastern Anatolia and Western Central Asia, c. 3000–1500 BC. By Toby C. Wilkinson. Leiden: Sidestone, 2014. Pp. 406. €49.95Mitchell S RothmanMitchell S RothmanWidener University Search for more articles by this author PDFPDF PLUSFull Text Add to favoritesDownload CitationTrack CitationsPermissionsReprints Share onFacebookTwitterLinked InRedditEmailQR Code SectionsMoreThe insight that has directed archaeological research over the past three decades is that the dynamics of development relied on the interaction of peoples, often over great distances. This interaction constituted more than trade; it also included the dissemination of ideologies, population, and technologies. These interactions affected the conditions under which local customs, practices, and organization evolved in many places. For Mesopotamia, this insight is what led Guillermo Algaze to Immanuel Wallerstein’s world-systems theory to explain state origins and development in fourth-millennium-bc Mesopotamia, for example.1In this volume, Toby Wilkinson takes this insight as the basis for a broad and useful analysis of the societies of the Eurasian mountains and highland steppe. His geographical focus is Eastern Anatolia, the South Caucasus, and west-central Asia, although the North Caucasus, Mesopotamia, the Aegean, the Indus, northern China, and Egypt come into the picture to some extent. His time frame is from 3500 to 2000 bc, as reflected in a valuable multi-regional chronological chart in chapter 1. Parenthetically, the continuing problem of nomenclature is highlighted in this crazy quilt of terms applied to the localities in the table. What do terms like Neolithic, Chalcolithic, Bronze, or Iron Age mean across such widely scattered regions?In essence, this book represents a journey over vast spaces and long time periods. As Wilkinson writes, “Trans-Eurasian exchange between west and east Eurasia involved the movements of materials, traditions and technologies (and presumably genes) over gigantic distances and may have begun even before the origins of farming” (p. 23).The first chapter of his quest, “Contexts and Frameworks of Research,” lays out the theoretical history and direction for his study. This is a complex argument that requires one to discuss the meaning of goods in social or cultural spaces, the effects of cross-cultural contact, and the role of the materials both visible (archaeologically recoverable) and invisible (language, ideologies, unrecoverable “goods” like workers, free or slave). He asserts that a “structuralist-interactionist” or “systematic-interactionist” model (p. 28) is best suited to understand the relation of trade to larger cultural changes over space and time. In essence, this approach sees the movement of goods not as external to cultures, but as a kind of vehicle for transformation of core cultural meanings through the societal interaction in the process of trade (as discussed by Arjun Appadurai and others who write about materiality).2 One of his clear influences, in my opinion, was the late Andrew Sherrat. These trade links, according to Wilkinson, form complex networks, each involving different players in different social positions (hierarchical, ideological, commercial, geographical). In this way older, simplistic, descriptive terms like “diffusion” are able to be investigated in more nuanced, frankly processual ways.To this juncture all his points are clearly stated and become apparent in the analysis of materials he presents. More problematic, however, is the last part of chapter 1, “Frameworks for Interpretation,” separated in the volume by clear and well-illustrated sections on the relevant geographical, environmental and chronological frameworks, as well as a section on modes of transportation and a summary of assemblages and sites. At the same time, Wilkinson’s discussion seems to ignore or not be aware of much recent literature and simplifies others’ arguments a bit too much. In its discussion of elements like style and technology, his work relies on terms like chaîne opératoire, techniques du corps, prazeology, skeuomorphism, etc., which are not fully explained. These terms are not woven into his narrative and are not evident in the analysis which follows or in the conclusions, which are materially based.We are in a period when jargon is replacing clear explication; it is ironic that post-processualism, which supposedly is replacing the processualism of the New Archaeology, is guilty of the same obsession with jargon in its early phase. Rather than making an affirmative argument, Wilkinson’s work relies too often on mischaracterizing older schools and setting up straw men to knock down. In fact, at times, in wanting so much to see cross-cultural interaction as the key, I think his analysis ignores the nature of culture change. He writes, “… ethnographic accounts, whilst sometimes comparative, still tend to focus on the local dynamics of technologies within particular cultural contexts. From an archaeological perspective, more interesting is the dynamic flows of technologies and skills in space and time and, potentially, across cultural or geographic boundaries” (p. 58). Evolutionary changes, whether biological or cultural/societal, are ultimately local. How a population within a societally defined space reacts to challenges, and why it adopts exotic goods and ideas may be affected by external factors. However, change happens locally in the same way that selection works on the individual genome but becomes apparent in the distribution of population phenomes. The idea of world-systems theory that these networks create a kind of single culture or society does not match the actual data, nor does it explain what happens when the world system declines or collapses. In that light, Wilkinson and others propose that the highland-lowland trade networks reflected in the Uruk expansion collapsed at the end of the fourth millennium bc, which contradicts his own conclusions that trade increased after 3000 bc.At the end of the first chapter, he defines four largely material goals: methods to identify and understand ancient routes, how to reconstruct the flows of three archaeologically recoverable materials (stones, metal, and textiles), what effects the flow of these materials had on local development, and whether it is possible to verify the existence of a prehistoric Silk Road.The actual analysis begins in chapters 2 and 3, discussing the first of these goals, reconstructing ancient trade routes. He begins with historically attested routes (Roman roads, caravanserais, travelers’ accounts, historical accounts, and modern roads), and then works backwards in time. The assumption he makes here is that there is “route inertia,” that is, the likelihood that modern routes follow the same paths through the landscape as the most ancient ones did. Mostly, this is all solid and worthwhile; however, more attention on the modes of travel might have helped his explication. In rejecting the idea of an ancient Silk Road as more mythological than real, however, his argument ignores the well-documented Khorasan High Road,3 which, in fact, he then discusses briefly in chapter 3. I cannot claim to know the farther eastern part of the route, so on that he may be right, but once one crosses into Iran (and Afghanistan?), the existence of that part of the High Road toward Mesopotamia in the third millennium bc is quite clear. His GIS, “costbased” analysis of possible ancient routes in chapter 3 is interesting and potentially a new tool for analysts.Chapters 4, 5, and 6 follow the patterns in the flows of stone and stone objects, metals, and textiles, respectively. He begins chapter 3 with the case of lapis lazuli. Given that we can clearly demonstrate only one source in Badakhshan, Afghanistan, and know of many instances of its use, often in graves, at the Mesopotamian endpoint and along the route, this is a great case to start with. His analysis assumes—I am not sure it is warranted—that its value is determined by “its ‘resistance to be owned’—i.e. their scarcity, distant origins or field of control” (p. 124). There are many other possible characteristics that convey meaning. For example, gold in ancient Panama was valued not for its rarity or distance from its source, but rather its ability to be formed into complex shapes.Accuracy is important here. In his optional routes one and three, his discussion cites Georgina Herrmann’s excellent first try at making sense of the distribution of lapis lazuli at the end of the fourth millennium,4 including her dating of Tepe Gawra, which, as numerous publications from the late 1990s onward attest, is about five hundred years too late. It is interesting to note that lapis has not been recovered from the Kura-Araxes highland. He asserts later that “colour symbolism and dramatic visual effects” play a major role in lapis, carnelian, and other stones’ social value (p. 156). This is possible, but it is hard to prove. Especially without contemporaneous outside sources like writing, how can we know what attracted ancient peoples? Maybe it was the ease of carving. Plotting the sum of semiprecious stones, obsidian (absent in central Asia), and stone weights provides the clearest results. There were quite different spheres of exchange. There were not established routes along which every commodity traveled.The most highly discussed and most controversial of the book’s topics is metallurgy (chapter 5). Wilkinson begins by returning to the idea that metallurgy is ritualized, that the color of the ores was essential to its earliest exploitation as beads. He then rightly focuses on the sources of copper ores, tin for alloying these metals into bronze, as well as other metals like silver, gold, lead, and iron. He points out that determining which sources the ancients knew is difficult. He then traces the flows of metal objects. His section on Transcaucasia is too broad, combining Arslantepe with the eastern regions and conflating Kura-Araxes cultural-tradition sites with Bedeni and Trialeti ones, which are arguably after the end of the Kura-Araxes.In his most recent article, Antonio Sagona wonders whether metallurgy in the Transcaucasian (in the east, called the Southern Caucasus) region was all that critical.5 My own work at the third-millennium-bc Kura-Araxes site of Shengavit in Armenia has shown a dearth of metal objects. Most metal at Shengavit and elsewhere, as Wilkinson states, was used for items of personal adornment rather than tools. Only after the disappearance of the Kura-Araxes lifestyle and, in most places, of the characteristic Kura-Araxes pottery, are really major increases in the use of metal for tools and everyday items like frying pans and pots documented. The supplies of ores that fueled this increase may also have been enhanced by sources in the Gulf and beyond.Recent trace studies of minerals and ores in southern Mesopotamia show that their sources were from Taurus Mountains, not Transcaucasia. The transfer of copper ores from the Transcaucasus to the North Caucasus Maikop people is well documented, but the importance of metallurgical techniques in Transcaucasia might not be that great. Tracing the routes of metal exchange by pottery style, such as so-called metallic wares in northern Mesopotamia and Namazga V in southern Turkmenia, Wilkinson suggests, may help to define changing metallurgical provinces, as Chernykh et al. define them.6 He further explores the possibility that Kura-Araxes pottery wares were based on metal shapes, although archaeologists recovered few such metal objects before the end of the third millennium, that is, after the Kura-Araxes tradition and its settled lifestyle had largely disappeared. He rightly concludes that “the distance between ore sources stimulated trade, but the manner of the consumption of metals differed on a local and regional level” (p. 222).Chapter 6 discusses an even harder-to-find category of produced goods: textiles. Much of this chapter focuses on areas outside the core focus of the book. Most of the textile patterns are from wall paintings, seals, or pottery. Pins and beads form a second part of his data set. Here, his most important conclusion may not be about the exchange of textiles, but rather about the ethnic, regional, and status differences reflected in cloth patterns and the design of garments.In his concluding chapter 7, he begins by looking at shifting material flows over a series of defined periods (3200–2900 bc, 2900–2600 bc, 2600–2300 bc, 2300–2000 bc, etc.). His research appears to ignore recent research, perhaps out of a desire to correlate flows of raw materials and goods with cultural change. In the 3200–2900 bc section, he writes that the relation between Arslantepe and southern Mesopotamia “was not restricted to imported items from the south, but also—apparently—related forms of social organization” (pp. 290–91). This assertion ignores Marcella Frangipane’s long and well-documented case for local development.7 As I have written,8 these trade contacts may well have offered the local leadership the opportunity for promotion or served as catalysts for change, but contacts do not imply the wholesale imposition of foreign practices. Nor is the inappositely named Royal Tomb of Arslantepe necessarily Kura-Araxes. Frangipane and Giulio Palumbi have questioned whether the black, burnished wares at Arslantepe were even from the east, rather than from Central Anatolia.9 More importantly, Wilkinson’s claim here and later that the Kura-Araxes people were responsible for metals trade is highly questionable. Why, with the Ergani Maden mines so close, would they need Transcaucasian ores? The alloys in the Royal Tomb at Arslantepe are more closely related to Maikop technology.This argument about metals trade and the Kura-Araxes continues in his penultimate section, “Patterns and Processes.” I agree that Kura-Araxes populations, both in the homeland and in the diaspora, were not primarily pastoral nomads, although some groups may well have been. Three of the key claims of his argument, however, simply seem wrong: (1) available data “reflect the complex economy of the 4th and 3rd millennium Kura-Arax communities” (p. 310); (2) “additional mobility was provided to Kura-Arax groups by the integration of the horse at the beginning of the 3rd millennium” (p. 310); and (3) “Research at Sos Höyük, for example, appears to show continued localized ‘sedentism’ into the late 3rd and perhaps early 2nd millennium BC” (p. 314). From this, Wilkinson concludes that the Kura-Araxes economy may have been more similar to Uruk and later urban societies than to the local cultures and societies that preceded it in the Transcaucasus. In fact, however, the Kura-Araxes cultural tradition is marked by relatively small, scattered settlements—compare the six hectares of Shengavit with the two hundred and fifty hectares of contemporary Uruk-Warka. The hallmark of the Uruk culture is the development of authority structures, social stratification, and mass production of goods. There is no evidence of any of these among Kura-Araxes groups. H.-P. Uerpmann’s research on the horse indicates that no true horse was evident in Armenia until the Middle Bronze Age;10 earlier analysts seem to have confused onagers with horses.I have concentrated on what bothered me most, a lack of coherent and applied theory and a real misunderstanding of the Kura-Araxes. However, I do nonetheless want to congratulate Wilkinson. Much here is useful and thoughtful. The breadth of the volume, perhaps a cause of some of the problems I have cataloged, is impressive. In the end, what Wilkinson’s work has provided is a model for how to go forward, albeit with refinements and especially more data. One problem is that we still know amazingly little about the Kura-Araxes cultural tradition. On a minor note, a book so rich in data needs an index. All in all, however, this is a volume worth reading and worth owning. Notes 1 . Guillermo Algaze, The Uruk World System (Chicago, 1993).2 . Arjun Appadurai, The Social Life of Things (Cambridge, 1986).3 . Hilary Gopnick and Mitchell S Rothman, eds., On the High Road: The History of Godin Tepe (Toronto, 2011).4 . Georgina Hermann, “Lapis Lazuli: Early Phases of its Trade,” Iraq 30 (1968): 21–57.5 . Antonio Sagona, “Rethinking the Kura-Araxes Genesis,” Paléorient 40, no. 2 (2014): 23–46.6 . E. N. Chernykh, L. I. Avilova, and I. B. Orlovskaya, “Metallurgy of the Circumpontic Area: From Unity to Disintegration,” in Anatolian Metal II, ed. Ü. Yalçin (Bochum, 2002), 83–100.7 . Marcella Frangipane, ed., Economic Centralisation in Formtive States: The Archaeological Reconstruction of the Economic System in 4th Millennium Arslantepe (Rome, 2010).8 . Mitchell S Rothman, “The Local and the Regional,” in Uruk Mesopotamia and its Neighbors, ed. M. S Rothman (Santa Fe, 2001), 3–26.9 . Marcella Frangipane and Giulio Palumbi, “Red-black Ware, Pastoralism, Trade, and Anatolian-Transcaucasian Interaction in the 4th-3rd Millennium BC,” in Les Cultures du Caucase, ed. Bertille Lyonnet (Paris, 2007), 232–55.10 . H.-P. Uerpmann, “Domestication of the horse – When, Where, and Why?” in Le cheval et les autres équidés: aspects de l’histoire de leur insertion dans les activités humaines, ed. L. Bodson, Colloques d’histoire des connaissances zoologiques 6 (Liège, 1995), 15–29. 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