Change and continuity in the long-distance exchange networks betweenwestern/central Anatolia, northern Levant and northern Mesopotamia,c.3200–1600 BCE

Abstract

This paper investigates and offers explanations for the distribution of specific products (ivory and lapis lazuliartefacts,“Syrian”bottles) and technologies (metrology) that have often been invoked as tracers of long-distancetrade contacts and/or political units in Anatolia, northern Levant and northern Mesopotamia during the Earlyand Middle Bronze Ages. Unlike former studies investigating third and second millennia exchange networks asseparate entities, we examine comparatively and systematically a large corpus of published archaeological databy adopting a quantitative and spatial approach. Through this analysis, we propose that a significant degree ofsimilarity in the shape, infrastructure and motivations behind the development and maintenance of these long-distance exchanges existed between the third and early second millennia BC.