History of Trade I
Posted on April 27, 2010
Whether we realize it or not, trade is everywhere is our lives. Even when we go to the grocery store, or to Starbucks to get a coffee, or even go to the doctor’s office to get medication or to get a diagnosis about a medical condition, we are all trading. What are we trading ? well, what about “money for a coffee” or “money for services” ? We are constantly trading goods and we are giving money in exchange. This is what we used to call trading.
And when we take a look at the history of mankind, trading is certainly the oldest way of communication. Peter Watson is an intellectual historian and a former journalist. And according to him, he dates the history of long-distance commerce (in other words trading) from circa 150,000 years ago. It is believed that trade (also called exchange) was taking place during the stone age, and it looks like people were exchanging obsidian (a volcanic glass) and flint (a mineral quartz). Then, in 3000 BC, Egypt began to trade materials that were used to make jewelry. The most used travel routes were Mesopotamia and the Indus Valley. But the Phoenicians were the pioneers on traveling across the Mediterranean Sea, and as far as Britain, which was a huge distance at this time.
The reason why trading has always been the most significant way of communication is because it has always brought people together just like rituals or marriages used to be in the ancient time. Hundred or thousand years later, local trade became “long-distance” trade and eventually international trade. this international trade started in the 19th century BC in Assyria, where domesticated camels allowed Arabian nomads to control long distance trade in spices and silk from the Far East. Then, the Egyptians, the Indians and the Greeks took the same example to trade things like gold, silver, ivory and precious stones.