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ECONOMIC
VOL. 55
GEOGRAPHY
JANUARY, 1979
No. 1
Archaeologists have long been interested in economic prehistoiy and in recent years have been increasingly interested in modeling the archaeological
evidence [5; 12]. A number of methodologies, including those commonly used
by geographers, have been identified and
applied to their data. Nearest neighbor
and quadrat analysis have been used to
examine settlement patterns [8; 12, pp.
30-52]; central place theory has been
applied to settlement hierarchies [15;
* I wish to
acknowledge the support of the
Regents of the University of California for this
study and the valuable help of Dr. W. A. V.
Clark in the preparation of the manuscript.
21]; and network analysis [14] and distance decay models [11; 12, pp. 98-125,
183-97; 24; 26; 29] have been used to
study exchange systems. The latter are
particularly interesting, for many archaeologists [9; 14; 23; 28; 34] feel that they
are important markers of social evolution.
Archaeologists have asked two basic
but interrelated questions concerning exchange: what was the early history of
the technology of moving goods over
space, and what was the early history of
the social organization of exchange systems? It is obvious that the two are
closely intertwined, for, like the physical
ECONOMIC GEOGRAPHY
(1)
where:
log I,j
- the
logarithm of the interaction between two places, i
and j;
Dj
FLOWS
ARCHAEOLOGICAL
TABLE 1
HODDER'S
AND OKVALUES
FROM
ARCHAEOLOGICAL
Era
Neolithic
Article
ROMAN
PERIOD
MATERIALS
Fine/Coarse
b(=log I/km.)
British Stone
F
Axes: Group I
Roman
AND
NEOLITHIC
<
.1
Group VI
-.03
-.05
Anatolian Obsidian
-.027
.9
Picrite Hammers
-.124
.6
>2.5
1.6
Oxford Pottery
-.024
-.03
-.05
Malvern Pottery
-.10
.2
Savernake Pottery
-.21
.4
1.0
<
.1
1.1
as:
logij
= a-bDj
(2)
ECONOMICGEOGRAPHY
Several hypotheses about a have been der's [11] derivation of a values that
advanced by Renfrew [26, pp. 77-85]. were 0.6 or smaller, including some that
The first postulates a "down-the-line" were probably negative, although he did
mode of exchange where a group receiv- not test for values of a less than 0.1.
ing trade objects from a source outside Renfrew [26, p. 84] explained these
their community keeps a fixed propor- alphas as representing "supply zone" extion and trades the rest to communities change, and noted Hodder's conclusion
in a one-dimensional chain of exchang- that these were associated with steep
ing communities farther from the source. distance decay slopes. This doesn't fit
At any distance D, the amount passed well with Renfrew's diagrams [26, p. 78;
on (I) is:
27, pp. 466-70] which show "supply
zone" slopes to be both very gentle and
I 1I, e-7D
(3)
concave to the origin. A better explanation is that these represent trade in items
where o1 is the amount leaving the that have
only local distribution. This
source area and k is the proportion fits with both the
steep attenuation
( <1) passed on per unit of distance. In slopes and Hodder's observation [11,
p.
its linear folrnn,
182] that many of the items in this category were produced in small quantities,
log I = log Io- kD
(4)
probably for local consumption.
The gradients for the coin data examD is not raised to any power, therefore
in the present study should be relained
a
1.
tively
gentle (since coins are high-value
A second hypothesis is that in more
items)
compared to the cases examined
complex trading systems where goods
Hodder (Table 1), which for the
by
move
in
might
any direction, not just most
part were either stone or ceramic
away from the source or in a one-dimenwhich were relatively hard to
goods
sional chain of exchange, a random walk
The a values should be near
transport.
would be approximated. Renfrew defor
the
coins are moving in a rela2.0,
rives the equation:
tively complex trading system.
I
e-bD
(5)
(6)
DATA PROBLEMS
The quality of data is a major problem for the spatial modeling of archaeological material. If we are unsure that a
set of data fulfills the requirements of a
particular model, then any tests of that
model made with these data will be
equally unsure. Data problems facing
the archaeologist attempting to work
with distance decay models have been
outlined by Hodder and Orton [21, pp.
104-8] and Wright [33]. They can be
summarized as follows:
1. Regional differences in field work.
If the intensity of field work varies from
area to area, the areas of more intensive
field work will turn up more data and
thus more "interaction" with the sources
of the objects, than will areas where field
ARCHAEOLOGICAL
FLOWS
ECONOMICGEOGRAPHY
to
to
>
>
>
0
O
o
"
o
Q
>
b b b
Ca 00
oo
1 Ilium
oo
2. Alexandria
toCq
00
CJ
GO o0
Ca
t-i
c;
3. Antioch
00
0o
,-
4. Caesarea
Troas
in Pisidia
z
0
Q00
Cappadociae
tH
0
o
0
oo
ca
5. Aelia Capitolina
(Jerusalem)
co
6. Akko-Ptolemais
-to co
01
-4
7. Caesarea
Maritima
0
o'
8. Adramytion
CID
c0
LIZ
0o
9. Apollonia
Co
0
0
10. Attaia
o
0
co
Cal o>
o0
0
o12.
0o
0O
0o
0
o14.
SAkO7Ij
11. Hadrianeia
Hadrianoi
13. Hadrianotherai
Kame
15. Priene
7VJ)IOO7O1VHOUV
03
TABLE 8
NUMBER
OF TYPES,
BY PERIOD,
LISTED
IN
THE
COIRPI OF
15
CITIES
IN
THE
STUDY
City
10 B.C.-70
A.D.
A.D.
Period 15$0-210
10B.C.-70A.D.
A.D.
70-150
70-150 A.D.
20-25
.AD
14
/
Xi
.l
15"
110Q
,-4
13
210-20
AD
0M
15
12
16
16
2532
A..
2 Si
0 15
n14
,
190
B
27
43o
51
85
21
2
10
0
12
28
28
21
21
35
125
(N
171
co
89
SS
i^
44
c
l;5
50
29
1046
65
46
0
42
2
4
B150
24
24
20
64
64
0
41
42
42
15
29
12
12
19
90
19
19
150-210
A.D.
110
125
171
89
55
44
35
43
51
210-230
A.D.
13
50
29
104
65
46
34
21
10
230-253
A.D.
12
42
130
20
41
29
90
22
12
69
127
43
33
253-276 A.D.
ARCHAEOLOGICALFLOWS
Dura); while we know that Dura received coins from 58 cities in the region,
coins of 301 other cities were not found.
I have done city-by-city analysis elsewhere [4], but I now find it unsatisfactory; while between 17 and 55 cities
whose coins were found at Dura were
included in the analysis for each period,
upwards of 150 cities with interaction
values of zero were excluded. Their inclusion would have resulted in the specification of a variable with no variation
in the bulk of its cases, which violates
the assumptions of any analytical technique that I am aware of. I think that
the solution to the problem is that the
coins recovered should be thought of as
a sample of all of the coins that Dura
could have possibly received from a region rather than from the particular
cities whose coins were recovered there.
Dura also received a large number of
coins from its neighbor cities in Mesopotamia; "negatives" do not exist there,
so these cities can be treated as individual cases. Inclusion of individual cities
and large regions as cases in the same
data set might risk comparison of noncomparable items. I think that individual cities can be treated as small regions.
This is similar to studies of interstate
flows where small regions dominated by
a single city are included in the same
analysis with large multicity regions.
Disparity in size of regions is probably
more of a problem when the flows are
being measured by whether or not they
cross the boundaries of a set of interacting regions. In that situation large regions show fewer "migrations" than expected, because many trips can be completely contained within their boundaries [20]. In the present study only
the fact of a coin's arrival at Dura is being measured.
Once the two matrices representing
coins retrieved at Dura (Table 4) and
the holdings of the BMC (Table 5) were
assembled, 0.5 was added to each cell
of the BMC matrix where it had a zero
but there was a non-zero value in the
10
ECONOMIC GEOGRAPHY
Fig. 1.
TABLE 4
COINS
BY
AND
SOURCE
PERIOD
FOUND
AT
DURA
Source region
IV
VI
VII
VIII
IX
XI
10 B.C.-70 A.D.
229
17
70-150 A.D.
38
261
60
40
19
150-210 A.D.
10
1321
13
15
43
210-230 A.D.
12
533
64
26
230-253 A.D.
44
416
32
XII
II
Period
III
XIH
TABLE 5
COINS I
THE
BMC
Region
I
III
IV
VI
VII
VIII
IX
XI
10 B.C.-70 A.D.
361
243
23
58
57
74
70-150 A.D.
501
257
109
61
23
114
52
59
106
388
47
Period
II
150-210 A.D.
1173
485
207
107
25
22
42
40
123
27
191
43
210-230 A.D.
302
190
65
62
16
93
31
294
125
36
230-253 A.D.
488
502
29
214
42
51
10
59
25
174
19
TABLE 6
DISTANCES
Region:
Distance (km.):
I
1217
II
927
HI
738
AND
INTERACTION
IV
570
VALUES
V
379
BETWEEN
VI
SOURCE
REGIONS
VII
450
442
AND
DURA
VIII
365
Interaction values:
10 B.C.-70 A.D.
.00554
.00277
.00277
.00277
3.948
.5
70-150 A.D.
.00258
.00258
.3486
.00258
.3478
2.290
1.154
.6818
150-210 A.D.
.00170
.0206
210-230 A.D.
.00263
.00526
.1077
.0645
.750
5.731
230-253 A.D.
.00199
.00398
.0690
.00936
1.048
8.157
Region:
13
14
15
16
17
Distance (km.):
819
279
6.382
319
.0280
239
.520
259
18
202
Interaction values:
10 B.C.-70 A.D.
70-150 A.D.
150-210 A.D.
210-230 A.D.
230-253 A.D.
1.0
at
2.0
5.625
6.548
.800
1.234
9.220
36.490
18.818
29.90
5.667
25.40
.00263
1.125
25.40
.1429
2.064
.1250
.6780
.1
1.075
1.400
0.8
3.200
13
ARCHAEOLOGICAL
FLOWS
(7)
This was done because this model probably fits the data more closely than the
single-log model, and it would also facilitate comparison of the present study
with those employing the gravity model.
RESULTS
The single-log distance decay gradients (Table 7) conform to the hypothesis. All of the Dura gradients are
smaller than all but one of those derived
by Hodder for stone tools and pottery.
However, the a values are strikingly different than what was expected from a
well-developed trading network. Four of
the five values are negative and none is
greater than one. This result was not
predicted by Renfrew's theory, although
logI = a-bD
a
(8)
where a is negative.
This kind of model would fit a situation where interaction dropped off very
steeply near the source of an article but
a small number of them managed to
travel a great distance. This would be
characteristic of the circulation of national currencies, where the coins of a
particular country would be very common within its territory, drop off sharply
at the border, and then represented by
fewer and fewer strays carried by travelers as souvenirs farther away from the
border. Although we don't know how
people regarded the currency value of
these particular coins, it could have been
that either through government decree
or common practice only the coins of
certain nearby cities or regions were accepted as legal money and all others
were mere curiosities. The large issues
of Pontus (205-207 A.D.) which appear
in abundance at Dura and the large
number of coins of Gordian III (238244 A.D.) from Mesopotamian mints
which predominate in Dura's currency
at the very end of its existence are evidence that the Roman government
minted coins to circulate in certain regions. Coins apparently also had value
as souvenirs. A contingent of Spartan
TABLE 7
ALPHA
VALUES
AND
REGRESSION
RESULTS
OF SINGLE-
AND
DOUBLE-LOG
Single-log
Period
alpha
MODELS
Double-log
r2
10 B.C.-70 A.D.
-5.1
70-150 A.D.
- .7
1.041
-.00654
.368*
25.47
-4.494
.4150
150-210 A.D.
-1.6
1.894
-.00719
.342*
27.66
-4.789
.423*
210-230 A.D.
.6
2.375
-.00755
.394*
25.12
-4.336
.387*
230-253 A.D.
- .7
3.374
-.0102
.462*
37.23
-6.397
.590*
.613
-.00617
.336
28.93
-5.041
.416*
14
ECONOMICGEOGRAPHY
15
ARCHAEOLOGICALFLOWS
-..............
*
O
Single-Log 's
Double-Log b's
Circulation hypothesis
Significant observation
Non-Significant Observation
.010
.008
a)
0
(a)
g) .006
-J
0)
N1%
.004
.002
0205
210
220
0
250
240
DATE (A.D.)
Fig. 2. Single- and double-log distance decay slopes for coins found at Dura, 205-250
The dotted line represents the pattern expected in the speed of circulation hypothesis.
A.D.
TABLE 8
REGRESSIONS
FOR THIRD
CENTURY
Single-Log
Double-Log
Dates
(A.D.)
Septimius Severus
and Family
193-217
1.538
-.00651
.8010
25.37
-4.42
.386*
Macrinus through
Elagabalus
217-222
.942
-.00391
.275*
12.24
-2.17
.252*
Coins of:
Severus Alexander
222-235
1.149
-.00642
.268
22.88
-4.08
.326*
Maximinus and
Gordian III
235-244
2.939
-.00929
.452*
34.96
-6.03
.628*
Philip through
Trebonnianus Gallus
244-253
1.301
-.00600
.368*
23.19
-4.06
.484*
16
ECONOMICGEOGRAPHY
of
Greek
Coin
Hoards
[32]
17
ARCHAEOLOGICAL
FLOWS
12. Hodder, Ian and Clive Orton. Spatial Analysis in Archaeology. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1976.
13. Imhoof-Blumer, F. and Hans von Fritze.
24. Plog,
Fred.
"Modeling
Economic
Ex-
of Michigan, Anthropological
51, 1973.
Papers, no.
16. Kadman, Leo. The Coins of Aelia Capitolina. Jerusalem: Universitas, 1956.
17. Kadman, Leo. The Coins of Akko-Ptolemais. Tel-Aviv: Schocken, 1961.
18. Kadman, Leo. The Coins of Caesarea
Maritima. Tel-Aviv: Schocken, 1957.
19. Krzyzanowska,
Aleksandra. Monnaies
Co-
No. 14 (1955).
21. Marcus, Joyce. "Territorial Organization of
the Lowland Classic Maya," Science, 180
(1973), pp. 911-16.
22. Olsson, Gunnar. Distance and Human Interaction. Philadelphia: Regional Science
Research Institute Bibliography, 1965.
23. Pires-Ferreira, Jane W. and Kent V. Flannery. "Interregional Exchange Networks,"
Press, 1976.