P1190253

S    Bogusław G(diga

ca Iły thc terminohygy which we employ wilh refcrence to e.g. the prehistorie com-munities.

The term “long-distance" with regard to the exchange and trade in thc Bronzc Age and earl> Iron Age may suggest mistaken associations, partly rcsulting from ideas shaped by the culture vtc livc in. The fact ofoccurrence horse-gear elements of eastern prv>venancc from the Nomadic culture of the Pomian steppes discovered tn Wósknwice, distnci of Namysłów and in Karmin, district of Milicz cannot give rise to the idea. that they reachcd Silesia directly from relatively distant arcas only by the agency of Traders" In my paper I would like to focus on such generał issues.

Trade. and enchange of goods for goods in its early form. Has a long history and accompames people ncarly from their beginnings. The need of trade and ex-change emerged w hen the production realized within a unit (e.g. a family) was un-able to mcci arising needs. Unąuestionably, the precise datę of appearance of such needs in buman awareness cannot be defined. Trade and cxchange do not only represent economic connections but their social dimension should be noticed as weil. They =»i«i cxpress complex social associations. specific for various periods of prehistory and history (Hfinsel 1995: 10). The cultural phenomena. including their diverse produets. are madę in one place and then they usually spread. In the

of prehistorie societies, the spreading is confirmcd by the occurrence of items of foreign provenance m a defined area, often called “importcd goods’*. what not ałwayś seems to be correct (compare remarks on that issuc: Fogel 1988: 4—5. for a fttller account see ibidem). The ways of spreading the produets is a problem wioch is both important and difficult to be judged unambiguously. It should be remembered. thal the diffiision includes not only materiał goods but also ideas. and defining the mechanism of their spreading is even morę difficult in the ar-chaeological research.

In the existing literaturę the ways and patterns of diffiision of cultural phe-■omena were repeatediy defined. but they are still difficult to be specjfied on the batił of archaeołogical eyidence. We shall also consider and additional ąuestion. wbetber a cultural phenomena or product which we may say is formally forcign to a grven env ironment, is not in fact a local imitation of foreign patterns. Then wc couid rather see it as diffiision of ideas or patterns.

Umaiły the foUowmg ways of cultural diffiision are enumerated: intra-cultu-rał netghbourly contacts (Mainzer 2004. e.g. 184), demographic movcments. ex-changę relations of economic naturę, unilateral gifts and goods exchange realized aronohng to vanous principles, which on certain levels of social development were fegally regulatcd and tnanaged. e.g. through by various kinds of contribution or obhgalory tributes. and finally - robbery. We distinguish cultural phenomena. mrhidfiig produets we rntend to definc as foreign, be means of typological analy-s». employ mg also compantive studies. Such a diversity of cultural phenomena difluMoa causes that we describe them using a rangę of usually ambiguous no-i .ins and terma which may pass as synonyms. Apart from the concept of trade we

often talk about cultural influences, interactions. Imks. trade exchange etc. Certain flexibility of usage the discussed cultural phenomena referring to those notions may by even noticed. When trade is a subject of a paper or scientific meeting, these phenomena reflect the image of trade, sometimes defined morę cautiously as exchange. However, when cultural connections are discussed, the same facts containing archaeołogical evidcnce is the base of the study. In that case, we tend to use the notions which do not defiite the mechanism of that fact unambiguously - then we talk e.g. about influences (e.g. Gedl 1991; 1992; 2004: 211-213) or even use morę capacious concepts like e.g. “long-distance exchange contacts” (Bukowski 1998). The same situation emerges when ethnic issues or demographtc movcments are the subject of the discussion when those produets of foreign prov-enance are used as examples to confirm such facts. Thus, we see the artefacts of foreign provenancc may be interpreted by archaeologists in various ways. partly as a response to temporary objectives, as I have tried to indicate above.

Some attempts to introduce a certain terminological order are sometimes based on constructed model s of development of exchange and trade. which corre-spond with stages of socio-cultural development such as an ethnological model by E. Tylor. H. Spencer and L. Morgan including stages of savagery, barbansm and civilization. Both exchange and trade took a different form at each stage. Trade was linked mostly with the civilization stage. It is easy to imagine that these culture fields were various in prehistorie egalitarian societies, chiefdom-like political systems, structures with leading elite (e.g. Hallstatt aristocracy and Nomads). or State structures.

How then the concepts of trade and exchange referring to the prehistorie com-munities, thc Bronze Age and the early Iron Age should be applied? It is usually emphasized that trade is a morę sophisticated form of economic activity, formed at higher stages of socio-economic development. Its presence is sometimes con-sidered only at the level of forming a state structure in a given society. which issues its own legał tender and, therefore - when money is exchanged. However, it is unanimously emphasized that in the case of prehistorie societies there were no institutionalized, professional and organized forms of trade, regardless of the fact that at various sites archaeologists (md produets that arrived to that place even from remote regions (Schdnfeld 1995: 23). In this situation, we may presume for practical purposes that trade is a higher form of exchange. and then we may speak of trade cxchangc and try to tracę its appearance at certain historical stages in various societies and places of the world. However, the concept of exchange may be considered to be far broader, comprising various forms, as they have becn mentioned above. When distinguish between exchange and trade, one should re-member that the border separating them is fluent, while morę intensive and morę organized forms of exchange, which may fulfill a criterion of trade, depend mostly on inereasing life-standards of a society.

In conclusion of these generał remarks, it would be worth to realizc what results may be produced by the appearance of various exchange forms and then