Exchange Systems, Trade Networks, and Archaeology

Exchange Systems, Trade Networks, and Archaeology An exchange system or trade network can be defined as any manner in which consumers connect with producers. Regional exchange studies in archaeology describe the networks that people used to gain, barter for, purchase, or otherwise obtain raw material, goods, services and ideas from the producers or sources, and to move those goods across the landscape. The purpose of exchange systems can be to fulfill both basic and luxury needs. Archaeologists identify networks of exchange by using a variety of analytical techniques on material culture, and by identifying raw material quarries and manufacturing techniques for specific types of artifacts. Exchange systems have been a focus of archaeological research since the mid-19th century  when chemical analyses were first used to identify the distribution of metal artifacts from central Europe. One pioneer study is that of archaeologist Anna Shepard who during the 1930s and 40s used the presence of mineral inclusions in pottery sherds to provide evidence for a widespread trade and exchange network throughout the southwestern United States. Economic Anthropology The underpinnings of the exchange systems research were strongly influenced by Karl Polyani in the 1940s and 50s. Polyani, an economic anthropologist, described three types of trading exchange: reciprocity, redistribution, and market exchange. Reciprocity and redistribution, said Polyani, are methods that are embedded in long-range relationships that imply trust and confidence: markets, on the other hand, are self-regulating and disembedded from trust relationships between producers and consumers. Reciprocity is a behavioral system of trade, which is based on the more or less equal sharing of goods and services. Reciprocity could be defined simply as you scratch my back, Ill scratch yours: you do something for me, Ill reciprocate by doing something for you. Ill watch your cows, youll provide my family with milk.Redistribution involves a collection point from which goods are apportioned out. In a typical redistribution system, a village chief collects a percentage of the produce in a village, and provides it to members of the group based on need, gifts, feasting: any one of a number of etiquette rules that have been established in a given society.Market exchange involves an organized institution, in which goods producers congregate at specified locations at specified times. Either barter or money exchange is involved ​in order to allow consumers to obtain required goods and services from purveyors. Polyani himself argued that markets may or may not be integrated within c ommunity networks. Identifying Exchange Networks Anthropologists can go into a community and determine the existing exchange networks by talking to the local residents and observing the processes: but archaeologists must work from what David Clarke once called indirect traces in bad samples. Pioneers in the archaeological study of exchange systems include Colin Renfrew, who argued that it was important to study trade because the institution of a trade network is a causal factor for cultural change. Archaeological evidence for the movement of goods across the landscape has been identified by a series of technological innovations, building from Anna Shepards research. In general, sourcing artifacts- identifying where a particular raw material came from- involves a series of laboratory tests on artifacts which are then compared to known similar materials. Chemical analysis techniques used to identify raw material sources include Neutron Activation Analysis (NAA), X-ray fluorescence (XRF) and various spectrographic methods, among a wide and growing number of laboratory techniques. In addition to identifying the source or quarry where raw materials were obtained, chemical analysis can also identify similarities in pottery types or other sorts of finished goods, thus determining whether the finished goods were created locally or brought in from a distant location. Using a variety of methods, archaeologists can identify whether a pot that looks as if it were made in a different town is truly an import, or rather a locally made copy. Markets and Distribution Systems Market locations, both prehistorically and historically, are often located in public plazas or town squares, open spaces shared by a community and common to nearly every society on the planet. Such markets often rotate: market day in a given community may be every Tuesday and in a neighboring community every Wednesday. Archaeological evidence of such use of communal plazas is difficult to ascertain  because typically plazas are cleaned and used for a wide variety of purposes. Itinerant traders such as the pochteca of Mesoamerica have been identified archaeologically through iconography on written documents and monuments such as stele  as well as by the types of artifacts left in burials (grave goods). Caravan routes have been identified in numerous places archaeologically, most famously as part of the Silk Road connecting Asia and Europe. Archaeological evidence seems to suggest that trade networks were much of the driving force behind the construction of roads, whether wheeled vehicles were available or not. Diffusion of Ideas Exchange systems are also the way ideas and innovations are communicated across the landscape. But thats a whole other article. Sources Colburn CS. 2008. Exotica and the  Ã¢â‚¬â€¹Early Minoan Elite: Eastern Imports in Prepalatial Crete. American Journal of Archaeology 112(2):203-224.Gemici K. 2008. Karl Polanyi and the antinomies of embeddedness. Socio-Economic Review 6(1):5-33.Renfrew C. 1977. Alternative models for exchange and spatial distribution. In. In: Earle TK, and Ericson JE, editors. Exchange Systems In Prehistory. New York: Academic Press. p 71-90.Shortland A, Rogers N, and Eremin K. 2007. Trace element discriminants between Egyptian and Mesopotamian Late Bronze Age glasses. Journal of Archaeological Science 34(5):781-789.

Analysis of A and P by John Updike

Analysis of A and P by John Updike Originally published in The New Yorker in 1961, John Updikes short story A P has been widely anthologized and is generally considered to be a classic. The Plot of the Updikes AP Three barefoot girls in bathing suits walk into an A P grocery store, shocking the customers but drawing the admiration of the two young men working the cash registers. Eventually, the manager notices the girls and tells them that they should be decently dressed when they enter the store and that in the future, they will have to follow the stores policy and cover their shoulders. As the girls are leaving, one of the cashiers, Sammy, tells the manager he quits. He does this partly to impress the girls and partly because he feels the manager took things too far and didnt have to embarrass the young women. The story ends with Sammy standing alone in the parking lot, the girls are long gone. He says that his stomach kind of fell as I felt how hard the world was going to be to me hereafter. Narrative Technique The story is told from the first person point of view of Sammy. From the opening lineIn walks, these three girls in nothing but bathing suitsUpdike establishes Sammys distinctively colloquial voice. Most of the story is told in the present tense as if Sammy is talking. Sammys cynical observations about his customers, whom he often calls sheep, can be humorous. For example,  he comments that if one particular customer had been born at the right time they would have burned her over in Salem. And its an endearing detail when he describes folding his apron and dropping the bow tie on it, and then adds, The bow tie is theirs if youve ever wondered. Sexism in the Story Some readers will find Sammys sexist comments to be absolutely grating. The girls have entered the store, and the narrator assumes they are  seeking attention for their physical appearance.  Sammy comments on every detail. Its almost a caricature of objectification when he says, You never know for sure how girls minds work (do you really think its a mind in there or just a little buzz like a bee in a glass jar?)[...] Social Boundaries In the story, the tension arises not because the girls are in bathing suits, but because theyre in bathing suits in a place where people dont wear bathing suits. Theyve crossed a line about whats socially acceptable. Sammy says: You know, its one thing to have a girl in a bathing suit down on the beach, where what with the glare nobody can look at each other much anyway, and another thing in the cool of the A P, under the fluorescent lights, against all those stacked packages, with her feet paddling along naked over our checkerboard green-and-cream rubber-tile floor. Sammy obviously finds the girls physically alluring, but hes also attracted by their rebellion. He doesnt want to be like the sheep he makes such fun of, the customers who are befuddled when the girls enter the store. There are clues that the girls rebellion has its roots in economic privilege, a privilege not available to Sammy. The girls tell the manager that they entered the store only because one of their mothers asked them to pick up some herring snacks, an item that makes Sammy imagine a scene in which the men were standing around in ice-cream coats and bow ties and the women were in sandals picking up herring snacks on toothpicks off a big glass plate. In contrast, when Sammys parents have somebody over they get lemonade and if its a real racy affair Schlitz in tall glasses with Theyll Do It Every Time cartoons stenciled on. In the end, the class difference between Sammy and the girls means that his rebellion has far more serious ramifications than theirs does. By the end of the story, Sammy has lost his job and alienated his family. He feels how hard the world [is] going to be because not becoming a sheep wont be as easy as just walking away.  Ã‚  And it certainly wont be as easy for him as it will be for the girls, who inhabit a place from which the crowd that runs the A P must look pretty crummy.