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How did trade help build ancient civilizations?

When ancient civilizations developed, they were fueled by surplus food production. Farming was productive enough that not everyone in a society had to grow food to survive. People who were freed from farming became doctors, architects, traders, merchants, scribes, musicians, priests, and more.

It was traders who built links between civilizations. The first traders took their cities’ specialties—the best portable works of art, jewelry, cloth, spices, and other items—to sell or trade in neighboring cities. The money or goods they brought back home enriched their own society. Trade quickly spread over very long distances, with Chinese silk, for example, making its way to Mesopotamia and then Egypt. Controlling trade meant wealth, and participating in trade meant fame for the civilization whose goods were the most desirable.

Think about the ways that trade built civilizations to answer the questions below.

Question 1

Trade relied on different cities or regions producing unique items. Why was this?

Traders could take those unique items to other places and trade or sell them.

If a coastal society had seashells, those would be very valuable to a society high in the mountains. Seashells could be used to make jewelry or other items, and would bring a good price in the market.

Question 2

What would a society have to do to maintain trade with other societies?

They would have to create industries that produced trade goods.

If the coastal society’s seashells become an important part of the mountain society’s religious rituals, the mountain society will want a regular supply of seashells. That means the coastal society will have to give a class of people the job of finding seashells, and another class of people the job of cleaning, polishing, and assembling the shells for use in those rituals. Producing seashells or seashell items will become part of the coastal society’s economy.

Question 3

What would participating in long-distance trade require a society to do?

Create an industry in certain trade goods, invest in animals to carry the goods long distances, and create a group of people to oversee and protect the trade.

If the coastal society’s seashells become popular hundreds of miles away in China, that society will want to develop a trade with China. Seashells could be exchanged for silk. The coastal people will have to expand their seashell production and invest in getting the shells to China. A whole new class of people will emerge who give people permission to make the journey, record how many shells they’re taking, provide the animals and security for the journey, and get a cut of the profits when the seashell traders return with the silk.

Question 4

Trade is an economic transaction in which two or more parties swap items of equal value, with the result that each feels a little richer. How do archeologists know that some ancient civilizations traded with one another, across long distances?

Archeologists know that trade routes were extensive because some artifacts are made with materials that are not local to the region they are found in. They had to be brought in from somewhere else. One example is the Sumerian Standard of Ur, which is made with blue lapis lazuli available only in the region of present-day Afghanistan. The Standard of Ur also contains shells from the Persian Gulf, and bichiman, or petroleum glue, from the far north region of Mesopotamia.