Globalization in Prehistory
Contact, Exchange, and the 'People Without History'

Challenges contemporary understandings of 'globalization' by focusing on the role of non-state prehistoric societies and their vast realms of connectivity.

Nicole Boivin (Edited by), Michael D. Frachetti (Edited by)

9781108429801, Cambridge University Press

Hardback, published 4 October 2018

358 pages, 30 b/w illus. 25 maps
26.1 x 18.3 x 2.2 cm, 0.94 kg

Globalization in Prehistory challenges traditional historical and archaeological discourse about the drivers of social and cultural connectivity in the ancient world. It presents archaeological case studies of emerging globalization from around the word, from the Mesolithic period, through the Bronze and Iron Ages, to more recent historical times. The volume focuses on those societies and communities that history has bypassed - nomads, pastoralists, fishers, foragers, pirates and traders, among others. It aims for a more complex understanding of the webs of connectivity that shaped communities living outside and beyond the urban, agrarian states that are the mainstay of books and courses on ancient civilizations and trade. Written by a team of international experts, the rich and variable case studies demonstrate the important role played by societies that were mobile and dispersed in the making of a more connected world long before the modern era.

Introduction. Archaeology and people without history Nicole Boivin and Michael D. Frachetti
1. What's the point? Globalization and the emergence of ceramic-using hunter-gatherers in Northern Eurasia Peter Hommel
2. Globalizing interactions in the Arabian neolithic and the 'Ubaid Robert Carter
3. Domestic dispersal, human agency and the connectivity in Island Southeast Asia during the Holocene Tim Denham
4. Bronze Age participation in a 'global' ecumene: mortuary practice and ideology across Inner Asia Michael D. Frachetti and Elissa Bullion
5. Prehistoric globalizing processes in the Tao River Valley, Gansu, China? Yitzchak Jaffe and Rowan Flad
6. Global networks and local agents in the Iron Age Eurasian steppe Ursula Brosseder and Bryan K. Miller
7. Nomads and caravan trade in the Syrian Desert Eivind Heldaas Seland
8. Invisible agents of Eastern trade: foregrounding Island Southeast Asian agency in pre-modern globalization Tim Hoogervorst and Nicole Boivin
9. From rural collectables to global commodities: copper from Oman and obsidian from Ethiopia Ioana A. Dimitru and Michael J. Harrower
10. The Tsodilo Hills and the Indian Ocean: small-scale wealth and emergent power in eighth–eleventh century Central-Southern Africa Edwin N. Wilsen
11. Christians and spices: hidden foundations and misrecognitions in European colonial expansion to South Asia Kathleen D. Morrison
12. Subsistence middlemen traders and pre-colonial globalization in Melanesia Ian Lilley.

Subject Areas: Prehistoric archaeology [HDDA], Archaeology by period / region [HDD], Archaeological theory [HDA], Archaeology [HD], General & world history [HBG], History [HB], Humanities [H]