Merchants, Markets, and Exchange in the Pre-Columbian World (Dumbarton Oaks Pre-Columbian Symposia and Colloquia)

I highly recommend to buy with Amazon. Fast delivery and good price. And I really enjoyed reading this book edited by Kenth Hirth

Merchants, Markets, and Exchange in the Pre-Columbian World, Kenneth G. Hirth and Joanne Pillsbury (editors), Dumbarton Oaks Pre-Columbian Symposium, Washington, DC: Dumbarton Oaks Research Library and Collection, 2013. (vii + 469 pp., 52 color photos, 17 color illustrations, 15 halftones, 96 line illustrations, 2 maps, 26 tables; ISBN 9780884023869, $70.00 (hardcover).The contents of this volume derive, in the main, from the 31st annual Dumbarton Oaks Pre-Columbian Symposium held 8-9 October 2010 at Dumbarton Oaks (a part of Harvard University), in Washington, DC. This symposium, “Merchants, Trade and Exchange in the Pre-Columbian World,” was organized by Mesoamerican anthropological archaeologist Kenneth G. Hirth (Professor of Anthropology, The Pennsylvania State University. Hirth and the Director of Pre-Columbian Program at Dumbarton, Joanne Pillsbury, served as editors. She is currently Associate Director of Scholarly Programs at the Getty Research Institute. Note the slight change in the published volume’s title. This meeting featured 16 well-known experts in economic anthropology and archaeology, and held no surprises since the previously published literature demonstrated that the economic systems found in the pre-Hispanic New World, notably the Mesoamerican Central Mexican Highlands, Highland Guatemala, and the Maya Lowlands of the Yucatan differed from those in the Central Andean region of South America. The Mesoamerican area witnessed the rise of civilization and state level society with production and distribution systems distinguished by millennia of flourishing interregional trade and the development of complex market systems. The Andean region, on the other hand, developed a political economy that was a more important than the commercial economy in organizing both production and distribution systems. These salient differences and basic similarities, was the focus of the symposium and resulting book in which the structure, scale, and complexity of economic systems in the pre-Hispanic world were examined. Important shared characteristics included a variety of craftspersons' who produced goods as part of their livelihood, merchants (and other individuals) who exchanged and moved a wide range of goods over vast regions, and trade and distribution networks through which goods were exchanged, bartered, and sold.Your reviewer, a Mesoamerican archaeologist, attended the symposium and can report some differences between the published chapters and the oral presentations. Disclaimer: I know most of the authors quite well, attended graduate school with some of the symposiasts, and one is a former student of mine. I summarize the main premises and arguments presented in the published presentation, noting differences from the oral versions (title modifications, author changes, and – in one case – an oral contribution split into two written chapters). Each of the 18 chapters has its own set of references, endnotes, and is illustrated by line drawings, maps, and images.The order of written presentations also varies from the oral program. “Merchants, Markets, and Exchange in the Pre-Columbian World” (pp. 1-23), authored by Hirth and Pillsbury, provides essential background, focusing on structure, scales, and complexities of economic systems in the Mexican Highlands, Maya region, and Central Andes. They detail why commercial exchange is an important aspect of economies, focus on the domestic and institutional sector, principles of pre-Hispanic economy, summarize the characteristics of the three areas, and stress that the goal of the volume is to stimulate a new understanding of Pre-Columbian economies. Authors were asked to expand the limits what is known and what they think we know about pre-Hispanic economic systems. Chapter 2: “Cooperation and the Moral Economy of the Marketplace” (pp. 23-48) by Richard E. Blanton (Professor of Anthropology, Purdue University) comments that processuralist archaeologists have invigorated research on sociocultural evolution, but have neglected markets. He argues that we now stand in a position in which market research will allow us to add new layers of understanding regarding the evolution of pre-modern complex societies. Recent theoretical advances in economics and anthropology stand contrary to the anti-market mentality stemming from the substantivist ideas of Karl Polanyi. Blanton discusses market fundamentialists, market cooperation, market types (border, local, and restricted), and marketplaces and sociocultural change. He then looks at restricted markets in the Maya region, restricted or cooperative markets in Oaxaca, and market cooperation in Central Mexico. Chapter 3: “Merchants and Merchandize: The Archaeology of Aztec Commerce at Otumba, Mexico” (pp. 49-83) by Deborah Nichols (William J. Bryant 1925 Professor of Anthropology at Dartmouth College and the Chair of the Department of Anthropology) who dedicates this article her long-time colleague, Thomas H. Charlton, who passed away in 2010. Using archaeological data and archival records, Nichols examines the relationships between craft specialization, merchants, and markets drawing on information from investigations of Otumba, an Aztec city-state capital in the northeast Basin of Mexico. The craft industries documented include lapidary (obsidian and basalt), pottery making (figurines, long-handled censers, and musical instruments), maguey fiber goods, farming (chenopodium, amaranth, beans, and nopal cactus), and obsidian mining (mainly from the Pachuca and Otumba sources). Three types of traders are discussed.Chapter 4: “The Merchant’s World: Commercial Diversity and the Economics of Regional Exchange in Highland, Mesoamerica” (pp. 85-112) by Kenneth Hirth (Professor of Anthropology, Penn State University) focuses on the commercial activities of commoner households and examines the diversity of the producers, craftsmen, peddlers and commercial agents that the Spanish encountered across Central Mexico at the time of the Conquest. In addition, examines the challenges that pre-Hispanic people faced in moving goods over space without the use of wheeled vehicles, beasts of burden, or maritime shipping. The reliance on human porters posed serious limitations on the type, quantity and distance over which trade goods could move. Lastly, he develops a model a profitability model for itinerant obsidian-blade producers. Salt, cotton, and Thin Orange ceramic trade are also reported. Chapter 5: “The Social Organization of Craft Production and Interregional Exchange at Teotihuacan” (pp. 113-140) by David Carballo (Assistant Professor, Department of Archaeology, Boston University) examines Teotihuacan's apogee (ca. AD 50–550), when the city served as a hub for the most robust economic system in Mesoamerica. He notes that the organization of this economy remains a topic of vigorous debate among scholars and synthesizes recent work at Teotihuacan and in adjacent regions to distinguish what dimensions of the economy were more likely to have been politically motivated from those more likely to have been commercially motivated. Carballo focuses on transportation and interregional exchange using four commodities: obsidian for cutting tools and ritual objects, lime for construction and food processing, non-local cotton products, and local and non-local pottery for export (elaborate incense burners and Thin Orange ceramics made in Puebla). Chapter 6: “Negotiating Aztec Tribute Demands in the Tribute Record of Tlapa” (pp. 141-167) by Gerardo Gutiérrez (Assistant Professor, University of Colorado, Boulder) who did not give a paper at the original symposium but, whose contribution has been add by the editors. The Aztecs of the Late Postclassic in Central Mexico dominated that region through the creation of an imperial conquest economy that focused the accumulation of wealth through trade and tribute. The Tribute record he reviews is an indigenous tally of 36 years of tributary payments (1486-1522) from the Tlapa province in eastern Guerrero to the Aztec Empire. Gutiérrez explains the origin and composition of the document, the tributary products (gold and cotton products), and relationship to three other tribute sources: Matrículata de Tributos, Codex Mendoza, and Información de 1554. He discusses the significance and value of cotton and the changes in the tribute amounts though time.Chapter 7: “People of the Road: Traders and Travelers In Ancient Maya Words and Images” (pp. 169-200) is coauthored by Alexandre Tokovinine (Research Associate of the Corpus of Maya Hieroglyphic Inscriptions, Peabody Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology, Harvard University) and Dmitry Beliaev (Russian State University for the Humanities). They discuss ancient Classic period Maya merchants from the perspective of pre-contact inscriptions and imagery as well as early colonial Spanish accounts. With one possible exception (the murals of the North Acropolis at Calakmul), there are no Classic Maya texts and images dedicated to trade and traders. Several deities, including God L, are linked to trade, travel, and the possession of precious tradable items. Their presentation focuses on the connection between Classic Maya gods and trade using visual and written narratives found on Classic Maya painted pottery that may have an association with trade and traders such as historical and mythical court scenes and depictions of travelling and of travel-related supernatural creatures. Divine patrons of merchants, a potential new divine patron of traders, God M, and possible depictions of traders, both human and divine, in the Dresden and Madrid codices and in the murals of Northern Yucatan, are reviewed. They also attempt to identify members of Classic Maya court who might be involved in long-distance trade. Chapter 8: “Wide Open Spaces: A Long View of The Importance of Maya Market Exchange” (pp. 201-228) is coauthored by Marilyn Masson (Associate Professor of Anthropology, University at Albany -- SUNY) and David Freidel (Professor of Anthropology, Washington University, St. Louis). The authors briefly compare Maya and Aztec market systems and focus on Classic period Tikal and Postclassic period Maya market economies, regional scale commerce, and market organization and structures. The distributions of artifacts and tools made from Classic period obsidian, quartzite, and shell; and Postclassic obsidian, chert, shell, greenstone, and copper in commoner and elite contexts provide information about occupational specializations and suggest a currency-based Postclassic Maya political economy, production, and exchange. Chapter 9: “Artisans, Ikatz, and Statecraft: Provisioning Classic Maya Royal Courts” (pp. 229-253) by Patricia McAnany (Kenan Eminent Professor of Anthropology, University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill) explores the practices through which Classic Maya palaces were produced, provisioned, and reproduced. She examines deities and underworld traders, provisioning courts through marital competition and the extraction of tribute, and the items frequently shown in court presentation scenes (cacao, cotton mantles, Spondylus shell, jadite, and quetzal feathers). Royal iconography and inscriptions suggest that the burden of tribute (ikatz) -- and tribute ransom -- played a significant role in financing palace economies. By the Terminal Classic period the sophisticated and complex palace economies were vulnerable to short amplitude perturbations, as is apparent in the tumultuous events of the eighth and ninth centuries. Chapter 10: “Craft Production and Distribution in the Maya Lowlands” (pp. 255-282) by Brigitte Kovacevich (Assistant Professor of Anthropology, Southern Methodist University) employs regional ethnohistoric and ethnographic data to supplement archaeological data. Understanding the production and exchange of goods such as jade, shell, obsidian, chert, and textiles is challenging in the Lowlands because of issues of preservation and differing sampling strategies. Kovacevich focuses on the site of Cancuen on the Pasión-Usumacinta River system and considers how the inhabitants obtained jade as a raw material (LA-ICP-MS chemical sourcing was employed in the analysis) and the fabrication of jade into objects found in elite and commoner contexts (beads, pendants, earflares, headdress ornaments, and mosaic death masks). Other prestige goods such as pyrite mirrors and fine pottery are also discussed.Chapter 11: “Economic Mobility, Exchange, and Order in the Andes” (pp. 283-308) by Tom D. Dillehay (Distinguished Professor in the Department of Anthropology and Professor Extraordinaire, Vanderbilt University) addresses the interdisciplinary knowledge of ancient Andean economies and organizational structures, from the food procurement by early mobile foragers and farmers through the late states and empires. He reviews long-distance exchange in a prestige-goods economy; craft production and specialization, storage, redistribution, and feasting; and archaeological sites in the Chillón Valley. The concept of “Andean verticality” (archipelagos and colonies), environmental and cultural variability, and the mobility and exchange of cyclical populations are examined and he proposes complementary exchange strategies. Richard Burger and Enrique Mayer originally presented a coauthored paper, “A Reconsideration of Household Exchange, Long-distance Trade and Marketplaces in the Prehispanic Andes”; Burger, an anthropological archaeologist, is Charles J. MacCurdy Professor of Anthropology, Yale University, while Mayer is Professor of Social Anthropology at Yale. Two separate papers are now published. Chapter 12: “In the Realm of the Incas” (pp. 309-317) by Enrique Mayer examines the concept of “Andean verticality” an antimarket position proposed by anthropologist John Murra in in his 1956 dissertation and published formally in 1972. In this intellectual history, the influence of Karl Polyani and others (Malinowski, Mauss, Sahlins, and Bohannon) on Murra is detailed, and Mayer considers that both marketplaces and reciprocal exchange were part of the Pre-Columbian economic landscape of the Andean region. He also discusses the concepts of cheating, illegality, and informality in exchange systems, and concludes that markets are very unstable and that they originate, rise, grow, reach a zenith, and fall. Chapter 13: “In the Realm of the Incas: An Archaeological Reconsideration of Household Exchange, Long-distance Trade, and Marketplaces in the Pre-Hispanic Central Andes” (pp. 319-334) by Richard Burger, who explores some of the archaeological implication of Mayer’s analysis and discussion. Burger examines the evidence of the existence of merchants and marketplaces in the north-central highlands of ancient Peru. Marketplaces existed in the pre-Inca period in the Andes but the Inca suppressed them in order to directly control both staple goods and prestige goods, and pilgrimages and cult centers (such as Chavín de Huantar) were venues for fairs and early marketplaces. Pilgrims brought gifts for the deities but also exchanges imported goods for food and Chavín cult objects. Drawing upon research in highland Ancash, he make a case for long distance exchange and market activity in the Early Horizon period and that there is weak evidence for specialized merchants, and a lack of a monetary and weights and measures systems.Chapter 14: “Exchange on the Equatorial Frontier: A Comparison of Ecuador and Northern Peru” (pp. 335-350) by John Topic (Emeritus Professor and former Chair of Anthropology, Trent University), is modified from his oral presentation “Patterns of Production and Distribution: A Trial Comparison of Peru and Ecuador.” Topic examines the similarities and differences in exchange practices in these regions during pre-Inca times. Evidence for both merchants and marketplaces has been reported for Ecuador, where they were sponsored by elites but also trade for themselves. In Ecuador and northern Peru, elites rented lands to outside groups for payment in the kinds of good produced, and colonists paid rent in kind – a form of verticality. Therefore, verticality was not only a simple reciprocity but one in which the elite could attract and exploit additional labor. Merchants, marketplaces, barter, administered trade, verticality, and redistribution are considered, and it is likely that many forms of distribution existed to move people, raw materials, and finished objects. Chapter 15: “Embedded Andean Economic Systems: A Case for a State without Market Exchange” (pp. 361-387) by Paul Goldstein (Associate Professor of Anthropology, University of California, San Diego) states that the Pre-Columbian Andes are unique among regions of pristine state development because markets and market-based entrepreneurial activities were undeveloped, and the economic systems of even the most complex societies have been described as non-market imperialism. Without a trader class or price-fixing tradition, Andean long distance trade responded to the political redistributive demands of elite patrons for prestige craft goods, rather than entrepreneurial motives. Market exchange and embedded exchanged are contrasted, John Murra’s ideas discussed, and the Tiwanaku expansion and diaspora (AD 500-1000) used as a case study. Goldstein takes a structuralist rather than a functionalist approach in reviewing colonization, examining the kin-based corporate landholding unit (ayllu) where units from different areas operated independently of one another to obtain resources.Chapter 16: “Circulating Objects and the Constitution of Andean Society (500 BC-AD 1550)” (pp. 389-418) by Axel Nielsen (Professor of Archaeology, Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas, Universidad Nacional de Córdoba, Argentina) provides an ethnoarchaeological assessment of the highlands of Argentina, Bolivia, and Chile, before focusing on llama caravan trade. He also examines a no-market model, caravan mobility model, and elite control model. An intermodal approach is used in the examination of transport sites (campsites and shrines) from coast to highland regions. Goods (ceramics, lithics, salt, ash, feathers, and food staples) were transported and there is no evidence for marketplaces or the interzonal complementarity under elite direction. He examines in detail each archaeological period in the timespan. Chapter 17: “Barter Markets in the Pre-Hispanic Andes” (pp. 419-434) is coauthored by Charles Stanish (Professor of Anthropology, who holds the Lloyd Cotsen Chair in Archaeology at UCLA, and is Director of the Cotsen Institute of Archaeology at UCLA) and Lawrence S. Coben (founder and Executive Director of the Sustainable Preservation Initiative). Stanish gave the original oral paper: “Prehispanic Andean Economic Systems in Comparative and Theoretical Perspective.” The traditional view that market systems did not exist in the Andes is based upon a large corpus of historical data by Spanish writers in the early Colonial period. Unlike Central Mexico where marketing systems were described in minute detail, markets and marketplaces were barely mentioned in the Andean texts. Andeanists have no descriptions of large marketplaces, few descriptions of independent traders, no discussion of media of exchange, or any description of a legal structure to regulate such trade. In place of markets and complex tribute rolls in the Andes is the theme of labor taxation (called corvée in the Western feudal world), unpaid labor conscripted on a regular basis by a political authority. However, evidence also indicates that small marketplaces existed in the pre-Hispanic central Andes, local fairs flourished and there was a brisk trade in many goods, both basic commodities and products of highly specialized labor. The core issue is “what exactly is a market?” The authors examine markets as places versus rules, price-making versus barter markets, competitive strategies, and Andean fairs as barter markets. The economic landscape was structured by regional fairs, intense specialized production, and vigorous interregional trade. Chapter 18:”Discussion” (pp. 435-438) by Barry Isaac (Emeritus Professor of Anthropology, University of Cincinnati), who is an economic anthropologist and former editor of Research in Economic Anthropology (1982-2000). Isaac is the ideal scholar to provide a summary and critique of the papers. He considers a variety of topics: the Mesoamerican commercial sector and Andean fairs, the market features of the Aztec economy, “peripheral” markets, regulation of Aztec markets, and the ambivalent position of merchant specialists. In addition he centers on a comparison of states expenditures in Aztec versus Inca states, Aztec transfer payments and Inca governmental disbursements, then moves to a comparison of Aztec and Inca tax policies. He also reminds us that economics did not exist apart from politics and religion.I agree that this is a splendid volume that draws together contrasting evidence about the presence or absence of market economies and other exchange systems. This collection of pathbreaking research will certainly prove to be indispensable for those interested in economic history in Mesoamerica and the Andean region, as well as scholars interested in economic anthropology and economic history worldwide. I am struck by the fact that another conference held at Dumbarton Oaks, 2-4 May 2008, “Trade and Markets in Byzantium: Production and Trade of Glazed Ceramic Wares in the Byzantine World,” which featured 13 presentations has also recently been published; additional contributions have been added to the published work for a total of 16. The symposiasts addressed three related questions: How are markets in antiquity to be characterized? Comparable to modern free markets, with differences in scale not quality? Controlled and dominated by the state? Or as a third way, in completely different terms, such as free but regulated? Participants also assessed related issues by reexamining and reinterpreting the material and textual record from Byzantium and its hinterland for local, regional, and interregional trade. Special emphasis is placed on local trade, which has been understudied. To comprehend the recovery of long-distance trade from its eighth-century nadir to the economic prosperity enjoyed in the eleventh and twelfth centuries, the authors analyze the variety and complexity of the exchange networks, the role of money as a measure of exchange, and the character of local markets. The 16 chapters are arranged in four parts: Late Antiquity and the Early Middle Ages (4 chapters); The Middle and Late Byzantine Periods (4); The West and East: Local Exchanges in Neighboring Worlds (5); Markets and the Marketplace (3). In addition, there is an introduction by the editor and a conclusion. The fourth part provides significant syntheses on the markets and the marketplace. Medieval textual and numismatic evidence coupled with archaeological data, including shipwreck amphorae, provide valuable lines of evidence. It would benefit scholarship if Mesoamerican and Andean investigators could examine the information and interpretations presented in this volume, and if Byzantine researchers were aware of the debates on the structure of New World market economies.Trade and Markets in Byzantium, Cécile Morrisson (editor), Dumbarton Oaks Byzantine Symposium, Washington, DC: Dumbarton Oaks Research Library and Collection, 2012. (ix + 459 pp.,76 color photos, 5 color illustrations, 16 black and white photos, 43 black and white illustrations, 49 maps, 2 tables; ISBN 9780884023777, $85.00 (hardcover).Both books are distributed by Harvard University Press and are available from Amazon.com.

Very useful and informative book.

good book. good condition!