CURRENT ANTHROPOLOGY Volume 34, Number 4, August-October I993 ? I993 byThe Wenner-GrenFoundation for Anthropological Research. All rightsreserved OOII-3204/93/3404-0003$3.00

The world system and its cycles have long determined the economic, political, and cultural opportunitiesor limitationsfaced by regions,peoples, and theirpolitical Bronze Age World institutionsand leaders. Cyclically alternatingglobal warmingand ice ages probablyalso affectedeconomic System Cycles' and political fortunes.Even today,a risingeconomic sea liftsmost boats even if some capsize. A recedingworld economic tide or stormyweather sinks manymore ships of state,but the same crisis that generatestheir decline by AndreGunder Frank offersnew opportunitiesto (literal)upstarts elsewhere. The historicalreview offeredhere will show thatpoliti- cal-economic fortunesand hegemonic rivalryand its outcomes were alreadybeing vitallyaffected by partici- This essayexplores the geographicalextent of the worldsystem pation in a world system in the Bronze Age. Detailed and datesits cyclicalups and downsduring the Bronze Age and, demonstrationof how the system operated is left for in a preliminaryway, the earlyIron Age. The scope of thesetwin anothertime and/orto othersbetter qualified than I. It tasksis exceptionallywide and deep: wide in exploringa single worldsystem that encompasses much ofAfro-Eurasia, deep in may be usefultherefore to attemptto state at the outset identifyingsystemwide economic and politicalcycles since more what is and what is not proposedhere and to anticipate than5,000 yearsago. and answer some objections to both. The firstobjection may be that the task is impossible ANDRE GUNDER FRANK iS Professorof Development Economics to accomplish. In particular,it may be rightlyargued and Social Sciencesat the Universityof Amsterdam (his address: that I lack the professionaltraining or experiencein ar- H. Bosmansstraat57, 1077 XG Amsterdam,Holland). Born in Ber- chaeologyand historyfor it and have insufficientknowl- lin in i929, he was educatedin the UnitedStates and receiveda Ph.D. in economicsat the Universityof Chicagoin I957. He edge of the area, the period,the materials,and the prob- has taughtin departmentsof anthropology,economics, history, lems and pitfallsof their study. My use or citation of politicalscience, and sociologyof universities in Europe,North particularfacts, sources, and/or"authorities" may also America,and LatinAmerica. His earlierwork, primarily on de- appear objectionableon the groundsthat (supposedlyor pendenceand "the developmentof underdevelopment," became well knownfrom his Capitalismand Underdevelopmentin perhapseven reallyunbeknownst to me) theyhave been LatinAmerica (New York:Monthly Review Press, i967). Subse- discreditedby "the profession."Another objection (or quentwork on world-systemhistory, contemporary international perhapsanother version of the same one) is thateven the politicaleconomy, and social movementsis representedby the best archaeologistsand historianstoday lack the factual followingpublications, among others: World Accumulation evidence and analytical methods necessaryto establish I492-I789 (New York:Monthly Review Press, I978); Crisisin the WorldEconomy (London: Heinemann, ig80); and The Euro- or even indicate the extentof such a world systemand pean Challenge(Westport, Conn.: LawrenceHill, I983). The pres- its cyclical ups and downs. My perhapsinsufficient an- entpaper was submittedin finalform i 5 xi 92. sweris thatfools rush in where archangelsfear to tread. It is not that I can claim to know better,but perhapsin knowingless about the obstacles as well and bringing the freshand unencumberedperspective of an outsider to the task I am more willing and perhapseven able to try.Thus, I make bold to propose a new outline of the world system and older datings of its cyclical rhythm than have othersheretofore. In doing so, however,I can challenge othersmore competentthan I to test and re- vise my tentativefindings. A second objection will be that there was not one world systemin the BronzeAge but, if any,many. Even by the criteriaof participationin a single systemthat I shall set out below, there probablywere several such "systems" in Bronze Age and later times, and certainly none of them was world-encompassing.There is, how- ever, increasingevidence that one such world system did unite a vast arrayof regionsand peoples in a com- i. It is a pleasureto acknowledgethe help ofall themany authors whomI havequoted so muchabove, among them especially Mitch- mon historical process. Apparentlythis world system ell Allen, ChristopherEdens, Barry Gills, and ShereenRatnagar, was centered on West/CentralAsia and the Eastern who additionallysent me verydetailed written comments on a Mediterranean/NorthAfrica but extended far beyond previousdraft. They will recognizemy input of their help but per- this. Moreover, it was this central world system (as haps not much of theircriticism in this revision.Several friends and particularlyPhilip Kohl, KristianKristiansen, and Andrew Chase-Dunnand Hill [i99i], combiningthe designa- Sherrattalso helpedenormously by making not only their own but tions of Gills and Frank[I990, I99I] and Wilkinson also theirfriends' unpublished manuscripts available to me. [I987], suggestthat we call it) that eventuallyexpanded

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to incorporateall the rest of the world into a world sys- Hard evidence on such (system-)widespread alternat- tem that now does include one and all. ing phases of more rapid and slower economic expan- A thirdobjection will be that,even if the existenceof sion, contraction,and/or crisis is, of course, hard to such a world system as early as the Bronze Age were come by. To my knowledge,prior to Gills and Frank admissible,it could hardlyhave experiencedsimultane- (i992) no one had even attemptedany such assemblyof ous systemwide cyclical phases of rapid economic evidence as is presentedbelow. For economic upswings, expansionand subsequentcontraction or slowergrowth. I examine evidence or at least assertionsregarding vari- Even today, however, some economic sectors (micro- ous regionsin Eurasia of economic expansionof produc- electronics,biogenetics) and regions (in East Asia) are tion and/or trade,population growth,increase in city out of step or phase with the systemwideeconomic cri- size, and even diplomatic missions. Conversely, for sis, but only an ostrich-likehead-in-the-sand view can downswingsor crises, I seek evidence or assertionsof deny the existence of that crisis. I shall marshal evi- absolutelyor relativelyreduced production and/or trade, dence that somethingat least analogous can be identi- population decline or reduced growth,decline in city fiedas farback as the earlyBronze Age. size, and abandonmentof cities. Other objections may focus on my failureto pursue For instance, I will draw on tests of the Gills and relatedinquiries into more conventionalquestions such Frank(1 99.2) datingof cyclicalphases independentlyper- as ecology,technology, state formation,class structure, formedby researchersusing data on changesin citysize. language,race, culture,and religion.At a time of nearly However welcome these are, their reliabilitymay be worldwide assertions of "ethnicity" and diversity,a compromisedby (i) my own interpretationof (2) their statementof world-systemunity in diversitymay also interpretationof (3) theirsource Chandler's (1I987)inter- seem to committedactivists "politically incorrect." So- pretation of (4) Chandler's sources of city-size data, cial theoristsmay find especially lacking a theoretical which (5) are incomplete and (6) may be erroneousand analysis of how the relations among all of these and probablyrecord more and greatercity sizes in West Asia otherfactors "make the systemtick." I do not denythe than in East Asia-all of which may be subject to still importanceof these and other internal/local/national/ other,unidentified problems, among themthe use ofthe societal, institutional,cultural, and voluntarist/agency city-sizemeasure because it is more readily available factors.However, those who emphasize themin practice than others.Thus, reliance on city-sizeand other data and theoryto the exclusion of the real world-systemic or assertionsis not meant to suggest that they are all and cyclical "outside" forcesbeyond them do so at their definitivelyreliable but only that I am doing the best I peril.This is because the latterdetermine the opportuni- can with everylittle bit that may help. ties and limitationsof the former.Therefore, all these More oftenthan not, also, I must compare,contrast, and othermore conventionalsociopolitical and cultural and combine statementsby others who have observed concernsand theoreticalproblems will only be touched economic growthor decline here and thereto tryto get on in the textand/or relegated to at best some suggestive a pictureof a world-systemwidepattern and sequence. questions and answers in the conclusion. Sometimes,direct economic evidenceof expansion and/ Nonetheless, I shall begin with a brief attempt to or contractionis not readily available, and I must try place the presentinquiry in the contextof certainongo- to inferit fromrecorded social or political events-for ing discussions. One of these discussions is about the example,the rise and decline ofempires, "civilizations," nature of and/orthe appropriateapproach to the study political (in)stabilityand war/peace, and hegemonic of the "ancient economy," in which primitivistsand power/intenserivalry. Of course, the evidence,my and substantivistshave locked horns for generationswith others'interpretation of the same, and especiallymy in- modernistsand formalists.Placing the apparently"eco- ferencesare open to doubt and critique-and to im- nomicist" approach adopted here in this context will provement! perhaps make it more defensible.A second discussion I draw on this informationbelow in an attempt to is the more recentone on whetherthere was one world reassemble the jigsaw-puzzle picture of the world sys- system or several and how to study the same. A brief tem in the Bronze Age. However, this jigsaw-puzzleas- review of this discussion will also offeroccasion to set semblydiffers from the usual kind in several ways that out the criteriafor identifying this worldsystem. A third make it much more difficult:(i) the numberof pieces in discussion focuses more narrowlyon previousversions "the box" is indeterminate,indeed infinite(if cut small of the s,ooo-year-world-systemthesis (Frank i 990, enough),and it is possible to place or assemble only a iggia; Frankand Gills i992, I992-93, I993; Gillsand few of them here. (2) There is no originaldesign or in- Frank1990, 1991, I99.2) and the controversyand inde- tendedfinal picture on "the box" to guide the assembly. pendent attempts at empiricallygrounded tests of its (3) It is impossibleto followthe usually easier procedure long-cycledatings that the thesishas elicited.This essay of definingthe outer marginof the picturewith pieces is an extension and revision of the most recent work that have at least one straightedge. In this case, on the includingempirical tests of its cycle datingsand addi- contrary,it is the veryouter marginor extensionof the tional evidence forthe Bronze and Iron Ages. It also at- world systemthat is most difficultto identify.Instead, temptsto push the identificationof this succession of it seems easiest to begin with some pieces that appear cycles more than anothermillennium back into the 4th to be in the better-known"core." (4) The task is not a millenniumB.C. one-timeenterprise. The shapes of the pieces and their

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(core-peripheryand hegemonic)fit with theirneighbors Their position was challenged long ago, at least de change constantly over time. Perhaps this change is facto.Among historians,Weber's contemporaryWerner near-random;perhaps it occurs in cycles thatshould also Sombart(I967, I969) did so, and then so did the archae- be identified.(5) One the principaltasks, and here the ologist Childe (I936, I942). Yet, accordingto Kohl main one, is to identifysuch cycles. (i987a), even Childe "consistentlyunderestimated" the Of course, our picture of the world system depends strengthof the opposite case. Moreover, in a post- on the survivalof textualand the excavationof archaeo- humously published essay even Polanyi wrote that logical evidence. Of course also, archaeologistsencoun- "throughout,the externalorigin of tradeis conspicuous; ter untold difficultiesin constructinga generalpicture internaltrade is largelyderivative of externaltrade," the fromindividual artifacts. Especially difficultfor present motivebeing either status or profit(Polanyi I975:I54, purposesis makinglocally foundartifacts reveal identi- I36-37). In the I97os, archaeologistsrejected the Po- fiablelong-distance connections and suggestinghow im- lanyi/Finleyview and offeredreinterpretations of the portantor persistentthey were. Moreover,beyond the increasingly available data (Adams I974, Lamberg- vagariesof what did and did not survive,the patternof Karlovsky I975). About the same time, Crawford archaeological digs and their analysis is a functionof (I973:273) observed"increasing evidence for private present-dayeconomic, cultural, and political vagaries. ownershipof land, propertyand thereforecapital" and Thus, Kohl (I984a) remarks,for instance, on the Soviet suggestedthat temples may have acted as banks. focuson sites ratherthan regions(to which the work of Since then,the empiricaland analyticalrefutation of E. N. Chernykhis a remarkablerecent exception) and the primitivist/substantivistargument has been almost theirpreferential access to sites within the (former)So- unceasing. The evidence-primarily fromarchaeologi- viet Union. This allows regionsto the south thereofto cal finds-has been substantial.The related arguments fall throughtoday's political-economiccracks, however about the importancein and for the ancient economy importanttheir earlier participationin our world sys- of long-distancetrade, market relations,demand- and tem. Elsewhereas well, contemporaryeconomic, politi- supply-relatedprice formation,monetization, entrepre- cal, cultural,or other reasons result in the neglect of neurship,and capital accumulation have been so over- some historicallymore important sites in favorof others whelmingthat we can at best only point to some of the of less historicalsignificance. Another source of bias is tip of the iceberg. Among the more conceptual writ- my own "selection" of the evidence. Practically,in two ings are those of Ekholm (I980), Ekholm and Friedman senses of the word, my choice of pieces of the jigsaw (I982), Rowlands, Larsen, and Kristiansen(I987), Kohl puzzle is largely based on the documentationkindly (i987a, i989, I99I), and Edens and Kohl (I993). The suppliedto me by my friendsfrom their own and others' more empirical reviews include those of Dales (I976), writings.All these and otherfactors undoubtedly intro- Ratnagar(I98I), Lamberg-Karlovsky(I975), and too duce gaps and/ordistortions into the archaeologicaland manyothers to recount.(Edens and Kohl [I993] point to historicalrecord. Moreover, the pieces I have selected PowellI977, FosterI977, Gledhilland Larsen i982, and tend to be more often"economic" (trade)than "politi- ZagarellI986.) cal" (warfare),"social" (migration),and/or "cultural" Lamberg-Karlovsky(I 975), for example, rejected the (diffusion),and the archaeologicalrecord (or at least the Polanyi position on the role of "profit,price-fixing, documentationavailable to me) more readily permits wholesaling,supply-demand, or even privateownership the assembly of West Asian pieces-and, even then, of land forsurplus production.... It is the centralthe- only veryfew of these pieces can be assembled here. sis ... that all of these existed in a marketnetwork at least by the end of the fourthmillennium in Mesopota- The "Ancient Economy" Debate mia." Many recordsfrom the 3d and 2d millennia attest to fluctuationsin the prices of gold and silver relative In the debate about the "extentof the market"(to recall to each otherand, in both the long and the shortterm, to Adam Smith's phrase that related it to the "division of land, slaves, grains,oil, and wages (which also changed labor") in the ancient economy,Edens and Kohl (I993) relative to each other). If these price changes did not distinguishthe followingpositions: among historians, respond directly to supply and demand, they did so the primitivists,such as Weber (and more recentlyFin- throughadministered prices, which also had to respond ley [I985]) vs. the modernists,such as Meyer; among at least politicallyto supplyand demand.Moreover, "ev- anthropologists,the substantivists, headed by (the idence is abundant of the accumulation of human and nonanthropologist!)Karl Polanyi(I957, I977) and his material capital, including circulatingcapital not di- defenders,such as Dalton, joined by Renfrewand his rectlyinvolved in the productionprocess . . . and fixed followersamong archaeologistswho saw some down- capital" (Silver I985:i63). Documentationfrom late 3d- the-linetrade, vs. the formalists,such as Le Clair, Her- and early 2d-millennium Mesopotamia analyzed by skovits,and even Firth.In oppositionto the modernist/ Larsen(I987) suggeststhat public and privateaccumula- formalists,who argued that moderneconomic analysis tion were both complementaryat one time and alterna- was applicable to the ancient economy,the primitivist/ tives over time-and, I mightsuggest, varied with less substantivists(and, indeed, Marx beforethem) denied and more prosperousphases of the economic cycle. the importanceof market relations,capital accumula- The Polanyi/Finleyview was challengednot only re- tion,and long-distancetrade in the ancient world. gardinglocal market relations but also regardinglong-

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distance trade. Adams (I974:247, 248) reported "little It is of importanceto recognisethat the phenome- doubt that long-distancetrade was a formidablesocio- non of expansion and/orcolonisation appears within economic force"and that "we have wronglydeprecated an early contextof emergentcultural complexity in the entrepreneurialelement in the historical develop- various regionsof westernand centralAsia. Territo- ment ofat least the more complex societies." Moreover, rial expansion,whether colonial, imperial,or mili- as Kohl (i989:228) remarks, "the intercultural trade that tary,appears to be embeddedin the process of emerg- developed between resource-poorsouthern Mesopota- ing state polities. Anatolia and mia and resource-richhighland areas of As examples they referto Egyptian"colonies" in the Iran necessarily transformedthe productiveactivities Sinai and Palestine in the Naqada III period,Sumerian all societies in the exchange network of participating expansion and "colonies" to the northand on the Ira- or without the development of an overarchingpolity nian plateau in the Middle Uruk period,Proto-Elamite empire." replicationof these,also on the Iranianplateau, and the will not be Of course, the primitivist/substantivists Harappan "colony" at Shortugaiin Central Asia. They another of persuadedby yet statement the oppositeposi- caution that farmore researchis needed beforewe can be convinced any mere state- tion (nor should they by comprehendthe "causes" of this territorialexpansion: ment). Indeed, even those closer to my own position mayfind it rathertoo extreme.Moreover, as one ofthem Areas of cultural complexityare constantlycon- has suggested,I may be confoundinga statementabout frontedby both an internaland externalcompetition "reality" with my choice of a conceptual approach to that extendbeyond the need forresources. Increas- that reality.I do not wish to argue that the "market" ing energyexpenditures for maintaining an adminis- existedindependently of other institutions in the Bronze trativebureaucracy, establishing networks of com- Age-or, forthat matter, in our own. I onlywish to take munication,increasing agricultural and commodity a position in this ongoing debate, within which I also production,and sustainingthe costs involved in situatethe inquirybelow, and I wish to go a step beyond local conflicts,all of which inevitablyemerge in ef- it to insist that "world market"forces also impingedon fortstoward centralisation, could all lead to expan- local institutionsand policy formationthen as now. sionist tendencies.... Ancient societies were depen- dent upon human, animal, and plant productivity,so the solution to decliningmarginal returns could be ConceptualizingCenter-Periphery and accomplishedby territorialexpansion and the exploi- World System(s) tation of new resources,land, people, etc.... the CentralAsian Bronze Age joins the communityof Some more conceptual writersamong the modernist/ BronzeAge civilisationsin replicatingthis process of formalistshave had recourseto at least some aspects of expandinginto a distantperiphery. world systems theory. A new wave in archaeologi- Nonetheless, they suggest that "conflict,warfare, alli- cal studies is applying center-peripheryand/or world ance, and the manipulation of political power" are as systems analysis to the study of complex societies of importantas the "typical" and "universal" explanation the past (see Rowlands, Larsen, and KristiansenI987; in termsof the economic need fortrade and controlof Champion I989; Chase-Dunn and Hall i99i; Algaze resources.This may be more the effectthan the cause I993; Allen I9992; Woolf 9o90; and Sherratt I99.2, n.d.). of expansion insofaras the "primaryagents" are to be A half-centuryearlier, Childe had alreadywritten that sought in political processes. I am inclined to answer if the economy of the EarlyBronze Age cities could not that political processes may well be the direct agents expand internallybecause of the overconcentrationof but the above-mentionedand other economic impera- purchasingpower, it had to expand externally(Childe tives are more likely to be theircauses. I942:I39). The center sought "to persuade their possess- Many ofthese recentappeals to core-peripherycatego- ors to exchange the needed raw materialsfor manufac- ries and several world systems or to one world system tures."According to Childe, this tradewas fromthe be- are, however,only halting. Some engage in seemingly ginninga political tradebetween elites in the centerand arcane discussions with Wallerstein(I974), who never elites in the in which the center sought to periphery claimed and indeed denies (i 9i) that his "modern induce the peripheryto renderup a surplus.This is how world-system"extends back beyond A.D. I450. Thus, he explained,for instance, the commercialventures and Woolf's (i990) examinationof the Roman empireseems associatedmilitary campaigns of the AkkadianKing Sar- to get lost in Wallerstein'sdistinction between "world- gon I in 2350 B.C. systems" and "world empires,"which I regardas more Recent excavationat Habuba Kabirain northernSyria misleading than clarifying.Notwithstanding its title, of a southernMesopotamian colony "representsa delib- Rowlands, Larsen, and Kristiansen's (i987) book is re- erate Lower Mesopotamian penetrationup the Euphra- plete with assertions about the limitations of core- tes . . . to secure direct control of vital raw materials peripheryanalysis.2 and luxuries from the Syrio-Anatolianregions and to regulateexchange of goods fromthe east and south-east 2. The two last named had, however, become more enthusiastic passing this way" (Moorey i987:44). Hiebert and Lam- about world system categories by i 992, when theypresented papers berg-Karlovsky (I992:3-4) write: in panels with me (and see Kristiansen I993a, b).

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Kohl (i989) invokes the "use and abuse of world sys- and our contemporarymodern capitalist world system. temstheory" only to arguethat "nowhere in the ancient It is the same system,but, as Gills suggests,it has not world may one properlyspeak of 'world' structuresof remainedthe same throughoutits evolution. unequal exchange, of 'world' labor markets,or of eco- The criterionfor identifying a single world systemis nomic dependence and underdevelopment"(Edens and that no part of this systemwould be as it is (or was) if Kohl I993:4). In particular,Kohl emphasizes thatmanu- otherparts were not as they are (or were) (Frank I990; facturingcores had no special advantages,and especially Gills and Frank I990, i99i). The interactionbetween no technological monopoly, over raw-materials- one partof the systemand anothermay be only indirect exportingperipheries and takes pains to deny any "de- or chain-linked,and the various parts may all have re- velopment of underdevelopment"(Frank i966) in the acted to and upon the same global ecological con- ancientworld (Kohl I987a, I989, i992; Edens and Kohl straints.Gills and I (I990:27-28; i99i:84-86) have ex- I993). However, as Ekholm and Friedman(i982:90-9i) plained: point out, "center/peripheryrelations are not necessar- ily definedin termsof their [raw material-manufactures] The captureby elite A here (with or withoutits re- import-exportpattern. . . Center/peripheryrelations distributionhere) of part of the economic surplusex- refer,rather, to differentstructural positions with re- tractedby elite B theremeans that thereis "inter- spectto total accumulation" of capital,from which they penetratingaccumulation" between A and B. This derive differentialadvantages and disadvantages.Else- transferor exchange of surplus connects not only where, Kohl (i992) demonstratesthat three regions in the two elites, but also their"societies"' economic, Transcaucasia cannot be considered in isolation from social, political, and ideological organization.That each otheror fromMesopotamia and Persia to the south is, the transfer,exchange or "sharing"of surpluscon- and regions in European Russia to the north. "Influ- nects the elite A here not only to the elite B there. ences, sometimesinvolving actual movementsof goods Surplustransfer also links the "societies"' respective and peoples, were feltfrom all directions.But such 'in- processes of surplus management,their structures fluences'. . . do not constituteevidence fora world sys- of exploitationand oppressionby class and gender, tem . . . in any Wallersteiniansense" (p. I33). Despite and theirinstitutions of the state and the economy. repeated disclaimers, Kohl is among those who best Thus, the transferor exchange of surplusis not a so- demonstratethe existence, albeit with multiple and cially "neutral" relationship,but rathera profoundly shiftingcores, peripheries, and hinterlands,of "the West systemicone. Throughsharing sources of surplus, Asian EarlyBronze Age world system" (Edens and Kohl the elite A here and the classes it exploits are sys- I993:59-60). temicallyinter-linked to the "mode of production," This shadowboxing with a nonexistent opponent and even more important,to the mode of accumula- seems less than fruitful.It seems better just to use tion in B there.By extension,if part of the surplusof world-systemcategories where and when theycan help elite B here is also traded,whether through equal or clarifythe "reality" of the ancient world. Gills and I more usually unequal exchange,for part of the sur- (i992) emphasize that throughoutmost of historyand plus accumulated by elite C there,then not only B prehistorythere have been sets ofinterlinked hegemonic and C but also A and C are systemicallylinked cores with theirrespective peripheries and hinterlands. throughthe intermediaryB. Then A, B, and C are However,several cores seem to have experiencednearly systemicallyconnected in the same over-archingsys- simultaneous(cyclical?) ups and downs,and theirdowns tem of accumulation. have oftenled to shiftsof hegemony to other,sometimes This means that surplus extractionand accumula- recentlyemerged, cores. Moreover,hegemony may be tion are "shared" or "inter-penetrating"across other- definedas a "hierarchicalstructure of the accumulation wise discretepolitical boundaries.Thus, theirelites ofsurplus among political entities,and theirconstituent participatein each other's systemof exploitation classes, mediated by force.A hierarchyof centersof ac- vis-a-visthe producingclasses. This participation cumulationand polities is establishedthat apportionsa may be througheconomic exchange relationsvia the privilegedshare of surplus,and the political economic marketor throughpolitical relations(e.g., tribute)or powerto this end, to the hegemoniccentre/state and its throughcombinations of both. All of these relations ruling/propertiedclasses" (Gills and Frank 199I). characterizethe millenarianrelationship, for in- Importanthere is the distinctionbetween various an- stance, between the peoples of China and InnerAsia. cient world systemsand the one centralworld system. This inter-penetratingaccumulation thus createsa Thus, forinstance, Algaze (I993) points to two different causal inter-dependencebetween structuresof accu- Bronze Age world systems in what is now West Asia/ mulation and between political entities.Therefore the Middle East. Instead, Gills and I (i990, I99I) and the structureof each componententity of the world Wilkinson (i987) insist that we can identifya single systemis salientlyaffected by this inter-penetration. world system in the Bronze Age, differingonly in that Thus, empiricalevidence of such inter-penetrating Wilkinsondates its originat I500 B.C. and we see it as accumulation throughthe transferor exchangeof well over a millennium earlier.We all agree,morever, surplusis the minimum indicatorof a systemicrela- thatthere is an unbrokenhistorical continuity between tionship.Concomitantly, we should seek evidence the centralcivilization/world system of the BronzeAge that this inter-linkagecauses at least some element

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of economic and/orpolitical restructuringin the re- then spread to encompass much of Afro-Eurasia(Frank spectivezones. I990, I99ia, b; Frank and Gills I992, I992-93, I993; For instance,historical evidence of a fiscal crisis Gills and FrankI990, I99I, i992). ForWallerstein, the in one state or a zone of the world system(e.g., in "modern world-system"emerges only with the rise of third-centuryRome) as a consequence of an ex- WesternEurope at its core afterA.D. I 5oo and still in- change of surpluswith anotherzone would be a cludes much less of the world some centurieslater. Be- clear indicatorof a relationshipat a high level of sys- forethat, for him therehad been several otherregional temic integration.Evidence of change in the mode of "world-systems"in Eurasia, not to mention in the accumulation and the systemof exploitationin one "new world" before its incorporationinto our preex- zone as a functionof the transferof surplusto an- isting world system afterI492. He rejects this notion otherzone would also constituteevidence of sys- ofa mucholder Afro-Eurasian world system ( I 99 I: I 92), temic relations.Evidence of political alliances and! explainingthe differencea hyphenmakes: "My 'world- or conflictrelated to participationin a systemof system'is not a system'in the world' or 'of the world.' transferof surpluswould also be consideredevi- It is a system'that is a world.' Hence the hyphen,since dence of a systemicrelationship. According to these 'world' is not an attributeof that system." For us it is, criteria,if different"societies," empires,and civiliza- in that the very system whose core emergedin West tions,as well as other "peoples," regularlyex- Asia over 5,ooo years ago was not only worldlikethen changedsurplus, then theyalso participatedin the but developed to become world-embracinglater. same world system.That is, "society" A here could 2. Capital accumulation was the motive force of and would not be the same as it was in the absence worldsystem history. Wallerstein (i%9i), Amin(iggi), of its contact with B there,and vice versa. and others consider continuous capital accumulation Trade in high-valueluxury items, not to mention the differentiaspecifica of the "modern world-system," precious metals in particular,may, contra Wal- arguingthat previous "world-systems"were tributary, lerstein(I974, i989), be even more importantthan with politics and ideologyin command. In contrast,we lower-valuestaple tradein definingsystemic rela- see capital accumulation as having played a (ifnot the) tions. This is because the high-value"luxury" trade centralrole in the world system for several millennia is essentiallyan inter-eliteexchange. These commod- (Frankiggib; Gills and FrankI990, i99i). ities, besides servingelite consumptionor accumula- 3. The core-peripherystructure familiar to analystsof tion, are typicallyalso stores of value. They embody dependence,especially in Latin America,and the "mod- aspects of social relationsof production,which repro- ernworld-system" (see FrankI967, i969) is also applica- duce the division of labor,the class structure,and ble to the world systembefore that. the mode of accumulation. Precious metals are only 4. Temporaryregional and perhapsworld-systemwide the most obvious example, but many "luxury" hegemonyalternates with long periodsof rivalryfor he- commoditieshave played a similarrole (Schneider gemony,and hegemonyis associated with cores as ana- I977). Thus, trade in both high-value"luxury" items lyzed in the literatureon the "modern world-system" and staple commoditiesare indicatorsof inter- since i5oo (e.g.,Wallerstein I984, ModelskiI987, Mo- penetratingaccumulation. delski and Thompson i988). In my view, however,this succession of core hegemony and rivalryin a single on "economic" tradeconnections Despite the emphasis world systemalso shiftedaround Eurasia formillennia Gills and I I99I) to cement the world system, (I990, beforei500. Indeed, "of crucial importanceis the fact connections also explicitlyaccepted the world system that the fall of the east precedes the rise of the west" and maintained throughrecurrent "politi- established (Abu-Lughodi989:338) within this same world system cal" conflictamong "societies" emphasized by Wilkin- (Frank Gills and Franki992). a mark iggob, son (i987). The recognitionof such conflictas 5. Economic cycles of alternatingascending (A) and more im- of participationin one world systemis all the descending (B) phases like those of the "modern portantinsofar as much of it has been over "economic" world-system"(Wallerstein I974, I980; FrankI987a, b) At the same resourcesand controlof traderoutes. time, associated with capital accumulation, changes in core- increase trade in metals and/orweapons may military peripheryposition, and alternatinghegemony and ri- and that in turn may enhance control over capacity, valryextend back many centuriesbefore I492. Modern trade itself. sources of economic resources, including "long" cycles are of the more or less so-year-long"Kon- have Moreover,political conflictand shiftingalliances dratieff"type. How farback they go is still in dispute. also been the expressionof the alternationbetween he- Modelskiand Thompson (i992) countI9 ofthem, reach- gemonyand rivalrywithin the world systemand/or its ing back to nearly A.D. iooo, but they recognize that regionalparts. these probablynested in longerones. Gills and I (i992) Thus, as I have suggested elsewhere (Frank i992, have argued that a patternof still much longer cycles Frank and Gills i992), the world system at least since goes back to at least I700 B.C. Of course, these much be characterizedas follows: the Bronze Age can longer"long" cycles may also contain othershorter cy- i. Contra Wallerstein (I974, 1991), our now single cles, includingperhaps cycles of Kondratieff-typedura- worldsystem has historicalcontinuity for at least s,ooo tion. Going (I992) has identifiedKondratieff-type cycles years,emerged with its core in West Asia and Egypt,and in Roman times that were Roman empire/econo-

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mywide. I now believe that we can identifya cyclical B: I200-IOOO B.C. patternof long ascending and descendingphases in a A: iooo-800 B.C. singleworld system back at least throughthe 3d millen- B: 800-550 B.C. nium B.C. Indeed,the synchronizationof these phases is A: 550-450 B.C. a revealingindication of the extentof that world system. B: 450-350 B.C. That distantparts of Afro-Eurasiaexperience economic A: 350-250/200 B.C. expansions and contractions nearly simultaneously B: 250/200-IOO/50 B.C. would seem importantprima facie evidence that they A: IOO/50 B.C.-A.D. I50/200 participatein the same world system. B: A.D. I50/200-500 Similarly,for Edens and Kohl (I993:36I) "the exis- A: A.D. 500-750/800 tence of an ancient world system is postulated by the B: A.D. 750/800-IOOO/IO50 largelysynchronous processes of rise and collapse re- A: A.D. IOOO/IO50-I250/I300 cordedthroughout this area; it is difficultto deny that B: A.D. I250/I300-I450 one here is witnessing historically connected pro- cesses." This synchronismsuggests to them "the action ofan interrelatedset oftransregional social forcesopera- The latest two millennia are reviewed separatelyand tive over vast regionsof westernAsia fromthe mid-3rd with referenceto the emergenceof Europe with little throughthe mid-2nd millennium B.C." (p. 25). change in Frank and Gills (1992-93), with reference to Summarizing,then, we can list the followingamong Central Asia in Frank (i992), and extended to the pres- the identifiable-and researchable-criteriaof participa- ent day with referenceto Latin America in Frank(I993). tion in a single world system: extensive and persistent Wilkinson (i992) and Bosworth (i992), independently tradeconnections, persistent or recurrentpolitical rela- of each other,have since tested and confirmedthe exis- tions with particularregions or peoples, including es- tence and most but not all of the timingof these cycles, pecially core-periphery-hinterlandrelations and hege- bothusing data fromChandler's (I987) census ofgrowth mony/rivalryrelations and processes,and the sharingof and decline in city sizes. Sherrattand Sherratt(iggia) major (and minor)economic, political, and perhapsalso have dated periods duringthe 2d millennium B.C. CO- culturalcycles. inciding almost exactly with our phases. Kristiansen (I993a, b) has similarlydated expansions and contrac- tions in Europe during the ist millennium B.C., and The Identificationof Cycles Randsborg (I99i) has done so for the ist millennium A.D. I shall bringall these and more to bear on an at- We should not, of course, expect to findcomplete syn- temptto refineand where appropriaterevise the cycle chronizationof phases across the entireworld system, phase datingswe have proposed.Doing so may involve especially in its Bronze Age beginnings.It seems quite sacrificingattention to the "hegemonial shifts"that we enoughto be able to demonstrateor even suggest"sub- emphasizedin principlebut shortchangedin practice.In stantial"synchronization of economic good or bad times compensation,perhaps, I will tryto pay more attention over very wide areas that are usually consideredquite to war. Melko and Wilkinson(i992) have made a conve- independent of each other. Moreover, other world- nienttentative accounting of alternating periods of more systemiccyclical characteristicscomplicate the pattern. war and more peace. (Other,more extensivesurveys of Expansion and contractionseem to begin in one part of war perhaps should but here will not be used.) It may the worldsystem, usually in its core,and thento diffuse be useful to compare these with phases of economic fromthere to other parts, including core competitors expansionand contraction.I have elsewhere(I987a) dis- and periphery.Therefore, cyclical decline tendsto mean tinguishedbetween A-phase (expansive) and B-phase(de- the relativeor even absolute decline of the core power. fensive)wars. Since then, Goldstein (I988) and others This decline offersopportunities to rivals, even on the have sought to demonstratethat forthe past 5oo years peripheryof the system,some of which advance both major (thatis, large-scale,"world") wars have occurred absolutelyand relativelyand perhaps even replace the at the ends of the A phases ofKondratieff 5o-year cycles. previous core. Incipient exploratoryexpansions of the Still, taking a longer view, there is theoreticalground world system tend to occur duringperiods of contrac- forarguing that the greatestincidence ofwars-and also tion,and the new areas become the basis of subsequent of large-scalemigratory invasions-should occur during majorinvestment (Frank I978a). These out-of-phaseele- B phases, that is, when enhanced competition for a ments complicate the identificationof past systemwide smaller economic pie generatesmore militaryconflict, cycles, especially in the distantBronze Age, but this is bothinternal/national and external/international.Addi- not to say that therewere no such cycles. tional evidence on the Bronze Age world system and Gills and I (i992) have identifiedthe alternating its cycles includes that of Dales (I976) on Iranian-Indus phases (A, expanding; B, contracting)of world system relationsand Ratnagar( 98i) on "encounters" between cycles fromI700 B.C. to A.D. I700 as follows: the Harappa civilization and points west and, on these points west, Edens (I992) and Edens and Kohl (I993). B: I700-I500/I400 B.C. Chernykh(I992) proposes cycle datingsfor most of Eu- A: I400-I200 B.C. rasia on the basis of the researchof two generationsof

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archaeologistsin the then Soviet Union. Other refer- Mesopotamia,and Iranfrom the sth throughthe 3d mil- ences to more or less precise dates of economic expan- lennium: sions and contractions here and there are scattered During a shorttime around 3000 B.C.,apparently so- throughthe works of various other archaeologistsand phisticated,complex systems. . . appearedacross others.Because of the gap between theirexpertise and an area mine, I oftenprefer to let them speak forthemselves by stretchingfrom the Nile and Aegean in the quotingthem directly. west to centralAsia in the east. It is not impossible that these regionaldevelopments may representa loosely integratedand relatedseries of changes. [P .25] Exploringthe Extent of the World Systemin [These] may in part be attributableto an interplay the Bronze Age between local and externalforces. In this regard,one possible effectof theiroutcome may have been a "primitiveaccumulation of capital" and its role as a Edens and Kohl write,"One must definethe (I993:58) forcefor such change. Such a conclusion would in- spatial parametersof one's world system,while at the clude a measure of "marketforces" in these periods. same time emphasizing that the procedureis to some extentartificial in that the system'sborders were never [P. 30] Between the late fourthand thirdmillennia, a hermeticallysealed and that they expanded or con- faint,highly buffered "market mechanism" may tractedover time. This difficultyaffects the analysis." have operatedfor different periods of time and in dif- Not surprisingly,the fartherback we go in prehistory, ferentregions along these networks.[p. 34] the more difficultit becomes to identifythe changing geographicalextent and temporalcycle ofexpansion and Moorey (i987) pursues the 4th millennium trail from contractionof the world systemwith any kind of confi- Mesopotamia via Syria into Egypt,noting that scholars dence. were alreadyaware of it over a centuryago. He analyzes Edens and Kohl (pp. 58-59) go on to identifythe spa- at least indirectmid-4th millennium exchange via Syria tial limits to which theyrefer as follows: of Gerzean-periodEgyptian gold foroil, silver,and lapis lazuli fromMesopotamia, which must have receivedthe Roughly,the area stretchesfrom the easternMediter- latterfrom farther afield. He also asks but on present ranean in the west to the Indus valley in the east evidence is unable to answer whetherand to what ex- and fromsouthern Central Asia and the greaterCau- tent this long-distanceexchange altered productiveac- casus rangein the northto the Sudan and Arabian tivities in Egypt.He notes the power and status that in the south.... and perhaps peninsula Intriguingly would have followedfrom control of the distributionof millennium the not entirelyaccidentally, [a later] po- importedluxury items throughlocal exchangenetworks litical bordersof the Achaemenid empire,includ- even beforethe Gerzean period. Edens (i 992) reviews ing those areas, like mainland Greece, where the Per- developmentsin southernMesopotamia and Elam, the sians expanded,coincide fairlyclosely with the Central Gulf region including Dilmun = Bahrain, limits of the West Asian EarlyBronze Age world sys- southeasternArabia and Oman, and the Indus region, tem. suggestingthat the roots of the Persian Gulf trade These limits of the Bronze Age world system coincide presumablylie in the 5th millennium B.C. and that fairlyclosely with ours (Frank I990; Gills and Frank maritime products already appear consistentlyin the I990, I99I, i992; Frank and Gills i992). We have ad- Mesopotamian archaeological record for the late 4th vanced the thesis that the present world system was millennium. Certainly by the 3d millennium (Edens bornsome 5,ooo yearsago or earlierin West Asia, North i992:i2o, emphasis mine), and the EasternMediterranean. Our is Africa, argument the Gulf traderepresented a material connectionbe- similar to that of Wilkinson who identifiedthe (i987), tween these fourregions, and potentiallya mecha- birthof "centralcivilization" throughthe establishment nism by which emergingconditions in one region of and relationsbetween and systemic systematic Egypt effectedchanges in others.However ... Mesopota- around but it the date Mesopotamia I500 B.C., pushes mian dealings with lands to the east also involved a of the formationof the world back to at least system rangeof diplomaticexchanges, elite marriages,cul- 3000 B.C. to the confluenceof two by analogy upstream turalhegemony, political clientship,and warfare.To- or moremajor branches to forma singleriver. Moreover, getherwith trade,all these activitiesdefined center- we have suggestedthat already in the 3d millennium peripheryrelations, whose nature and intensity B.C. the world systemincluded not only Egyptand Mes- altered as constituentsocieties changed opotamia but also the Arabian Peninsula, the Levant, Anatolia, Iran, the Indus Valley, Transcaucasia, and -and presumablyvice versa! Referringspecifically to parts of Central Asia. All these regionswere in direct Dilmun, Edens (I 99.2:I29) suggests that its "political "bilateral"or at least indirect"multilateral," systematic economy [had] a dialectical relationship"with Mesopo- and thereforesystemic contact with each other. tamia. Urbanization and political organizationin Bah- Marfoe (i987) examines the emergenceof the Egypt- rain were a functionof the Gulf tradeand in turndeter- Levant-Syria-Anatoliaaxis and its extensionto Arabia, mined Dilmun's demand forcereals fromMesopotamia

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and participationin the transshipmentsupply to Meso- lance. Copper came fromCyprus and the Levant as well potamia of copperfrom elsewhere. as Oman, Iran,and Afghanistan.The rarertin came from Thus, relations among otherwise distinctivebut re- Anatolia,the Caucasus, and Iran. Scatteredwere copper, lated and thereforepresumably mutually affectedre- tin, and gold ores, as well as lead ores, which were gions have leftmarks in the archaeologicalrecord from sources of silver, the latter rarelyavailable alone and the 4th and even the sth and perhaps earliermillennia found mainly in Anatolia (Marfoe I987). Wood came B.C. Many were based on differencesand complementar- fromMeluhha on the Indus, Magan in Oman, and Dil- ities in natural resourceendowments, which generated mun as well as the Siwaliks and Punjab. Egyptimported trade,migration, invasion, and in generaldiffusion. Kohl wood fromthe Levant. Egyptand/or Nubia in turnex- (I978:475) asks rhetoricallyif the "world" system al- portedgold, and so did Arabia, Armenia,and probably ready stretchedfrom the Balkans and the Nile to the the Indus Valley. The latter exportedtimber, copper, Indus in the 4th millennium,and Oates (I978:48i) reads gold, ivory,stones, and beads to Mesopotamia and im- the archaeologicalrecord to display "international"ho- ported food, textiles, silver, and earthenware.Steatite rizons fromat least the middle of the sth millennium vessels were also traded,apparently both as containers B.C. onwards. of othergoods and as tradeitems in themselves.Pottery Kohl (I989:227) notes that "profit-motivatedtrade ex- did not travel over verylong distances,presumably be- tendedfar beyond the political bordersof any state and cause of its weight,which made cloth and reed contain- connected... [all of these] into a single world system." ers more suitable. Foreign trade in the mid-3d millennium, he argues Ratnagaralso itemizes tradein precious commodities (I978:466), was "an exceedinglycomplex process, in- such as ivory,steatite, carnelian beads, dice, bird figu- volvingthe movementof finishedluxury commodities, rines,conch shells, monkey figurines,pearls, and lapis raw materials, and staple products,and was probably lazuli (the latter froma single source in Afghanistan). conductedboth by state agents and by privateentrepre- Trade in silver seems to have had a special role as a neurs.... It does show that developments in southwest- medium of exchange, unit of accounting,and store of ern Asia were not limited to the alluvial plains and ... value. Archaeological finds of weights and seals from widelyseparated communities were linked by complex, distantlocations also attest to widespreadtrading net- well-definedexchange networks." The alluvial plains of works,using overland,riverine, coastal, and sea trans- Mesopotamia are and were notoriouslypoor in metals port,individually and in combination.Evidence survives and timber,which they had to importfrom often very ofindividual shipments of 20 tons ofcopper, and exports distant sources. Following Larsen (I974, I976, I987), Al- fromAssur to one small town have been estimated at len (i992) draws a map centeredon Assur, which im- some Ioo,ooo textiles over a so-year period. A useful portedgold and silver fromAnatolia and tin and other summary and mapping of Bronze Age long-distance metals from Afghanistan,while exportingtextiles to tradein and between the West Asian and EasternMedi- both and reexportingCentral Asian Afghaniand/or Ira- terraneanregions is providedby Klengel (I978). Signifi- nian tin to Anatolia. It also importedtextiles and per- cantly,the regions referredto here are almost entirely haps grain, mainly wheat and barley, from southern to the south of the east-westmountain ranges that run Mesopotamia and paid forit with gold, silver and other across much of Asia. metals importedfrom Anatolia and Afghanistan.Allen Chernykh(I992) argues, however,that the develop- (personalcommunication, September i992) points out, ment of metallurgywas an increasinglyinterconnected however,that he centredhis map on Assur not because and sharedprocess throughoutmost of Eurasia northof it was a center-it was a "semi-periphery"-butbecause these rangesand concludes that"the worldsystem itself we do not know where its center/corewas. Mesopota- has turnedout to be far more extensive than appeared mia, in turn,exported wool, textiles,and grain to vari- earlier"(p. 304). He also suggeststhat "fromat least the ous parts of the even more resource-poorPersian Gulf. fifthmillennium B.C. until the thirdmillennium B.C., This regionwas a fulcrumfor and dependenton trade the peoples of the EMA [EarlyMetal Age] culturalzone with Oman and with the Indus region,which in turn seem to have sharedthe same developmentalcycle: the had connectionswith Central Asia. formationand decline ofcultures at variouslevels gener- Edens (I990), reviewing the evidence for Indus- ally coincided" (p. xxi). In his closingchapter, he returns Arabian interactionduring the Bronze Age, mentions to "the contemporaneityof the decline and formation timber,textiles, and foodstuffsand surveysthe archaeo- ofvarious systemsover the vast expanses ofEurasia and logical recordfor trade in ceramics,glyptic seals, metal the Old World as a whole . . . [when] a whole chain of objects, mostly copper/bronzecelts or flat axes, stone similar systemsarose almost simultaneously,from the weights,beads, softstone vessels, raw materials(mostly Atlantic to the Pacific: the European,Eurasian, Cauca- only transshippedthrough Harappan hands), semipre- sian and CentralAsian provinces,along with othersout- cious stones, ivory,tin, copper,gold, and silver froma side the U.S.S.R." (p. 302). wide varietyof sources; shell; bitumenasphalt; and bi- In the 5th and 4th millennia B.C. there was already otic formssuch as zebu and sorghum. "highlydeveloped commercial exchange" and the export Ratnagar(i98i) concentrateson the traderelations be- of "huge quantities" of copper and gold frommining tween Mesopotamia and the Indus Valley but also dis- and metallurgicalcenters in Thrace and the Carpatho- cusses other trade,partly administered and partlyfree- Balkan regionto oreless consumerregions in Moldavia

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and the western Ukraine and on the Dnieper and the southward (as Dale suggests) and eastward instead. Volga (p. 50). With the significantdrop of metal produc- Friedman(i992) links the latterwith the emergenceof tion in the earlyBronze Age, the "disappearance[of this the tradingand migratorysystem between the Indian complex] . . . was as unexpected as its appearance" (p. East Coast and SoutheastAsia and the Lapita expansion 5'). Kohl (i984a) suggeststhat the archaeologicalrecord into Melanesia and Polynesia. Does this implytheir in- bespeaks some formof prehistoric"silk route" connec- corporationinto this worldsystem already in the Bronze tion with China 2,000 years beforethe classical one. Age? Chinese scholars also referto the same even earlier(see Frank i992a). Chernykh(i992) examines interconnectedbut shift- Bronze Age Cycles in the 3d Millennium B.C. ingpredominantly east-west trade nets involvingmetals and Earlier and theirproducts across much of Eurasia northof the mountainranges. Elsewhere ( I99I:36) he writesof an A marked economic decline has been noted in various abundance of metal findsin sites thousandsof kilome- partsof West Asia fromthe middleof the 3d millennium tersfrom the sources.However, and despitethe political B.C. Edens and Kohl (I993:23-24) note that othershave restrictionof his research to the formerSoviet Union, also observed "a set of fundamental synchronisms he also offersat least glimpses of earlier north-south across much ofwestern Asia. . . in easternIran, Central trade relations with Anatolia, Iran, and Afghanistan Asia, and the Indus ... in the mid-3rdmillennium B.C." across the mountains. These, in turn,would also have and "the collapse of these expressionsof urbancomplex linked the northernEurasian tradingand migratorysys- society,now extendingthroughout Iran, into the Gulf tem into the West Asian, Gulf,Arabian, and NorthAfri- and, in a modifiedway, also southernMesopotamia, by can ones. the openingcenturies of the 2nd millenniumB.C." Kohl Do we then have two world systemshere, the more (I978) quotes Oppenheim's (I954:I2) observationsabout "traditional"one south of the mountains and the one Ur to the effectthat in the late 3d millennium"a process Chernykhclaims to see north of them? Or were they of gradualand slow restrictionof the geographicalhori- part and parcel of a single one? At least two kinds of zon marks the entiredevelopment of commercial con- evidence supportthe latterview: the evidence of exten- nections. We may well assume that the frequencyand sive and recurrentnorth-south trade, migration and in- intensityof contacthad reacheda peak earlyin the third vasion, and cultural/technologicaldiffusion across what millenniumB.C." Jawad(i965) insists on the ecological, Chernykh(1I99I:35) calls the "Caucasian bridge"from economic, social, and political differencesof northern Anatolia eastward and the substantial coincidence of fromsouthern Mesopotamia at this time,but thesewere timingof the economic cycles we have identifiedfor the apparentlyinsufficient to exclude the northfrom this south and those Chernykhhas establishedfor the north. same (cyclical?)process. Accordingto Kohl (i984a:242), This temporal coincidence may be traceable to eco- logical and/or other systemic commonalities, but it "International"relations changed over the greater is not very likely to be the result of chance. There is, Middle East duringthe firsthalf of the thirdmillen- then, evidence forthe existence of one immense Afro- nium with the collapse of the proto-Elamite"hege- Eurasian world systemin the earlyBronze Age. One of mony" in southernand Central Iran . .. accordingto the importanttasks of researchand analysis is therefore archaeologicalevidence fromCentral Asia, Baluchi- to inquire into its origin and to explore its (cyclical?) stan, southeasternIran and the Indus Valley ... expansion and transformationover time. across the Iranian plateau, in the Gulf area (particu- Much ofthe developmentof the outlyingcivilizations larlythe Oman peninsula),Mesopotamia, the Anato- in China, India, Persia,Mesopotamia, Europe, and so on, lian plateau and the Caucasus.... But it is unclear can only be accounted for in terms of their relations what happened to foreignrelations in the later third with the peoples of CentralAsia, many of whom, more- and early second millennia with the collapse of Ak- over, migratedinto East, South, and West Asia. I have kadian rule and the subsequent rise of and demise of arguedthat instead of regardingCentral Asian waves of the highlycentralized Ur III dynasty.Dales (I977) migration,often also bearingadvances in productiveand explained the collapse of proto-urbansettlements warfaretechnology, as intrusions on the surrounding throughoutthe Indo-Iranianborderlands (during the "civilized" societies,we should considerthe possibility so-called urban phase) as due to the cessation of thatthe "pulse ofAsia" (to recall the phraseof Hunting- long-distanceoverland trade and developmentof di- ton [I907]1)was at its center(Frank i992a). Yet the cen- rect maritimetrade between Mesopotamia and the tralityof Central Asia is all too neglected. Much the Indus Valley. His theoryonly representsan un- same may be said, however, of Southeast Asia as the provenhypothesis but deservesserious consider- fulcrumof trade, invasion, migration, and culturaldiffu- ation. sion throughthe Indian Ocean, the South China Sea, and the Pacific Ocean, perhaps already in Bronze Age Dales (I976) finds a definiterhythm in trade patterns times but certainlysince the Iron Age. Indeed, there betweenthe Iranian Plateau and the Indus Valley in the is some evidence that with the early-2d-millennium 3d millenniumB.C. Strongtrade and culturalinteraction decline of Harappan relations to the west they turned betweenCentral Asia, northernPakistan, eastern Persia,

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and pointswest characterizedthe firsthalf of the millen- B.C. and even more spectaculardecline around or after nium. For instance,Turkmenian Altyn Tepe flourished 2000 B.C. Urbanizationin southernTurkmenistan from but then declined. At the same time, the AfghanSistan 2600 to 2200 B.C. was followed by population shiftsor site of Shahr-iSokhta was destroyedand abandoned,if dispersioneastward fromthere and other Transcauca- only because the main stream of the Helmand River sian areas. changedcourse; its Helmand Valley civilizationhad "to- Ratnagar(i98i) summarizesthe "relativechronology tally collapsed by 2500 B.C." However, the reasons may of the third millennium" for Barbar, Umm an-Nar, also have been transregional.Dales refersto widespread Shahdad,Yahya, Shahr-iSokhta, Bampur 5-6, Kulli, and abandonmentof sites fromCentral Asia throughSistan, Harappa. The period of maximum recordedactivity be- southernAfghanistan, and northernBaluchistan and an gins between the Mesopotamian periodsEarly Dynastic almost total breakin traderoutes and spheresof interac- I and II, in 2750 B.C., forevery site/region except Shahr-i tion across their trade routes and then a shiftalso of Sokhta and Harappa, where it begins about one to one maritimetrade patterns around 2500 B.C. and a half centurieslater. These periods of activityend These observationswould imply a half-millennium- mostlywithin the Mesopotamian EarlyDynastic III. In long A phase duringthe firsthalf of the 3d millennium fiveof these instances,the fall-offdate is between 2450 followedby a half-millennium-longB phase. Can we re- and 2350 B.C., the latterfor Kulli alreadyin the Akka- fine these 3d-millenniumphase lengths and dates to dian period. For the others,mostly farther east, the pe- make them more consistent with the approximately riod of decline falls between the Akkadian and the post- one-quarter-millennium-longA and B phases that we Akkadian period,around 2250 B.C. Only Harappa, still have observedfrom near the beginningof the 2d millen- farthereast, continues until 2ooo or perhapseven i8oo nium? To start with, it may be importantto pursue and Barbaron the Gulf until i800 B.C. However, "the Dale's observationthat the cycle phases seem to have archaeologicallyattested trade contacts of the Harappa moved fromwest to east. However, the phase marker and Mesopotamian civilizationsare the most numerous was not absolutelysynchronous but earlierin West Asia in the ED III and Akkadian periods,"from 25oo to 225o than in Central Asia and, finally, the Indus Valley. B.C. (Ratnagari98i:204). ElsewhereRatnagar (n.d.) notes Though Dales does not say so, this phase markerseems "dramatic"declines ofboth the sown area and the yields to begineven fartherwest and earlier,namely, in Egypt. of wheat in the Lagash area of Mesopotamia beginning Thus, there may have been a shorter(half-millennial) between 24oo and 2IO0 B.C. and continuinguntil I700 cycle whose phases were not altogethersynchronous B.C. She also notes the time of troublesin Egyptfrom over the entirearea. Moreover,if this cycle was already 2250 to 2035 B.C., when famine and foreignincursions operationalin the 3d millennium,then it may also have made everyPharaoh's hold on power short-lived.Since existed,at least incipiently,in the 4th millenniumB.C. the invaders included especially Libyans, the implica- Perhapsthe firsttwo or more centuriesof the 3d mil- tion is thatthey were included in or enteringthis world lenniummight be regardedas an A phase. However,the system. period 3000-2800 B.C. saw yet anotherof the 2oo-year- Ekholm (I980:I65) has observedthat long waves of migrationout of Central Asia that have in the period around 2.300-2.200 B.C. thereoccurred been notedby Gimbutas (1 980, I 98 1), amongothers, and serious economic crises that affectedmuch of the Chernykh(1I992) and I (FrankI992a) associatethese Middle East and the EasternMediterranean. Every- waves with B phases of world-systemwidecrisis. Albeit where thereis indication of decline in quality and referringonly to the Scandinavian region,Kristiansen quantityof productionthat was usually state monop- (i982:260) notes "disintegration"and the cessation of oly and orientedto export.Correlatively, there was interregionalexchange between 32oo and 2800 B.C. He an increase of local violence oftenculminating in also suggests,however, that what he calls the "domi- obliteratingwarfare and destruction.These large- nant trends"of several "time-space cycles" at the local scale crises are oftenexplained by barbarianinva- level "constitutea regionalcycle" and that severalsuch sions, but it is just as likely that the violence is in- regionalcycles in turn"may constitutedominant inter- ternal,the only migrantsbeing "capital" and labor regionalor 'global' cycles" (p. 262). Chernykh(1I992:305) forcedout of theirhomes by acute survival notes destabilization throughoutthe Early Metal Age prob- lems. The collapse of "supralocal" space leads to communitiesfarther north in Eurasia duringthe second acceleratingcompetition between and withinpolit- quarterof the 3d millennium.The 27th to 25th century ical units, that is, to warfareand intensifiedclass was a time of "major culture-historicalchange . . . re- struggle. flectedin various spheres (political,ethnocultural, pro- ductive and technological),themselves clearly interre- Melko and Wilkinson(i992) note periodsof heightened lated" (p. 98). Change was manifestin western Asia, warfarein and around Mesopotamia in the 27th, 25th, Asia Minor, and the more northerlyregions of the Cir- and 23d centuries (but none yet in the other regions). cumponticarea. "The period of greatestdisruption was Urbanizationin southernAfghanistan also culminated probablythe twenty-sixthto twenty-fifthcenturies B.C. after2500 and abruptlydisappeared after 2ooo B.C. Set- (on the basis of a series of calibratedradiocarbon dates)1" tlement in southwestern and southern Iran peaked (p. 305). Edens and Kohl (I993) note that in the Indus around and/ordeclined afterthe second half of the 3d area massive urban growthoccurred from 2600 to 2500 millennium.In and aroundOman on the Arabianpenin-

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sula peak copper production,best documented at the may also be observed during the 3d millennium. On Maysar I site, was late in the 3d millennium. Harappa's Central Asian frontier,late-3d-millennium These scatteredpieces of chronologicalevidence may settlementsappear in Bactria,Margiana, and the Kopet not sufficeto identifysystemwide cycles duringthe 3d Dagh piedmontin areas perhapspreviously less settled. millennium.All attestonly to somethingof an A phase New evidence shows that, except perhaps in the last- duringthe firsthalf and a major B phase spreadingfrom named, urban settlementonly shiftslocation through west to east throughoutthe West Asian world system the late BronzeAge and increasesinto the IronAge. Ac- in the late 3d millenniumB.C. Shennan (I993) also finds cordingto Kohl(I984, I987a), thisevidence contravenes cyclicalincreases or decreasesin populationand occupa- the previous impressionof an urban collapse. He also tion which last 5oo yearsor more each fromthe late 4th arguesfor the probableexpulsion of Harappans because to the late 3d millenniumin Central Europe. However, of competitionfor minerals from Afghanistan.Turk- much but not all of CentralEurope and the Danube Val- menia, southernAfghanistan including Sistan, and the ley experienced(B-phase?) major population decline in Indus Valley had had widespreadcontacts and interde- the firsthalf of the 3d millennium. These variations pendenciesfrom the end of the 4th to the middle of the largelycoincide over so wide an area that he regardsit 3d millennium,and formalmaritime trade linked the as unlikely that local factorswere responsible.On the Indus Valley and southernMesopotamia via the Persian otherhand, he also identifiesregional trendvariations Gulf. The Kulli, the closest westerlyneighbors of the and even opposites (thatis, A phases) among regions. Indus Valley Harappans,may have played a middleman Yet it seems importantto try also to suggest some role in this trade.Moreover, according to Shaikh (i992), shortercyclical pattern, even ifonly in a tentative sortof The pre-Indusconnections were all overlandwith and to incite othersto refineand revise it. As Kohl way Afghanistan,Iran and Turkmenia ... [and]gave rise "it is importantto realize that thereis no remindsus, to intermediarysettlements in Afghanistanand accepted or orthodoxSoviet datingsystem" universally Iran-such as Tepe Yahya, Shahr-iSokhta and Mun- I98i :xxviii). Elsewhere as well, "3rd-millennium (Kohl digak. All these threesites lost theirimportance and . . . changes a lot fromyear to year, depending dating came to theirlast stages of theirlife when Mohenjo- has foundwhat most recently"(Mitchell Allen, on who darians or the Mature Indus people began to forge communication). I shall nonetheless hazard personal ahead in theircivilizational advance by capturing of cycle datingscheme with these and other some kind the world trademarket of that time. They now di- cautions in mind. On the basis of the evidence reported rectlyapproached the mineral source areas. [p. I9] above, I would suggest a B phase in the 27th to 26th centuriesto the west and the 26th to 25th centuriesto It was the directcontact with the Gulf countries the east. That the 26th and 25th centuries witnessed which led to a new phase of expandingtrade and con- some recoveryis suggestedby the markedactivity Rat- sequent enrichmentby . .. Mohenio-dariansas well nagar reportsin the more easterly regions beginning as . . . the people of the Gulf. [p. 2I] around 2750 B.C. and ending mostly around 2400 B.C., There was a shiftin the traderoutes fromnorth to but Melko and Wilkinson registerincreased warfarein south in this period,and greaterreliance . . . on sea Mesopotamia in the 25th century.Edens writesme (per- routes. [p. sonal communication,August 25, i992) that the evi- 1I dence suggests a 3d-millenniumA phase, at least for The coast fromMesopotamia down the Gulf all westernAsia, beginningaround 2600/2500 B.C. Urban along the Arabian sea to Gujarat is litteredwith growthin the Indus Valley and trade between it and sites bearingevidence of the Mature Indus period. other regions also expand soon thereafter.However, [P. 31 Edens finds the end of this phase rather "arbitrary." The Oman sites not only point to connectionswith Nonetheless,I would suggestthat anotherB phase may the Indus valley, but theyhave a markedrelation- have begun after2400 (per Ratnagar)and/or 2300 (per ship with southeasternIran sites. [p. I21 Ekholm). The 23d centuryagain had heightenedMeso- potamianwarfare in the Melko and Wilkinsontable, and The rise of the Gulf sites seems to coincide with the this B phase would seem to last until toward the end rise of Indus cities in the east. [p. 6] of the 3d millennium.Unfortunately, Chandler's (i987) The importantthing is that sea connectionswere ev- data on the numberof cities and theirsizes as recorded ident only in the Mature period,neither before nor by Bosworth(i992) and Wilkinson (i992) are quite in- afterit. [p. 31 conclusive forthis earlyperiod. Wilkinson follows Gills and me (i992) in beginningwith the 2d millennium. It was because of the Indus-Mesopotamiacontacts The data extend to 2250 B.C., with eight cities in the that therewas a rise [of]intermediate sites along the region,reporting nine in 2000 B.C. and eight again in Persian Gulf making them international.[p. 2] i800 B.C. plus one in India (forwhich, however,none were recordedduring its Harappan-civilizationprime in My only doubt would be whetherit was the Harappans' the 3d millennium). directcontact with the Gulf thatbrought expansion and Some notable shiftsin settlement,trade, and perhaps wealth as Shaikh says or whether it was not general "centers of gravity,"if not center-peripheryrelations, economic expansion that broughtabout the contact.

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In the Gulf region,settlement and economic activity search and analysis mightalso assuage Kohl's continu- seem to have shiftedfrom the Arabian coast to Bahrain; ing doubts about core-peripheryrelations. Sherrattand the evidence here includes the growthof Qala' to some Sherratt(iggia) begin this task forthe late 3d millen- 5,000 and the exportof grainstaples fromMesopotamia nium but concentrateon the 2d. to Dilmun in the closing three centuriesof the millen- nium. Crawford(i99i:i5o) suggests that Gulf states' mercantilerivalry in and forthe carryingtrade between 2d-MillenniumCycles Sumer and Oman as well as with Meluhha may help explainthis shift.As we have seen, forEdens (I992:I27- The extentand shape of the world systemat the begin- 29) population growth,urbanization, and social com- ning of the 2d millennium and its expansion/contrac- plexityin Dilmun on the Gulf are probablycausally and tion and hegemonial shiftsthrough the late BronzeAge dialecticallyrelated to Mesopotamia, with which it ex- remain less clear than would be desirable. Kohl changedcopper forcereals. These became not a luxury (1987a:23) contends that there was no direct contact but a staple importinto the Gulf duringthe last centu- fromone end to the other-indeed, that"there was not a ries of the 3d millennium.The Barbarregion is the only singleBronze Age world system."A late-3d-millennium one in Ratnagar'saccount whose hightide persistedinto gravitationalshift to the Gulf region,which continued the 2d millennium.The period 2000-I750 B.C., that is, into the 2d millennium,has alreadybeen noted. In Mes- in the nextA phase, "was the periodof the Dilmun trade opotamia, activityshifted northward and became more par excellence," accordingto Edens (I 992: I32). By then, decentralized,with many smaller political units, until however,the Indus connection seems already to have the rise of Babylon. Then "the centralarea of the Near languished;only a few archaeologicalfinds of Harappan East, fromthe Zagros to the Mediterranean,and from origin in the Gulf region date from this later period the Gulf to the Taurus and sometimes beyond to the (Edens iggo). Afterthat Gulf trade "greatlydiminished Black Sea, appearsto have formeda naturalunit . .. and in volume and the nature of goods exchanged. .. forat therewas a developed networkof routes and exchanges least several centuries" (Edens I992:I32). within the region. Egypt is conspicuously absent" In conclusion of this review of the 3d millennium (Larsen i987:53). However, there may have been con- B.C., we may ask with Ratnagar to what extent the nections with Cyprus and/or the Aegean. Kristiansen eclipse of the sea trade may explain the collapse of the (I993a) goes farther:"Regional interactionbetween em- Harappan urban system(I98I:25 3): pires of productive irrigationagriculture in the Near East, commercial city states in the Mediterranean,no- If the efficientand wide-reachingurban systemof mads to the north,and ploughlandagriculture and min- the Harappans was generatedby trademechanisms eral exploitationin temperateEurope created a rather and dominatedby a merchantclass become powerful unique world system fromappr. 2,000 B.C. onwards." by its successfulparticipation in an extensivetrade He notes an "intensificationof connections" and "a re- network,and if the "markets" forthis mercantileur- gional hierarchyof indirect C/P [core-periphery]rela- ban systemdwindled, . . . the wealth and power of tions." If we follow Chernykh,however, this "unique rulerswould have been seriouslyaffected. Repercus- world system" and the "intensificationof connections" sions of a fall in the quantum of trade could also extendedall the way across Eurasia northof the moun- have been feltby the ruralpopulation [ifonly tains as well. On the otherside, we have seen thatwith throughthe move back to the countrysideof newly the decline of Harappan civilization the Indus Valley unemployedurban dwellers.This may be how Harap- seems to drop out for about a millennium,at least in pan civilization]was phased into oblivion. regularcontacts with the west, althoughthere is some The datingof the decline and fall of Harappa is still in evidenceof a turnsouthward and eastwardthat has been disputebetween the late 3d and the early2d millennium linked with the emergenceof trade and migrationbe- B.C. Carbon-I4 dates suggestan end between 2ioo and tween the Indian East Coast and SoutheastAsia and the 2000 B.C. (Ratnagari98i:2o6), that is, duringthe end of Lapita expansion into Melanesia and Polynesia. what appears to be a more generalizedB phase. In that Gills's and my (i992) cycle phases began with a B case, perhaps Harappa was "phased into oblivion" also phasefrom I700 to I500/I400 B.C., and thisimplies a as a consequence of this late-3d-millenniumB phase previousA phase, especially ifthe 3d millenniumended throughoutmost of the world system in West Asia. with a B phase. The evidence, however,is ambiguous, "The evolution of the Indus Valley civilization must and confirmationor disconfirmationof phase datingsby be explained historically:that is, by referenceto those recourse to Chandler's city census remains uncertain largerprocesses which all interactingsocieties of West until much later in the 2d millennium. His census Asia were experiencingin the latter half of the third showsnine cities in 2ooo B.C. andin i800 B.C. However, millenniumB.C." (Kohl I987b: 356). a cityis added in India that Wilkinsonregards as spuri- It would of course be desirablefor others better quali- ous; it comes at the time of the extinctionof the Harap- fiedthan I to refinethe economic cycle and explore its pan civilization,which may have continuedits decline relationto shiftsin hegemonyand who occupied which duringthese firsttwo centuriesof the 2d millennium. musical chairs within the world system in West Asia The decline of (southern)Mesopotamia is markedby the and elsewhere duringthe 3d millennium B.C. Such re- loss of threeof its six cities in the Chandlercensus, but

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cities in Egyptincreased fromthree to five. The A and disintegrationof hegemonies was accompaniedby inevi- B phases and theirdating that we have suggestedare at table economic disruptionsand the "disappearance... least not disconfirmedby evidence fromChandler's city of all vestigesof social reform-or experiments-of the census. Beforethe ratherfirm I200 B.C. date forthe final Hammurabiera" afterhis death about I750 B.C. (Oppen- crisis of the 2d millennium,however, the city census heimI977: I 5 9). Melkoand Wilkinson (i992) referto an data neitherinspire additional confidencein our dating "implosion" in Mesopotamia but not until the i6th- noroffer much guidancefor a definitealternative dating. I5th centuryB.C. Silver (I985:I6I) notes the onset of a A Phase, 2000-I800/I750 B.C. Beginningaround 2ooo "Dark Age" decline ofurban life, but his laterand rather B.C., a region centeredaround Bactria and Margiana in "precise" dating from i6oo to I347 B.C. is difficultto Central Asia flourishedfor some 250 years, ending in accept. i8oo-I700 B.C. (Hiebertand Lambert-KarlovskyI992). Bosworth and Wilkinson both find that Chandler's (Accordingto Kohl, as I have pointed out, the evidence citycensus confirmsa B phase duringthis period,espe- now disputes the thesis of a total collapse of urban set- cially in Egypt,which drops fromfive major cities in tlementthere in the next period.)The Gulf tradeflour- i8oo B.C. to three in i600 B.C., and in India. Increases ished in the period,and economic activityincreased in are registered,however, for Asia Minor and the Aegean Cilicia and Cyprus and then also in Crete and the Ae- towardthe end of this phase. The Sherratts(IggIa:369- gean, where Minoan civilization began developing in 70), however,witness in more westerlyregions "an in- close economic and other (core-periphery?)relations crease of scale and tempo, with the correspondingfric- with Egyptand the Levant. More of the Mediterranean tion of growth,between I700 and 1400 B.C. . . . the and its coasts were incorporatedinto the world system. political consequences of [which] were to create new, Larsen (i987) describesa tradingsystem centered on the expansive power-centreson the edges of the sytem, middleman role of the relativelysmall Mesopotamian which soughtto achieve independenceand extendtheir city of Assur, which flourishedapparently indepen- controlover the centre."This increasein scale, which is dentlyduring the igth centuryB.C. and then was ab- not uncommon in periods of crisis in the modernworld sorbedinto a largerpolitical unit until Hammurabiuni- system(Frank I978a), helped set the stage forthe next fied the whole area around Babylon. Harappan A phase. civilization,whose decline in the previousB phase has A Phase, I600/Ioo500-I200 B.C. Chernykh(I992:3o6) been noted above, may, however, also have hung on regardsthe periodfrom the i6th to the i2th centuryB.C. longer.Ratnagar (i98i:207) considersa possible end not as one of "stability":"A whole chain ofnew metallurgi- in 2000 but aroundi800 B.C. The laterdate would be cal provinces,stretching from the Pacificto the Atlantic, during(and mightraise some doubt about) this A phase, was formed.The technologyof castingthin-walled tools and so mightthe 2000-I970 B.C. wars of unificationin and weapons and the productionof tin-bronzesspread Egyptand perhapsthe Sumerianwars in the Mesopota- explosivelythrough this entire zone." In the i6th and mian regionin the igth centuryB.C. isth centuries,from the Dnieper eastward therewas a B Phase, I800/o75o-I600/I500 B. C. Chernykh sharp increase in the amount of mining in new copper (I992:305) remarkson "the destabilizationof ... ethno- and tin ore areas in the Urals, Kazakhstan,and the Altai cultural and political systems . . . between the eigh- and on both sides of Lake Baikal. "The huge scale of teenthcentury B.C. and the sixteenthcentury, when ob- miningin a numberof the mines is astonishing"(p. I 90). vious signs of universal cultural crises and mass For instance, 2 million metrictons of ores were mined migrationscan be observed . .. throughoutthe eastern and some ioo,ooo tons of copper were smelted at just European steppe and forest-steppe"and in the eastern two Kazakh copper-oredeposits (p. I93). In the eastern Mediterraneanand on the simultaneouscollapse in dis- Ukraineand the northernDonets basin therewere "spe- tant China, followed later in the i6th centuryby the cialized settlementsof professionalminers, metallur- emergenceof the Shang state. "A whole chain of cul- gists and metalworkers"(p. I93). There was a i,ooo-km tures disintegratedand new ones were formedin their trade route for tin (p. I94), and copper ore was trans- place" (p. I90). ported300 km throughthe mountains (p. 202). "Steppe There is evidence of decline fromthe i8th century and forest-steppepeoples had a uniformeconomy and B.C. elsewhereas well. Accordingto Edens,the Gulfwas were veryclosely connectedto one another.Cultures, it apparentlyin a period of decline; maritime trade had appears,were usually not isolated but consistedof open virtuallyceased by about I750 B.C. andremained inter- systems:economic, ideological and kin-basedintercon- rupted for several centuries,"marking a period of re- nections and exchangewere not only possible but, very gional social disruption"(Edens I992:I32). Simultane- probably,actively encouraged" (p. I94). Chernykh(pp. ous crises of linked hegemonieshave also been noted in 25 6-6i) also reportsincreased interaction between Eur- Gills's and my account, among them the conquests of asian and European provinces between the I4th and Anatolia and Mesopotamia by the Hittitesand Kassites I2th centuries. while the Hurriansand Hyksos overranthe Levant and An A phase of the Tumulus culturein North-Central Egypt.This was anotherof the recurrent(cyclical?) 200- Europe between i6oo but especially I 500 and I250 B.C. year-longperiods of massive migrationprimarily but not also appears in diagramsby Kristiansen(I993a). In Eu- only out of Central Asia that I have noted in my study rope,Kristiansen (I99I:30) notes"an expansionphase. of the latter(Frank I992a). This period of simultaneous Suddenly,within a generationat about I500 B.C. the

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fully fledgedchiefdom structureemerged in northern mainland centresbut many under less centralised Europe . . . [in] a period of conspicuous wealth [that] control.... Not all this activity,however, should be lasted, with some ups and downs, from i0oo to IIOO imaginedas the peaceful growthof commerce.Fac- B.C., but, alreadyin the later part,. . . declined." Kristi- torsof internationalcompetition are evidentin the ansen (I993a) also points to expansion from i500 on- insecurityof the Levant revealedby Amarna let- ward,along with a shiftin tradeof northern Europe with ters . . . [and] Egyptand the Hittitesclashed at theMediterranean area froman easternaxis via the Dan- Kadesh in I284. ube and the Black Sea towards the westernMediterra- nean and Italy. Thus this A phase, which Gills and I dated only from For the Sherratts(I99Ia:370), also, "these two centu- I400 to I200 B.C., probablybegan at least one and per- ries [I400-I200 B.C.] are somewhat arbitrarilyseparated haps two centuries earlier. Bosworth interpretsChan- fromthe precedingphase, and mark the climax of the dler's citydata to "lend strongsupport" to the proposal palatial trading system and the political frameworks of this period as an A phase. Wilkinson treats it as a withinwhich it was carriedout." Along with Gills and "rally,"'despite some misfittingdata, and notes fourpo- me, they underline the expansion of the Hittites and litical-economic"peaks" in the period I600-I400 B.C. Assyriansbut also a major phase of urbanizationin Cy- and six peaks in the succeeding period I400-I200 B.C. prus,the importanceof Rhodes, and a shiftfrom Crete However, from I360 B.C. to 1200 B.C., the number of to the Greek mainland. They also remarkon the related major cities declines by one, and there is one less city "intensive diplomatic activity." Similarly, Liverani in the Aegean/Mediterranean,Asia Minor, Egypt,and (I987:67) reports an exceptionally high frequencyof the Levant. The beginningsof the introductionof iron, treatiesin the isth to I3th century.Kassite Babylonia especiallyin weapons but also in tools, initiatedthe be- was, accordingto Edens, in its phase of greatestprosper- ginningsof a major transitionand the finalcrisis of the ity,these centuriesmarking the longestperiod of politi- BronzeAge. cal integrationand economic prosperityin its history. B Phase, 1200-I000 B.C. Gills and I (i992) have called New cities were foundedand old ones expanded.Babylo- attentionto Childe's (I942:i85) beliefthat "the Bronze nia extendedits administrationover Dilmun and main- Age in the Near East ended round about I200 B.C. in a tained wide-rangingrelations with lands to the west in dark age. . . . Not in a single state alone but over a a strugglewith Egypt,Hatti, Mitanni, and Assyria for large part of the civilized world historyitself seems to client states in Syro-Palestine.Nonetheless, the Meso- be interrupted;the writtensources dryup, the archaeo- potamian regionexperienced a long peace fromi 38o to logical documents are poor and hard to date." Liverani I33I B.C. (Melko and Wilkinson i992). (I 987:69, 7 I) commentson "the collapse ofNear Eastern Gills and I (i992:637) have observedthat Civilization . . . [whose] crisis is ratherextended and takes place at roughlythe same time over a large area" dominantbut inter-linkinghegemonies were the Hit- (p. 69) and observesthat the scarcityof survivingdocu- tite empire,based in Anatolia and dominantin mentation"is not fortuitous. . . [but]is itselfan effect northernMesopotamia, and the empireof New King- of the crisis (eclipse of scribalschools and palace admin- dom Egypt.The was marked period clearly by the istrations)" (P. 71). For instance, 576 years of Kassite prominenceof inter-linkinghegemonies, including dominationin Mesopotamia came to an end in I I 7I B.C. Babylon,Assyria, and Mitanni, all of which took a The Aegean-basedMycenaean civilization came to an full partin the well developed diplomaticdiscourse end about the same time. Another200-year-long wave of the period.There was fora time somethinglike a of migrationbrought Indo-Europeans eastward toward concertof powers among these inter-linkinghegemo- the Tarim Basin and Aramaeans, Dorians, and others nies. The Mycenaean trade supplantedthe Minoan into the Levant and Greece (Franki992a). in the East Mediterranean. Chernykhechoes this theme when he writes that The Sherratts( iggia:372-73) summarize: "theseprocesses of widespread migration and the related collapse of culturalsystems reached a peak in the elev- This [I400-I200 B.C.] period representsthe climax enth to tenth centuriesB.C. Archaeologicallyspeaking, of bulk maritimetrade in the Bronze Age. It differs this is the boundarybetween the Bronze Age and the fromthe isth-centurypatterns in the disappearance Iron Age, and one of the most significantand critical of Cilicia and Crete as major centresin theirown periodsin the historyof the peoples of the Old World" right,and the emergenceof Cyprusas a major inter- (I992:306). He notes "a sharp decline in the production national trader.. . . The systemthus seems to have ofbronze artefacts throughout the Eurasiansteppe at the differentiatedinto two components:a major long- end ofthe LBA [LateBronze Age]" (p. 262) and fromi2oo distance internationalroute markedby porttowns to IOOO B.C. a "collapse of the system" in the Irano- and emporia such as Tell abu Hawam, Ugarit,En- Afghanprovince, where "the settled way of life of the komi, lalysos, Kommos, and stationslike Mersa Ma- local population apparentlychanged to mobile pastoral- truh,and operatedby ships with large cargoes ... ism" (p. 272). There was a similardecline in bronzecast- heavily capitalised and partlystate dependent;and a ing throughoutthe northeasternBalkans and the Car- series of cycles operatedby long-distanceships of pathians (p. 262) and a sharp increase in mobile smaller capacity in the west, some controlledfrom subsistencestrategies (p. 243).

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Kristiansen(I993a) links the "collapse" of the Medi- peripheralprovinces detached themselves from effective terraneanand Near Eastern regional systems shortly state control(Edens i992). afterI200 to Europe and refersto evidence of mercenar- Gills and I have noted that at the same time the My- ies and latersouthward migrations from Central Europe cenaeans in Greece and the Levant were overrunby new and the Balkans. In Europe, agriculturebecame more waves of invaders-Dorians, Aramaeans, and Phoeni- dominant and political organizationless chiefly,more cians. The Hittite empiredisintegrated. Political power decentralized,and more "populist,"with a more "demo- almost everywherewas unstable and short-lived.Egypt craticideology." James et al. (I99 I:279) speak of "centu- was invaded by the Sea Peoples. The Mesopotamian re- ries of darkness" and write that "the term 'Dark Age' gion experiencedthe Aramaean wars beginningin the seems like an understatementwhen the archaeological iith century,and fromthe i2th centuryonwards the remains from Babylonia . . . are examined." They con- Aryanwars ragedin India. tinue (p. 3II): Chandler'sdata on cities also supportthe B-phasedes- ignation according to both Bosworth and Wilkinson. There can be no doubt that in many partsof the Old Cities cease to grow,the numberof major ones declines Worldthere was a dramaticcollapse at the end of a bit,and Hittiteand Aegean cities disappearaltogether. the Late Bronze Age. The centralizedeconomies con- Wilkinsonnotes a markeddecline ofpolitical-economic trolledfrom the palaces disintegrated,the old trad- "peaks" fromsix between I400 and I200 B.C. to only ing marketsbroke up, diplomaticcontacts were lost one between i2oo and IOOOB.C. and observes "a more and major settlementswere abandoned. However, noticeablecharacter of disintegration... thanin preced- the causes . . . are unclear.... Ten separate interpre- ing centuries." tations of the events at the end of the Late Bronze These "dark ages," however,are oftenconsidered to Age can be discerned . . . [including] cultural deca- have lasted up to 3 50 yearsand well into the Ist millen- dence [a la Toynbeel . . . climatic catastrophes ... nium. Jameset al. (I99i) identifyinconsistencies and and invasions by outside barbarians-notably the hiatuses in regional datings of the crisis, which some- Sea Peoples.... Such "external" causes are rarely times leave 35o-yeargaps duringwhich on the evidence convincingbecause they cannot themselvesshow virtuallynothing seems to have happened. Sherrattand why the civilised society was unable to cope. Sherratt(i99ib) accord James et al. more success in demonstratingthe dating problems than in resolving Kristiansen(I987:84) notes that "with the decline of in- themby theirreadjustment of the relationbetween dat- ternationalexchange networksof prestigegoods at the ing sequences in Egyptand elsewhere. However, to the transitionto the Iron Age, the whole systemof center/ extentthat theirshortening of the crisis period is well peripheryrelations collapsed. The variousregions devel- taken,Gills's and my designationof IOOOB.C. as the end oped autonomous cultural and economic traditions." of this B phase and the beginningof the next A phase Sherratt(n.d.:I3) also remarkshow "in the final cen- also gains in credibility. turies of the second millennium . . . the long-distance In summary,for the Bronze Age and especially the 2d north-southlinks temporarilyslackened. The Nordic re- millenniumB.C., thereseems to be substantialevidence gion developed on its own, without plentifulsupplies fora cycle with long phases of expansion in production, of metal fromfurther south." Elsewhere, Sherrattand trade,and cities, apparentlyaccompanied by more ex- Sherratt (iggia:373-74) point out that tensive hegemonic rule and greaterpolitical stability, the collapse of large-scaleinter-regional trading sys- and phases of slower growth,contraction, crisis, and tems began in the most heavily capitalised areas, even darkages, markedby economic and urbandecline, and its effectsreached outwardto involve all more massive migrations/invasions,sharpened social the palace economies which were dependenton and political conflictboth "domestically"and "interna- them.... Ugarit ... was permanentlydestroyed tionally,"and accelerated ethnic and cultural diffusion or fusion.In the 2d this cycle is markedby some time shortlyafter 1200 BC, along with neigh- millennium, boringAtchana and Carchemish.The recession in alternatingphases that can be tentativelydated 2ooo- Syriawhich followedthese destructionshad further I800/I750 (A), I800/I75o-I600/I500 (B), I600/I500- effectson the Hittite hinterland,and economic dif- I200 (A), and i2oo-iooo (B) B.C. These phases and their ficultiesexacerbated local unrest,leading to the de- manifestationsseem remarkablysynchronized over an im- structionof Bogazkoy itselfat this time. The Assyr- mense area stretchingacross Afro-Eurasiafrom Europe West and Central Asia ians under Tglath Pileser i (c. i ioo) took advantage and the Mediterraneanthrough of this unstable situation to invade Syria and the Le- to eastern Siberia. This outline may offera basis and vant, beforethe shiftof power to semi-nomadicAra- frameworkfor devoting much greaterattention, with re- maean tribescaused a fundamentaldecentralisation gardto the 2d millennium B.C., to questions that have of local economies (and, incidentally,a new set of in- had to be leftunanswered: Was therea west-to-easttime land routes made possible by use of the dromedary). lag in cyclical displacement?What were the relatedre- gional shiftsin core-peripherypositions and the ups and In Babylonia, Kassite decline began with the Assyrian downs of hegemonyand rivalrywithin this vast world invasion in i225 but culminatedin theirouster in II57 system?Did the systemalready have a hegemonialcen- B.C. Political authoritywas increasinglydecentralized as ter,and if so, where,when, and how did it shift?

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Doubt also persists about the extent and timing of and the Mediterraneandetermined the later course of the participationof India, Southeast Asia, China, and Europeanhistory by establishingthe structuralfounda- Manchuria-Korea-Japanin this 2d-millenniumBronze tions upon which it came to rest,e.g., the limits of the Age world system. It remains less than clear whether Roman empirein Europe" (KristiansenI993a). the regions in India that were incorporatedinto the Transformationsin West Asia are summarized by world system in the 3d millennium "dropped out" or Ghirshman(I954): only temporarily"involuted" in a dark age of theirown analogous to what would befall Western Europe two The firsthalf of the firstmillennium B.C. was a turn- millennia later-or, alternatively,perhaps turnedeast- ing point in human history.The centreof "world ward,toward Southeast Asia, in the 2d millennium as politics" or of the age shifted. . . [fromalluvial val- in the Ist. Events in the Chinese regionseem synchro- leys in the south] more to the north. . . the struggle nized for a time with those elsewhere, according to forworld power was centered. .. [upon]three princi- Chernykh,but does this really mean participationthis pal actors in the drama: the Semitic Assyrianswith earlyin the world system? theirvast empire;Urartu, a powerfulkingdom of Asi- atic origin,tenacious opponentsof the Assyrians... and finallythe Aryans,the Iranians who, aftera long Exploringthe World System in and arduous struggle,triumphed over theirtwo ad- the EarlyIron Age versariesand, with the spoils, foundedthe first WorldEmpire [underthe Achaemenid kings from Extendingthis explorationof the spread of the world the 5th centuryonwards]. [P. 75] systemand the identificationof its long cycles through There was a shiftin the centreof gravityof ex- the Ist-millennium-B.C.Iron Age is at the momentmore portingcountries. Assyria, which was a greatcon- problematic(at least forme). Among the academic rea- sumer,had no iron mines; fora time, especially dur- sons for this is that forthe Ist millennium B.C. Cher- ing the earlierhalf of the eighthcentury B.C., it was nykh'sreview of (northern)Eurasia offersa less detailed denied access to the miningcentres of the southern its guide through cycles. Other sources are also less sys- coast of the Black Sea and Transcaucasus by the tematic and/or complete, particularlyregarding the neighboringkingdom of Urartu.Inevitably it turned more easterlyregions of the world system. Especially its attentionto Iran [which obtained this metal from for these regions, Chandler's city data as analyzed by regionsinaccessible to Assyria].[p. 88] Wilkinsonand Bosworthare also less complete or reli- able, displayingmore ambiguitywith regardto the iden- Karl Jaspers(I949, I955, I957) called this mid-ist- tificationand/or dating and the regionalityof the cycle millennium-B.C.period the "axial age," regardingit as phases. The real-worldreason, probablyunderlying the the turningpoint in human history.He also noted, as academic ones, forthese problemsis that the worldsys- have Teggart(I939) and McNeill (i963), that the proph- tem itself seems to have experienceddramatic expan- ets ofthe greatreligious movements were bornat almost sion and transformationduring the Ist millennium.In the same time in the 6th centuryB.C.: Pythagorasin particular,India became more (re)integrated,and South- Italy,Thales in Greece, Ezekiel and the second Isaiah in east Asia and China definitivelyjoined the world sys- the Levant, Zoroaster in Persia, Buddha and Mahavira tem. Developments in the east seem to have been more in India, and Laozi and Confuciusin China. These three rapid,albeit less well recorded,even while the west of scholars and others have suggestedor at least implied the growingworld systemwas experiencinglonger and that this simultaneitywas probablyno accident. Ac- better-recordedB phases. Althoughregional rising suns cordingto McNeill (i 963:3 38), "if the social and psycho- duringsystemic B phases are not unusual, in this case logical circumstancesof the submergedpeople and ur- theirlarge-scale but poor recordingin a sort of bifurca- ban lower classes were in fact approximatelysimilar in tion of the world systempresents additional difficulties all partsof Western Asia, we should expect to findclose forthe explorationof the extent of the systemand the parallels among the religious movements which arose dating of its cyclical phases-at least for me and for and flourishedin such milieux. This is in factthe case." now. Therefore,but also to avoid lengtheningthis essay Indeed,Gills and I have suggestedthat these similar"so- beyondall bounds, I extend it into the Ist millennium cial and psychologicalcircumstances" may reflectsimi- B.C. only summarilyand briefly. lar economic circumstancesand at least an immediately In general,during this period,economic and political precedingcommon economic crisis. The emergenceof crisis seems to prevail more in the west, while regions universalistreligions may also be an indicationof a high to the east may have been layingthe basis formore ac- level of real economic linkage and perhaps the attain- celeratedgrowth that may foreshadowits approaching ment of a new level or stage of economic integration, inclusion in the centralworld system.A bird's-eyeview forit is also in this "axial" period that China seems to of these world-system-extendingtransformations is as have become a permanentpart of the centralworld sys- follows: tem. The midmillenniumsaw yet anotherof the half- Beginningwith Europe, "it might be suggestedthat millennial-recurringwaves of Asian migration,this one the structuraldivergences created duringthe firstmil- laterremarked on by Herodotus. lennium B.C. between northernEurope, central Europe Less well-studiedis the apparentincorporation also of

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Southeast Asia. Bronze may have been in use thereal- SoutheastAsia commenced earlierthan Wheeleror ready in the early 2d millennium B.C. However, the Rashke allowed.... By the early Christianera these SoutheastAsia scholar George Coedes (I968:7), follow- traderoutes reached out to bringtogether the previ- ing van Stein Callenfels, dates the arrivalof bronze in ously ratherseparate Southeast Asian exchangesys- Indochinaaround 600 B.C. andin theislands around 300 tems, linkingthem into a vast networkstretching B.C. This datingfor bronze may also be verylate, because fromwestern Europe, via the Mediterraneanbasin, iron findsdate fromas early as 750 B.C. Archaeological the Persian Gulf and the Red Sea, to India, Southeast findsalso establish significantcontacts and tradeof tin Asia and China . . . [in] what has been called the and gold betweenthe islands and the Malayan Peninsula WorldSystem. and mainland fromthe middle of the Ist millennium B.C. (RamanI99I). AlthoughI have citedreferences to Gills's and my (i992) cycle phases forthis period are Indian influence in Southeast Asia fromthe early 2d ratheruneven in length,and theirdatings are uncertain. millennium,the "recorded"beginning of its "Indianiza- Moreover,the B phase from8oo to 550 B.C. is not re- tion" is in the mid-ist millennium(Coedes I968, Glover flectedin Chandler's city-sizecensus. This is partly,as I 99 I). Indian textsattest to "speculativemercantile voy- Bosworthsuggests, because these and later datingsare ages forcommercial profit, financed by merchantguilds excessively influencedby events in West and Central in many parts of India" in the 4th centuryB.C. (Glover Asia and neglectpossible more importantdevelopments I99I). At the same time,according to Chinesetexts, farthereast. Therefore,it may be well brieflyto review their merchants traveled and carried silk over the these datingswithout, however, attempting to advance "southwesternroute" from Sichuan throughYunnan veryfar beyond them. across Burma into India. This route became prominent A Phase, iooo-800 B.C.? Sherratt and Sherratt againin the Ist centuriesB.C. and A.D. Moreover,there (IggIa:375) remarkthat "the systemwas revitalised... was "considerabletrade" between Chinese and Yue to in the ioth century,"particularly along the spice route the south in China and Indochina beforethe end of the fromArabia and by Levantine-centeredtrade of "pan- 3d century B.C. A Qin emperor sent five armies of Mediterraneanscope," and Sherrattand Sherratt(I993) 500,000 menagainst the Yue to secureeconomic spoils extendthis analysis. Kristiansen(i982) refersto Phoeni- after22I B.C., afterwhich merchantsfrom both sailed cian expansion throughthe Atlantic to Franceand Brit- at least as far south as Annam. The next expansion of ain in the gth and 8th centuriesB.C. Gills and I (i992) the "Nanhai" tradewith SoutheastAsia and with India have similarly underlined the Phoenician expansion came duringthe Han Dynastyin the 200/I00 B.C.-A.D. throughthe Mediterraneanduring this periodand noted 2oo A phase(Wang I958). the rise of and then the challenge to Assyrianpower on The writingsof Ptolemy and the famous Periplus of themainland. After I000 B.C., however,metal supplies the ErythreanSea attest to regularmaritime trade be- also increasedagain in distantEngland and Scandinavia tween the Roman empire and the west coast of India. (KristiansenI993a). Indeed, the increase was of such However, trade was equally or more intensive onward enormousproportions in the west in its final phase as fromthe Coromandel east coast and Ceylon to South- to suggest"overproduction" and the use of Armorican east Asia and China. For instance, Francis (I989, 1991) axes as currency.However, "it can hardlybe doubted has done researchon Arikameduin easternIndia and its that large-scalemetal consumptionand inflationin the bead manufactures,which were geared to exportboth west was somehow relatedto the decrease of metal pro- westwardto Rome and eastwardto much of Southeast ductionin the east.... A new axis of exchangeemerged Asia. Francis(I99I:40) writesthat "it is no longerade- (duringHa[llstatt] B2-3), stretchingfrom northern Italy quate to thinkof it [Arikamedu]as an 'Indo-Romantrad- over Switzerlandto the Lower Elbe and furtheron to ing-station'or to assess its value only in terms of its Scandinavia, Northern Germany, and Pomerania." interactionwith the Mediterraneanworld. The data Dietler (1988:i29) arguesfor the importantintermediary fromother sites [in Sri Lanka, Vietnam,Thailand, and role of the inhabitantsof the Rhone Valley in articulat- Malaysia and possiblyIndonesia] show that Arikamedu ing and perhaps even initiating such long-distance looked east farmore than it looked west." Chinese East- north-southtrade and fostering"dependent relations of ern Han Dynasty documentationalso atteststo signifi- a center-peripherynature." Wilkinson findsthis phase cant trade with Southeast Asia in the 2d centuryA.D., confirmedby the city data. Bosworthagrees and finds and thereis evidence of the same fromthe 2d century corroborationfor Assyria but suggeststhat "perhaps this B.C. A phase mightbe extendedas Nineveh, the seat of As- Moreover,according to Glover (Ii99 :n.p.) syrianpower, peaks somewherebetween 800-650 B.C., when it reaches i20,000 people-the firstcity on Chan- the greatexpansion of Southeast Asian and particu- dler'slist to breakthe ioo,ooo mark."Indications by the larlyIsland-Mainland exchange which is evidentin Sherratts(I993) could also extend this phase into the later prehistoryis, I believe, closely connectedwith 8th century.Continued growthis evident especially in this Indo-Romancommerce and can be explained Assyria,and there are new developmentsin northern in part,at least, by a risingdemand.... [recent] Mediterraneanregions in the Aegean, Villanova Italy, finds. .. are enough,I believe, to permitus to ar- and Spain. The numberof major cities fromthe Mediter- gue that regularexchange links between India and ranean to India remains the same at ten, however,and

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increasesfrom three to fivein China. Melko and Wilkin- Syria and the Levant to Central Eurasia. Achaemenid son (i992) recordboth peace (8Io-745 B.C.) and war control of Central Asian cities such as the great city (859-8Io B.C.) in West Asia and war in the 8th and 7th of Bactra and the northwesternIndian tradingcenter of centuriesin South Asia. Taxila was veryimportant in consolidatingPersian he- Edens (personalcommunication) finds this phase po- gemonyand accumulation. The Persian investmentin litically heterogeneousand tends to doubt that it was infrastructureincluded the i,677-mile Royal Road that an A phase. He observes that Babylonia continued to Darius built fromEphesus to Susa and the road from collapse, but we need not regardthis as contraryevi- Babylon to Ortospana (near Kabul). Persian cities, like dence. The Assyrianempire flourishedonly in the gth their Assyrian predecessors,were cosmopolitan, and century,but this again is not disconfirmatory.Egypt was Persianarmies were multinational.It was in thisperiod, parochial, and multiple states were in competitionin accordingto Franckand Brownstone(I986:65), that the Syro-Palestine.The South Arabian spice tradeis "over- greatcaravan cities of Syria-Aleppo, Hama, Homs (Em- rated." Admittedly,persuasive evidence is sparse,even esa), and Damascus, in particular-trulycame into their though there seems to have been an urban revival in own, receiving goods from the Silk Road as well as India and some integrationin China under the Western spices and perfumesfrom Arabia's Incense Road and Zhou Dynastyin the ioth century. otherluxuries brought by sea fromIndia. Aramaeans ... B Phase, 800-55o B.C.? Identificationand dating of were such active tradersin these caravan cities that the next phase are particularlyproblematic, and Edens their speech became the common commercial lan- regardsit as "heterogeneous."Chernykh's coverage of guage." Eurasia is less revealingfor this period. Gills and I (i992) Edens and Bawden (i988) offera "case study" of the have notedincreased competitive pressures in the Medi- continuityof occupation but also the ups and downs of terraneanand rivalriesin West Asia, as well as the pre- a singlesmall locality,Tayma, in the ArabianPeninsula. sumablyrelated collapse of the Assyrianempire in the Its settlementhistory reflects the geographical,tempo- 7thcentury B.C., but also technological/economicdevel- ral, and product movements in the interregionalex- opmentin India and new rivalriesin China. The Sher- changes on which it depended throughoutthe Ist mil- ratts(I993:369-74) point to a "greatbifurcation" in the lennium.Their findingssuggest (pp. 75-76) 7th century,in which local productionreplaces Phoeni- that the largestpopulation, most extensivesettle- cian tradein the Aegean,and a "growingdifferentiation" ment and most intensive in the basin oc- in the Mediterraneanin the 6th century.Then, however, activity curredduring the middle centuriesof the millen- "the rapid growthof the Median and the Persian Em- nium . . . [in] the centuries . . . pires broughta new scale of integrationfrom the east 6th-sth [which] is exactlythe period of most intense interactionwith Aegean to the Indus" (Sherrattand SherrattI993:37I). Babylonia.... The periodsbefore and afterthis mid- Wilkinsonand Bosworthsingle this phase out among Ist millenniumflourishing present contrasting pat- Bronzeand Iron Age ones as the most challengedby the terns of rise and collapse of settlement . . . Chandler data on cities. Wilkinson says that it is not [and] rapid economic and political disintegrationof the reflectedin Chandler's data; Bosworthdoes findan ap- city. parent"period of 'contraction'and 'fragmentation'but only in the westernpart of the Old World.Between 8oo In the west, Kristiansen[i982] focuses on important and 6oo BC, thereis littlegrowth for Babylon, Jerusalem, events duringHallstatt D, between about 6oo and 450 or Van, and other cities drop fromthe list entirely.By B.C., in Europe. Central Europe and the Balkans were contrast,Chinese cities roughlydouble in size, and an- reintegratedor more fullyintegrated into the Mediterra- otherIndian cityappears." Melko and Wilkinson(i992) nean and it in turninto the West Asian world (system?). record wars rangingfrom Egypt and Mesopotamia to Thus, however,northern Europe was marginalized(Kris- South Asia but peace in East Asia duringthis period. tiansen I982), and the Rhone-corridortrade to Hallstatt A Phase, 600/oo500-45o/400B.C.? For the next phase, Europe broke down again in the early 5th century Gills and I (i992) have noted the economic development (Dietler i989). In Central Europe,the Hallstatt cultures in Greece, replacingthat of the Phoenicians,and espe- thathad first"climaxed" then "declined," accordingto cially in Persia. This period witnessed the rise of the Kristiansen,as trade routes again shiftedand/or they Achaemenid Persian empire,which stabilized much of overexploitedtheir peripheries. West Asia by reimposinga more unifiedpolitical order Since this phase falls within a longerperiod between in thatpart of the worldsystem. The Achaemenidsfrom two of Chandler's city censuses (for650 and 450 B.C.), Darius to Xerxesachieved at least a regionalposition of Wilkinsonobserves that the data are ambiguousbut "at hegemonic accumulation in the world system on the least not out of sync." Bosworthsees them as broadly basis of the imperialtribute system. The Persianempire confirmatorybut suggeststhat "Frank and Gills' focus exceeded even the Assyrian in the degree to which it on Central Asia as the locus of this A phase seems to incorporatedthe most importanteconomic zones of the be misplaced,as events thereare eclipsed once again by world system in West Asia. There was at this time a those farthereast" in China and Korea. Bactra and Tax- shiftin the center of gravityof the world economy of ila do not appear on Chandler's list for this period. I verygreat historical importance; the key area of logisti- mightretort that commercial importanceis not neces- cal linkage in the world economy/systemshifted from sarilyalways reflectedin population size (consider,for

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example, Hong Kong today), but Bosworthnotes that der's death and failure.At the same time, the Qin dy- "China beginsas practicallya footnotein Chandler'slist nastyconsolidated its rule in China, and tradeincreased and by 430 B.C. it has seven of the world's largest25 between these regions. Here again, Chandler's census cities and the second largest.... This dramaticrise can- dates are not very helpful. Bosworthnotes the promi- not be over-emphasized."Whether Gills and I are guilty nence of Alexandriancities, includingAlexandria itself of a "western" (that is, Central Asian) bias at the ex- as the thirdlargest in the world,during this phase, but pense of China is worthyof consideration,but the "dra- he suggeststhat, again, the east may deservetop billing: matic rise" of China suggestsits growingcommercial- In 2oo B.C., forthe firsttime the world's largestcity is ization and probablyrelations with and incorporation in China (Chang'an, with 400,000 inhabitants)and the into the centralworld system at this time. Melko and second largestis in India (Patna, with 350,000). China Wilkinson (i992) record a long peace till the mid-5th and India now also have similar large shares of urban centuryin West and East Asia but wars in the west and populationin the world's top 25 cities. south after5 50 B.C. B Phase, 250/200-IO1/50 B.C.? Gills and I have noted B Phase, 450-350 B.c.? AlthoughGills andI havein- anotherbrief B phase in the Mediterraneanregion, in- veighed against excessively Greco-centeredreadings of cludingEgypt and Greece, duringthe 2d centuryB.C. In the subsequentphase, we have identifiedthis relatively Egypt,the 2d centuryappeared characterizedby all the shortB phase largelyon the basis of symptomsof eco- signs of economic decline, such as overtaxation,official nomic crisis in Greece and its relationswith Persia. In- corruption,increased debt, and unrest and brigandage. tensifiedclass struggleand wars seemed symptomatic The Rosetta stone characterizesthe period in termsof of an underlyingeconomic contractionor slowdown (de "pressure of taxes, rapid accumulation of arrearsand Ste.Croix I98I). Rostovtzeff(I94I) characterizesthe 4th concomitantconfiscations, prisons full of criminalsand centuryas one markedby increased proletarianization, debtors,public and private,many fugitivesscattered all landlessness, unemployment,and food shortage,by a over the countryand livingby robbery,compulsion ap- contractionin the market for manufacturersand the plied in everysphere of life." (Edens [personalcommuni- ruin of "free"petty producers, and by an overconcentra- cation] objects to this interpretationof crisis in Ptole- tion of wealth in the hands of the commercial and maic Egypt.)There were also signs of crisis and slave landed rulingclasses. Livy notes a series of faminesin revoltsin Rome, but there was also imperialistexpan- Italy in 490, 477, 456, 453, 440, and 392 B.C. The Celts sion westwardthat presagedimperial Rome. While this invaded Italy and sacked Rome while settingup the phase is again too short to be reflectedin Chandler's kingdomof Galatia in Asia Minor.The hegemonicdisin- census dates,which jump fromIo0 B.C. to A.D. 200, Bos- tegrationof this period is evident fromthe Peloponne- worthwrites that "there is consensus that this was a sian wars, the successful revolt of Egyptagainst Persia period of 'contraction'and 'decline."' However, China ca. 400 B.C., and the breakawayof the Indusfrom the had already begun its period of expansion under the Persian empireca. 380 B.C. The phase is too shortto be Western Han Dynasty after 200 B.C. Since imperial well reflectedby Chandler's data, with a longer time Rome was also alreadyexpanding, perhaps the beginning span between city censuses. Nonetheless, Bosworth of the next A phase should be moved forwarda century notes that the size of Athens declined but that of Rome or so. This would convertthis B phase into a still shorter increasedseveralfold. and more localized phenomenon,hardly worthy of the Kristiansen(I993a) remarksthat "the apparentcorre- name. lation between competitivechanges in Greek, Phoeni- A Phase, 200/I00 B.C.-A.D. 200. The high-watermark cian and Etruscan trade routes with the geographical of the expansion phases Gills and I have identifiedsaw movement and collapse of princelycenters [in North- the simultaneous rise to imperial grandeur of Han Central Europe]has been seen as a confirmationof the China, Kushan India, ParthianIran, Axium in East Af- dependence on long distance trade and the supply of rica, and imperial Rome. Their rise was followed by prestigegoods." Chernykh(I992:306) termsthis "the their simultaneous decline in the major B phase from next 'destructive' period," when Celts moved from A.D. 200 to 500, which was again accompanied by an- WesternEuropean toward the Balkans and Asia Minor othermajor wave of invasions,including that of the leg- in the sth centuryand Sarmatiansin the oppositedirec- endaryAttila the Hun. McNeill (I 976:96-iI 4) observes tion in the 4th. He notes the political destabilizationof demographicexpansion during the periodof this A phase the WarringStates period in China and new confronta- and epidemic disease-relatedpopulation decline in the tions with Central Asian pastoralists."The high-water followingB phase at both the Chinese and the Roman mark of these destructiveprocesses and the disintegra- end of Eurasia. Roman writerssuch as Pliny and more tion and re-formationof cultures in Eurasia was the recentones such as Teggarthave arguedthat what hap- fourthto thirdcenturies B.C." pened at one end of this chain substantiallyaffected A Phase, 350-250/200 B.c.? Gills's and my identifi- what happened at the other.In this regard,writing from cation and datingof the followingphase restsprimarily anotherperspective, Gernet (i 9 8 2: I 9) notes: on the Alexandrianexpansion throughWest Asia into Central Asia and India and the economic expansion in Justas the power of the greatnomad empireof the India underthe Mauryas in the 3d centuryafter Alexan- Hsiung-nuin the steppe zone was probablycreated

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and strengthenedby importof iron and silks from Interestingly,increases and declines in city sizes, as China, Han expansion in Asia was certainlydue fun- recordedby Chandlerand reproducedby Wilkinson,also damentallyto the economic upsurgeof the Chinese characterizethe "Western" hemisphericregions of the world.Not only were Han China's strengthand pres- "New" Worldin the "Americas" beforeColumbus "dis- tige abroad based on this economic prosperity, covered"them 5oo yearsago. However,their phases and but . . . also the tradewith Mongolia, Korea, central cycles are totallyunsynchronized with the fluctuations Asia, South China, and northernIndia.... in citysize and/orthe phases of expansion and contrac- tion suggestedand dated in the "Old" Worldand refined Agreed,except for the (also Western) Sinocentricper- above. This implies that the substantial confirmation spective that sees the "economic upsurge" in all these and occasional adjustmentof cycle phases by city sizes regionsand even the power of the Xiongnu in Central in Eurasia is not fortuitous(Wilkinson [i992] calls it a fit Asia as propelled fundamentally by "the Chinese too good to disregard)and does reflectsome underlying world." Apparentlythe economic upsurgewas not con- reality. If that underlyingreality is climatic change, finedor due fundamentallyto China, or else it would which is only common to all partsof the "system" and not have so easily included all the other areas Gernet to which they independentlyreact in tandem without mentions,not to mentionmany more across Eurasia. significantinteraction with each other,should we then Unfortunately,Chandler's census dates again do not stillcall thempart of a singlesystem? Perhaps an ecolog- match the suggestedcycle dates, and this makes the fit ical system,but not a social one? I hope that I have problematic.Nonetheless, Wilkinson and Bosworthalso marshaledsufficient evidence to show that differentre- accept this period as a major A phase. Maybe its begin- gions and peoples have also been so linked througheco- ning should be dated up to a centuryearlier in China or nomic, political, migratory,sociocultural, and other even Rome and its end perhapsa centuryearlier in Kus- bothcooperative and conflictiverelations as to meet the han India. Writingof course quite independently,Cher- criterionof systemic participationin a single world nykh(I992:306-7) also remarksthat "the periodof re- system.The participationof the parts is so interactive newed stability,which lasted fromthe second century that no part of this systemwould be as it is or was if B.C. to the second/thirdcentury A.D., was relatedto the other parts were not as they are or were-albeit existence of three major empires: the Han Empire on they may all have also reacted and the easternflank of the Eurasian landmass; Rome on the to, on, global ecological constraints. westernflank; and the Parthianand Kushan kingdoms Notably, of near mi- in the centre"-before theyall again succumbed to the major periods world-systemwide grationaccompanied several of the B phases. The "truly colossal destructiveprocesses and migrations" sig- nificanceof this "coincidence" remains unclear. How- which were "linked with the destructionof this sys- ever,Chernykh notes that tem." These processes fall in the next major B phase, fromA.D. 200 to 5oo, and are beyond the scope of this these are criticalperiods in human history.The mi- paper (but see Gills and Frank i992, Frank and Gills grationat the end of the second and the beginningof I992-93). the firstmillennium B.C. definedthe boundarybe- tween the Bronze Age and the Iron Age; the later mi- Conclusion gration[in the A.D. 2oo-5oo B phase] definedthe boundarybetween antiquityand the mediaeval pe- This essay has soughtif not yet to collect more data at riod or, in Westernhistoriographic terminology, feu- least to begin systematizingsome additional relevant dalism. [p. 303] data which are now available to me as a nonprofessional on shortorder. It would of coursebe desirablefor profes- We are goinginto the unknown when we tryto un- sionals more qualified than I to assemble this puzzle derstandthe reasons forsuch explosions and succes- more competentlyand fully,giving much more weight sions . . . to identifythe hidden drivingforce behind than I have to migrations,invasions, and wars. In the such phenomena.We suspect that such explosions meantime,and on the basis of the evidence summarily follow some regularrhythm; that, in accordance presentedabove, I suggestthat substantialarchaeologi- with this rhythm,various provincesat the same cal evidence and importantanalyses thereofseem to time eithercollapse or emerge;however, the nature confirmthe existence of long cycles in what may also of this rhythmis equally unclear. [p. 296] forthis reason be called an at least 5,ooo-year-oldworld system. Alternatingexpansive and contractivephases However, the "external" and "internal" problemsneed reachback throughthe 3d millenniumB.C. and probably not have been unconnected,let alone mutually exclu- into still earliertimes. They are synchronicover so large sive. Invaders were more likely to succeed when their and growinga part of the world that it trulyappears a targetwas already economically and politically/mili- world system. The question arises whetherthe socio- tarilyweakened by its own and regionalor systemwide political-economicmechanism that generatesthis "cy- crisis. Moreover,the invasions themselves were often cle" is also at least partlyendogenous to this systemand generatedby survival problems in their own areas of the partof the world that it includes. originand/or other pressures from beyond them, partic-

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ularlyin Central Asia. These considerations,of course, to the sun's course, and because of them the differ- raise largelyunanswered questions both about common ent partsof the earthacquire differentpotentiali- ecological/demographicchanges or cycles and the ex- ties.... This process must, however,be supposed to tentof the "world system" into and the "centrality"of take place in an orderlycycle.... But these changes CentralAsia (Franki992a). In a similarvein, Chernykh escape our observationbecause the whole natural also argues, with regard to the connection between process of the earth's growthtakes place by slow de- large-scalemovements of people and the collapse of sys- grees and over periods of time which are vast com- tems, that "displacement by another group is by no pared to the lengthof our life,and whole peoples are means always the root cause of the formalalteration in destroyedand perishbefore they can recordthe pro- and destructionof a culture.Much more often,perhaps, cess frombeginning to end.... This has happened movementsof populations are broughtabout by reason in Egypt... and Mycenae. of the internalconditions of a society,and an increase in deep and hidden processes that require changes in a Major social breakdown has been related to climatic numberof social structures.Another cause is relatedto and/orecological changes at other times and places in ecological changes" (p. 302). this cyclical review. Among these changes are the A similar position is espoused by Goldstone (i99i), droughtand desertificationafter 3000 B.C., the decline writing,however, about earlymodern history. He notes of the Indus Valley civilization, attributedto drought, recurrentwaves ofstate breakdown and priorpopulation the Dark Ages afterI200 B.C. duringglobal cooling not increasesacross all of Eurasia forwhich it is impossible only at Mycenae (as observed by Aristotle)but across to account in termsof local conditionsor particularcul- the whole world system,and the same again duringthe tural patterns alone. The "structural/demographic2nd-to-5th-century declines of China, India, Persia, and model" he offersto explain complicatedrecurrent inter- Rome and the subsequentDark Ages in WesternEurope actions is as follows: Demographic pressures derived (seee.g., Harding i982, Lambi982, RaikesI984 [I967]). fromtemporarily falling death rates impinge on over- Lamb tentativelyalso relates the birthof Confucianism stretchedresources and lead to bureaucraticparalysis. and Buddhismduring the "axial age" to "greatclimatic This in turn is derivedfrom elite infightingand large- stress" (p. I46). Similarly,expansion of population and scale social rebellion,which lead to state breakdown.In settlementmay also have been promotedor permitted Goldstone's "model," all of these events are thus ulti- by more benignclimates, such as duringthe A phase at mately-but socially and not simply physically- thetime of Christ. Lamb (i984:234) remarksthat generatedby climatic change. Perhaps,mutatis mutan- dis, his approach may prove fruitfulin the analysis of studentsof historycan hardlyfail to be struckby crises involvingpolitical-economic institutions in ear- the apparentcoincidence of the high points of cul- lier periods as well. tural achievementin the late Stone Age and Bronze A possible complementaryexplanation is suggested Age developmentof trade and communicationacross by the historianMcNeill (I976). In additionto the obser- Europe and of sea-goingcommunications all along vations on population increase and decline forthe ioo the Atlantic coasts and island chains, and again later B.C.-A.D. 200 and A.D. 200-500 A and B phases respec- in Roman times, and thirdlyin the high Middle tively,he offerssome epidemic datings for earlier pe- Ages, with the crestsof the temperaturecurve. And riods elsewhere. In his analysis, demographicchange the parallelismseems to go into closer detail too. and epidemics emerge from the interactionof social structuralwith biological,ecological, or climaticfactors However, some contributorsin Harding(i982) also ob- (e.g.,"the plagues ofEgypt, in short,may have been con- serve divergentand even opposite cultural develop- nected with the power of Pharaoh in ways the ancient ments at the same (climatic and historical) times in Hebrews never thoughtof and modernhistorians have northernand southernEurope. Moreover,Raikes (i984 never considered" [p. 40]), but the possible relationbe- [I967]) challenges established belief in recurrent tween recurrentepidemics in an ever more common "changes of climate" (and a fortioritheir cycles and/or Eurasian disease pool and the cycles of expansion and worldwide effects)and their supposed social conse- contractionobserved above should be considered.Such quences duringprehistory in general and forthe Indus attentionto the social consequences of ecology,disease, civilizationin particular.He rejectsall determinismand climatic change, and even their possible cycles is cer- stresses the human capacity to confront climatic tainly not new. The Old Testament refersto Noah's change. However, even Harding and Lamb leave room floodand Moses's partingof the Red Sea, not to mention forhuman action, includingits environmentaleffect on numerous plagues which may have been promotedor climates. facilitatedby climatic change. Aristotle(Meteorologica Thus, archaeologistsand a macrohistoricalsociologist I:I4, quotedby Harding i982:i) observed: and othersrefer to possible climatic constraintsand dy- namics. Yet they also insist on social structuralif not The same partsof the earthare not always moist or always world-systemiccauses and explanations."There dry,but change theircharacter according to the ap- have been severalattempts to link oscillationsin histor- pearance or failureof rivers.So also mainland and ical developmentin particularregions with various nat- sea change places.... Cold and heat increase owing ural phenomena,which, in the finalanalysis, are related

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to periodic changes in global climate" (Chernykh Comments I992:307). Hypothesesof this kind are somewhatques- tionable, Chernykhwrites, because the same kinds of oscillations and connectionsare not also observablein Stone Age cultures even though they experiencedthe GUILLERMO ALGAZE same climatic changes at the same time. Althoughelse- Departmentof Anthropology,University of California, where(Frank i99.2a) I have also emphasizedthe possible San Diego, La Jolla,Calif. 92093-OII, U.S.A. I3 III 93 role of climatic cycles, particularlyin Central Asia, I might here add that the problem Chernykhmentions Although I have some quibbles about Frank's use of also works the other way around: The same climatic Near Easterndata, to engage in such a debate would be change can affectdifferent regions differently.For in- to miss the point of his importantcontribution. Thus, I stance, the same period of warmingcan affectagricul- shall limit my comments to the substance of the pa- tural possibilities in arid and humid and/orhigh- and per-the contentionthat a single world systemwith si- low-lyingareas in exactly opposite ways. Yet we have multaneous cyclical phases of expansion and contrac- foundsubstantial evidence forvery generalized simulta- tion has existed forthe past 5,ooo years or so. neous economic up and down swings over geographi- Archaeologistsstudying the rise and growthof early cally verydifferent areas. Moreover,these economic cy- civilizationshave generallyfailed to give sufficientcon- cles seem to have become progressivelyshorter over the siderationto the cross-culturalbackground of social, po- millennia(or has our identificationof themjust become litical, and economic interactionsagainst which such finer?).All the more so, therefore,"the reasons forthe civilizations developed. Perhaps this is explainable in changesin the rhythmduring the Metal Era shouldprob- partby the natureof the data available to prehistorians, ably be sought principallyamong the new socioeco- which are typically limited in geographic scope. To nomic conditionsof the period,"including in particular some degree,however, the failure is also conceptual, theirinteractive participation in a single but cyclically since social systems neither exist nor evolve in isola- developing"world system" (Chernykh I992:307-8). tion. This is the centralthrust of Frank'sarticle, and he In conclusion,we may join Kristiansenin posing the is to be commended forreminding us in no uncertain main question about what any and all this means for termsthat ancient societies, like modernones, must be our world systemand its social structuralinfluences or analyzed within the context of a dynamic structureof determinants (I 993a): relationshipsof interdependency,principally (but not solely) economic in nature, that commonly transcend Were all these regionaltrends and dramatichistori- any particularregion or social group. cal events somehow interlinked?Were Europe,Asia Thus, I fullyagree with Frank's forcefulrestatement and the Mediterraneanso interdependentthat major of Schneider's(1977) contentionthat the world-system changes in one would lead region to predictable paradigmdeveloped by Wallerstein(I974) and his fol- changes in the otherregions, forming a kind of inter- lowers for the explanation of phenomena connected related world system? . . . But how did these changes with the expansion of Europe and the growthof capital- [in NorthernEurope] relate to changes in Central Eu- ism in the modernworld is also applicable to the study rope and the Mediterranean?Were they somehow of ancient civilizations. Where I disagreewith Frankis connected?This is, in the last instance,dependent in seeing a single world system evolving for the past on our chronologies,where I do not feel able to de- 5,ooo years out of an original Near Eastern/Central cide (at least not at the presentmoment) if thereis a Asian core with simultaneous cyclical phases of expan- significanttime gap or not between these regional sion and contraction.For Frank,this conclusion follows changes. fromhis minimalistdefinition as to what constitutesa In any case, "world system." He sees any empiricalevidence of the cross-culturaltransfer or exchange of surplus between No single factormay account forthe observedstruc- polities, even if not direct,as a sufficientindicator of tural changes,although some factors,such as cli- an overarchingsystemic relationship. Thus, if polityA matic change, may reveal strikingpatterns of paral- engagesin tradewith polityB and polityB, in turn,par- lelism with changes in settlementstructure.... ticipatesin exchangewith polity C, thenpolities A and Climate thus representedboth potentialand con- C, thoughnever in direct contact, are part of a single straintsto subsistence,but social and economic interactionsystem profoundly affecting all the polities forcesremain the prime moverswhen the environ- involved.In my opinion,this formulationtakes us back ment is exploitednot only close to, but oftenbe- in some respects to the now-discrediteddiffusionism yond its carrying capacity.... In such situations cli- that was prevalentin archaeological circles in the late matic fluctuationsmay triggerthe collapse of an i gth and early 2oth centuries. Moreover, it misses the unstable economy. [That is] one of the lessons we point that what affectsthe historical developmentof may learn fromBronze Age sequences. polities A and C is not theirparticipation in a vaguely defined,ever-expanding "system" but rathertheir direct It is a lesson that seems particularlypertinent to our relationshipwith polity B. For instance, according to own times in the year of the Earth Summit. Frank'sformulation, in the second quarterof the 3d mil-

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lennium B.C. the city-statesof Early Dynastic Sumer, mechanisms-are not independent.Therefore I preferto the kaleidoscope of contemporaneous city-states of consider his theorya representationsystem or model Syria-Palestine,Old KingdomEgypt, and Harappan cen- ratherthan an empiricallaw. A model does not exist in ters along the Indus River would have formedpart of a any empiricalsense, but thereis some heuristicrelation- single overarchingworld system.Yet, thoughindividu- ship (i.e., analogy)between it and the modeled world. ally some of these polities participatedin profoundly Frank uses neithermodern referencesnor anthropo- disequilibratorycontacts, both commercial and politi- logical researchin his discussion of the "ancient econ- cal, therewas no sustained interactionamong them as omy"debate (see, e.g.,Gregory i982, AppaduraiI986, a group,and any attemptto link the economic fortunes Miller I987, McCracken I988, Humphrey and Hugh- of Old KingdomEgypt and Harappan cities in the Indus Jonesi992), and I thinkthat to speak of "accumulation Valley strainscredulity. I would suggestthat a systemic of capital" in this contextis inappropriatewhen all we connectioncan be postulatedonly where it can be dem- have is some evidence of prestigeitems. We can, how- onstratedthat direct and regular contacts existed and ever, considerformation processes in terms of modern the societies engagedin themwere therebytransformed. economics, despite the qualitative differencesbetween A more appropriatemetaphor for conceptualizing the capitalist consumption mechanisms and precapitalist developmentof ancient societies, I believe, is Kohl's ones. This allows us some "familiarity"with past eco- (i987a) suggestionof multipleand partiallyoverlapping nomic processes without equating them with modern world systems,each composed, in turn, of individual ones. Thus the cycles detectedby Frankcannot be con- core groups exploitingcommunities within their own fused with Kondratieffcycles. They may be related to culturallyand geographicallydefined hinterlands and Braudel's (i966) "cycles de longue et courte duree," each interactingwith immediatelycontiguous systems. which are more dependenton geographicalinteraction One reason thatFrank's all-encompassing world system than on laws of the market.At the same time, the cur- in antiquityis implausible is his failureto considerthat renteconomic crisis is more a Kondratieffcycle than a ancient transportationtechnologies imposed restric- collapse of the world system (we are living in an A tions on the ability of ancient core societies to project phase, accordingto the size of the world systemand the power over long distances in a timelyand cost-efficient volume of circulation). fashion.This means that regularinstitutionalized con- Exceptfor the absence of "capitalistcapital accumula- tacts between differentcultures would necessarilyhave tion," however, Frank's model is perfectlyacceptable. been restrictedin geographicextent and thatpremodern Geographical-interactionand interdependencylinks are world systemswould inevitablyhave been less well in- the major causes of the ups and downs of precapitalist tegratedand more fragilethan modern examples. This economies because they directlyaffect the circulation partlyexplains why prehistoricand earlyhistoric world and consumptionof prestigeitems. Social relationsare systemscommonly collapsed or declined within a rela- definedin terms of prestigeitems, and thereforeany tively short span of time, oftenwell beforethe perni- change in their value has importantsecondary effects cious realities of long-termunequal exchange asserted on social relationships(especially domination and he- themselvesin affectedperipheries (Algaze I993). gemony).Other importantvariables in the dynamicsof In short,Frank presents a persuasivecase forthe heu- precapitalistsocieties are relatedto the structureof the ristic value of the world-systemsmodel for the study world system-that is, not only its geographicalextent of ancient civilizations. However, his model must be (the number of linked communities) but also the in- modified to accommodate the fact, already noted by tensityof interdependencyamong them.Assessment of Kohl (i989), that ancient world systems were qualita- this latter by archaeological methods is not easy (see tivelydifferent from their putative modern counterpart. Francforti992). Because Frank'spaper lacks any discus- sion of these measures, he cannot compare cycles for their differentialpotential for introducingqualitative J. A. BARCELO transformationsinto the system.Some A phases may be Dpt. Historia de les Societats Precapitalistesi more similar to some B phases than to otherA phases. AntropologiaSocial, Facultat de Lletres,Edifici B, It makes no sense to talk about expansion and contrac- UniversitatAutonoma de Barcelona, 08I93 Bellaterra, tion in absolute terms. Spain. 4 III 93 Althoughthe reconstructionof cycles is acceptable in general terms,I have some concerns about the period I verymuch like this global and dynamicdescription of between i200 and 550 B.C. First,Frank seems to give socioeconomic evolution. I think that Frankis rightin too much importanceto migrations;they seem to me seeing geographical interaction and interdependency poor evidence for the explanation of social processes. amongvarious regions of the worldas among the factors Furthermore,there is no archaeological evidence of a responsiblefor socioeconomic dynamics.I tend to see Dorian invasion in Greece (althoughthere is a context cycles as successive stages of a single (very complex) of "collapse" in some centers outside Attica and Eu- system. The goal of analysis will be the detection of boea), and it is a serious mistake to considerthe Phoeni- differencesdue to geographical-interactionor interde- cians "foreigners."Phoenicians were presentin Syriain pendencyvariables, but these variables-being, as Frank the earlyBronze Age or even earlier;they are the "people pointsout, the effectof a combinationof socioeconomic of Canaan." Again, as for the A phase iooo-800 B.C.

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and the B phase 800-500 B.C., Greek and Phoenician trade networks (which he calls "oikumenes") for the expansion begin in the 8th centuryB.C. (Aubet I992, expanding network that Frank now calls the central Ridway I992); therefore800-500 B.C. must be consid- world system. A point which is never made clear in ered an A phase, because the world systemis in expan- Frank's discussion but is centralin Wilkinson's is that sion (Italy,North Africa,and the Iberian Peninsula are political/militarynetworks are typicallysmaller than being integratedinto the system as new peripheries). tradenetworks. Although Mesopotamia and Egypthad Economic lifein the east is not,however, really brilliant been partof the same tradenetwork since at least 2500 at this time (Greekmigrations to the west pointto some B.C. (and perhaps much earlier),they were not linked crisisin available resources).Again, the quantityof im- into the same political/militaryinteraction net until portedmaterial in Cyprus,Euboea, and Tyre duringthe I500 B.C. Attentionto the spatial dimensionsof differ- previousphase (iooo-800 B.C.) iS so limitedthat this can ent kinds of networksmight help Frankwith the prob- hardlybe consideredan expansionphase. It is, however, lem ofunevenness he encountersin his periodizationof somewhat greaterthan in the period I200-IOOO B.C., the centralsystem into growthand stagnationphases. and thereforethis might be described as a B + phase. I am an advocate of a differentsubschool-the com- This is an example of the necessityfor measures of in- parative-world-systemists(Chase-Dunn and Hall i99i). tensity. We acknowledge that there may have been important This is a very stimulatingpaper. I agree with Frank continuitieswithin the central system (which became on the global natureand long durationof the world sys- the global system),and we also see similaritiesbetween tem in which we live and work. As a historian,I am differentstate-based world systems such as those that convinced that present social phenomena are a conse- emergedin Mesoamerica and Peru.But we are interested quence of past dynamics. However, the global system in systemicdifferences as well as similarities.We con- has experiencedvery important qualitative and quanti- tendthat even stateless,classless intersocietalnetworks tative modificationsthat can be explained in terms of can fruitfullybe analyzed as world systems(e.g., Chase- world-systemstructure and operation. Whereas these Dunn,Clewett, and Sundahli992), thoughthese were changes do not preventus fromcomparing the present differentin systemicallyimportant ways. In this we fol- withthe past,they do demanda different(perhaps math- low thework of Friedman and Rowlands (I977). We also ematical?) approach. contendthat the central systemhas undergoneimpor- tant transformationsof its systemic logic of develop- ment. We agree that markets and capitalism have ex- CHRISTOPHER CHASE-DUNN isted formillennia, but we contend that they began to Departmentof Sociology,Johns Hopkins University, play a dominantrole in the developmentallogic of the Baltimore,Md. 2I2I8, U.S.A. I9 vI 93 core regionof the central system only with the rise of European hegemony. We consider the distinctionbe- Frank'sstimulating essay challengeshistorians, philolo- tweencapital accumulationand capitalistaccumulation gists,and archaeologiststo look again at the regionsthey a useful one forunderstanding the differencesbetween study.Frank has always been a masterat paintingwith the modernworld systemand the centralsystem before broad strokes,and his latest canvas is yet anotherbril- the i6th centuryA.D. liant portraitof social realitythat will have the critics The alternationof hegemonyand hegemonic rivalry buzzing foryears. As a fellow trespasseron the territo- in Frank's scheme underwenta fundamentaltransfor- ries of otherdisciplines I am sympatheticwith Frank's mationwhen core states became capitaliststates. It was vulnerabilityto those whose academic lives have been then that the rise and fall of hegemonic core powers spent focusingon the details of a single locale or time replaced the rise and fall of corewide empires. This is period.My comment will focus not on the particulari- the sense in which Wallerstein's distinctionbetween ties but on the analyticaspects of his work. "world-empires"and "world-economies"continues to Among the scholars now applyingthe world-systems be valuable. perspective to periods before the i6th century A.D., It is not clear whetherFrank's long phases of expan- Frankis a memberof the "continuationist"school (for sion and contractionare phases ofhegemony, as in Mod- a reviewsee Chase-DunnI992). These scholarsstress elski and Thompson's (I988) "long leadership cycle" the continuitiesthey see betweenthe modernworld sys- scheme, or phases of economic growthand contraction tem and the earlierregional world systemthat emerged or both. A recent study of urban growthand city-size out of West Asia in the 4th millennium B.C. Though distributions(Chase-Dunn and Willard I993) indicates Frankand his colleague, BarryGills, began by asserting that growthand the concentrationof power do not al- that there had been a single world system for 5,ooo ways occur simultaneouslyand finds only mixed sup- years,Frank now admits that "thereprobably were sev- portfor Frank's periodization.We do, however,find an eral such 'systems' in the Bronze Age and later times." interestingsimultaneity of these two macrostructural He is here focusingon one of these, which, combining variables when we compare the Mediterranean-West his terminologywith that of David Wilkinson,he calls Asian political/militarynetwork and the Far Eastern the "centralworld system." system.Both the patternof urbangrowth and a measure Wilkinson(i992b) has mapped the spatial boundaries of the steepnessof the city-sizehierarchies were closely of both political/militaryinteraction networks and correlatedbetween 430 B.C. and A.D. I500. These pat-

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ternsof growth and decline do not resolveinto neat 250- chronologicalpieces togetherinto a single A/B episode year rises and falls, but the strikingsimultaneities of and even findsvirtue in local A phases within a world- changes at the two ends of the Eurasian continentindi- systemB phase. Anotherdifficulty is logical circularity: cate that somethingwas going on. It is also interesting the test for identifyinga world system is the same as that India does not demonstratethis kind of simultane- the analysis of its contents. Frank admits that factors ity. I am partial to Frank's theorizingabout the impor- such as global climate change may producesimilar syn- tance of Central Asia, but anotherpossibility, climate chronismsof regionaldevelopments. But until he expo- change,needs furtherstudy before any firmconclusions ses the mechanisms that endorse the world-system can be reached. identification,he is assumingthe analysis beforehe un- dertakesit. CHRISTOPHER EDENS Even the identificationof A/B phases remainsconten- Peabody Museum of Archaeology,Harvard tious. Frankuses as indices demographic,economic, and University,ii DivinityAve., Cambridge,Mass. political trends.These indices are a mixed bag. Mesopo- 02I38, U.S.A. II III 93 tamia illustratesthe problems.Settlement surveys indi- cate peak urbanismearly in the 3d millenniumand de- Frank's study traces the first3,000 years of a single urbanizationover the next two millennia (Adams I98I). worldsystem that is ancestralto the modernworld. Cor- During this time, the economic and political landscape rectionof the errorsor misconstrualsof archaeological fluctuatedbetween integration(Akkadian, Ur III, Old or historical detail is not very interesting-these will Babylonian, Kassite periods) and disintegrationinto sort themselvesout with time. The more fundamental competingpolities (EarlyDynastic, post-Akkadian, Isin- issue is whetherFrank is describinga historicalreality. Larsa periods). Levels of political intensificationand Frankenvisions a hierarchicalstructure of capital ac- controlof economic productionand circulationdid not cumulation that provided the central connection be- correspondto political fluctuationsin any clear-cutway. tween center and periphery,shifting surplus fromthe The bureaucraticmachinery of the Ur III state directly latterto the formerby largelymarket forces and only oversawmany aspects ofthe regionaleconomy; the Isin- secondarilyby "political" ones. Although maintaining Larsa and Old Babylonianstates encouragedprivate en- a continuousidentity over at least the past s,ooo years, terpriseand leased crown agriculturalland and herdsto the world systemhas experiencedmodest expansions/ entrepreneurialfirms; the Early Dynastic III economy contractionsin extent and cycles of greaterand lesser involved a variable mix of palace, temple, and lineage prosperity.The ambiguitieshere are enormous,not least production.The permutationsof political economy all regardingFrank's assertion that the ancient world was permittedthe continued flow of foreigncommodities. qualitativelysimilar to the "modernworld-system" and Indeed, the competing Early Dynastic III city-states may be analyzed in similarlanguage. Instead of reengag- seem to have enjoyed a largervolume of tradethan the ing this perennial debate, the followingcomments ad- subsequent Akkadian empire; similarly,the volume of dress questions of method. tradewas largerduring the Isin-Larsaperiod than during Not all regionsin contact with each othershould be the previous Ur III period and declined again with the consideredas belongingto a single world system. For Old Babylonianperiod. The inversecorrelations of trade example, the presence of silk in burials at Sapalli-depe and regional political integrationperhaps arose from (southernUzbekistan [AskarovI973]) implies a probable tributesatisfying demands for exotic materials during connectionwith China at the beginningof the 2d mil- periodsof integrationand fromconflict stimulating de- lennium B.C., the same period in which cloves from mand forexotic wealth in legitimizingdisplays of elite Southeast Asia appeared at Terqa (Syria[Buccellati and status. Kelley-Buccellatii9831). Central and West Asia in turn The incongruencesbetween settlementpattern, poli- enjoyedlinks with the Eurasian steppes (e.g.,Chernykh tics,and economyimply that any singlemeasure is inad- I992), South Asia (e.g.,Hiebert and Lamberg-Karlovksy equate to definean A/B cycle. Frank's referenceto the i992), the eastern Mediterranean(e.g., Millard I977), "tests" based on Chandler's city census and to the and,indirectly, the restof Europe. But the archaeological changingrates of warfare is thereforevacuous. Similarly, evidencehardly warrants reference to a singleworld sys- regionalpolitical integrationor empiredoes not guaran- tem thatencompassed all ofEurasia. Ifthe world-system tee greatercapital accumulation, and volume of trade concept is to have any point, the analysis must reveal and the wealth that trademight generate do not neces- mechanismsof interregional relations (center-periphery, sarily correspond to degreeof urbanism,political struc- uneven accumulation, unequal economic/political ture,or militarism.Indeed, any formaldefinition of the power, dependency)that are distinguishablefrom the A/B dichotomyis bound to fail because of the extreme more traditionalones such as trade,diffusion, and mi- heterogeneityof the definingterms. gration. In the end, Frank'smodel overreachesby insistingon Recognizingthis, Frank attemptsto demonstratethe the modernityof the ancient world,by failingto eluci- realityof a single world system by pointingto interre- date the structuralconnections between regions,and by gionally synchronousdevelopmental cycles. One diffi- settlingfor overly eclectic criteriafor relevant evidence. cultywith this is the precisionof synchronisms.Frank Even so, Frankdoes point to potentiallysignificant ave- at several points indulges in special pleading to fitthe nues of analysis; if his basic goal is to challengearchae-

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ologists and ancient historiansto rethinktheir percep- unclear treatmentof A and B phases. Frank appears to tions of the past, then perhapshe is successful. assume thatsuch phases oughtto be more or less homo- geneous, that is, that everyactor in the systemshould JONATHAN FRIEDMAN followthe same rhythms.He emphasizes thisin his not- Departmentof Social Anthropology,University of ing thatSoutheast and East Asia todayare somehow out Lund, P.O. Box II4, S-22IOO Lund, Sweden. I4 IV 93 of phase with the dominantB-phase tendency.He also suggeststhat the B-phase contractionis the source of Having seen and discussed variousversions of the 5,ooo- shiftinghegemony in the system. We have argued,on year-systemmodel proposed by Frank,I am pleased to the contrary,that it is decentralizationand the tendency findit in a journalwhere it can be discussedby archaeol- toward shiftinghegemony that is the cause of decline ogists and ancient historians. While I agree with the and crises of accumulation in general.Even if the entire most general argumentof the article-that there is a systemis in a contractionphase, thisdoes not determine continuous global system linking much of the Old the distributionof accumulative advantages;some areas World from the 3d and perhaps the 4th millennium may always be expandingat the expense of others.Mau- B.c.-and while it is surelyinteresting to investigatethe rice Lombard's importantstudies of the Mediterranean possibilityof the existence of A and B phases, it ought and the Middle East argued that Rome and Asia were to have been made explicitto what such categoriesrefer. systemicallylinked in inverse cyclical relationswhich Expansionand contractionare not sufficientsummaries, accounted for the long-termrepetitive shifs in hegem- and a more processual model, not unlike those found ony between the two areas (LombardI975). elsewherein Frank's work,should have been provided. The assumptionthat decentralizationand/or the fall It is because the model is not made specificenough that of empire is a symptomof a B phase does not hold up the indicators can be so vague. City size, population under scrutiny.The veryformation of the "first"city- size, and evidence of economic growth(difficult indeed states of EarlyDynastic Mesopotamia is the productof to discern in this discussion) as they appear in a few a demographicimplosion relatedto increasingcompeti- secondaryworks are not really adequate to such a dis- tion over (decentralizationof) control over land and cussion. Even if,for example, the city-sizecategory were trade. Rathje argued quite a few years ago that the de- empiricallyreliable (and Frankis clear regardingthe un- cline of the Classic Maya was not an economic decline reliabilityof the data), we ought to have an argument but a transitionto a more decentralized commercial about the relationbetween economic expansionand the expansion.Similarly, the transitionfrom Hallstatt to La formationof central cities and urban ranking.Such an Tene "cultures" in Europe is not a fragmentarydecline argumentmight account forphenomena such as Mexico but mightbe a decentralizedexpansion of tradeand pro- City,certainly not the centerof the world system,and duction.The EasternChou and WarringStates periodin the Indias and Chinas of the modern world. I have ar- China is usually associated not with B-phasedecline but gued on several occasions that expansion in the center with economic growth. is most oftenand systemicallylinked to political decen- In sum, I thinkthat the descriptionof the world sys- tralizationrather than the reverseand that centralized tem in termsof parallel cycles ofexpansion and contrac- empireswere oftena symptomof slowdown or even de- tion is fartoo general,homogeneous, and vague to en- cline. These processes appear to contradictthe associa- able us to understand the nature of the connections tions establishedhere forA and B phases. assumed to exist and to definethe world system.More The foundationof Frank'sargument for the antiquity could certainlybe coaxed out of the data if the model of a unifiedworld systemin the Old Worldis the appar- were made more specific. ent evidence fora world marketand a worldnetwork of Frank makes an interestingsuggestion with respect exchanges. We have argued in similar terms (Ekholm to the relation between large-scale political-economic I979, Ekholm and Friedman I979), but I would like to change and cultural change. Jasper's"axial age" is here suggesta certain refinementhere. It is not so much a seen as a systemwideresponse to cyclical decline. This commoditymarket as the existence of a formof capital age,from 800-200 B.C. forJaspers, is reducedto 800-5 50 accumulation-the accumulation of abstractwealth- by Frank to fit his B phase. It is characterizedby the thatis the foundationthat we stipulated.This accumu- emergenceof universal religions and philosophies and lation mightoccur in a multiplicityof forms,from dif- the crucial concept of transcendence.In fact it is also ferentconstellations of markets to more centralized characterizedby the emergenceof science, theater,and state patterns.Frank is ratherexcessive in classifying a strongtendency to secularization and individualiza- Weber with the primitivistsand substantivists.While tion in the Mediterraneanand large partsof the Middle Weber,to be sure,argued that capitalismnever emerged East, a process that mightbe likened to the emergence as dominantin the ancient world,his question was re- of a kind of modernity(Friedman I99I, I992). Here, lated to the confrontationof different kinds of strategies, while the globality,however uneven, of this change is includingthe accumulation of abstractwealth. This is well taken, its internalproperties cannot be accounted verydifferent from the Polanyiand Finleyargument that forby the economic cycle itself(this would requireus capitalisteconomic goals and thereforeprocesses simply to explainwhy it did not occur previously).By specifying did not exist in the ancient world. the nature and degree of commercialization and the One of the main problemsarises with respectto the transformationof political structuresand conditionsof

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social existence,we mightbe able to account forwhat proved).Unfortunately, more than a centuryof archaeo- is more like a global trendor structuraltransformation logical researchprimarily devoted to refiningchronolo- (reversible,of course) than a global cycle. gies has given us time intervalsthat, at best, match the These commentsare meant to urge clarification,but lengthof those cycles (see, e.g., the various regionalsur- theyare made on the assumptionof generalenthusiasm veys in Ehrich i992), and there is no realisticprospect foran approachthat I hope will make increasingsense of a breakthroughto greaterprecision. Constructsthat out of our species's historyon this planet beforewe are are artifactsof the evidence cannot be useful for the replacedin a yet longerglobal cycle. criticalexamination of that same evidence. No one doubts that some areas of Frank's Greater Near East co-prosperitysphere were in fact engagedin ANTONIO GILMAN commerce such that their fortunes were somehow, Departmentof Anthropology,California State somewhat,interconnected. What is in question is the University,Northridge, Calif. 91330, U.S.A. 9 III 93 geographicextent of that web and the degreeto which the fortunesof its component parts varied cyclically. Frankputs forwardtwo concrete claims: that,as early This essay's special pleading does nothingto advance as the late 4th or early 3d millennium B.C., the Near discussion of the empiricalaspects of these issues. East and adjacent areas of Europe and Asia formedan Frank's discussion of the theoreticalside of these is- interconnectedeconomic unit, one which expanded to sues also leaves much to be desired.He does not discuss encompass most of Eurasia over the following 3,000 but merelydismisses a "primitivist-substantivist"view years,and thatthis BronzeAge worldsystem underwent of ancient political economies. But what of the primi- cyclical, synchronicpatterns of prosperityand decline tivist-formalistalternative (e.g., D'Altroy and Earle (A and B phases, respectively).These claims might be I985, Brumfieland Earle I987) to Frank's modernist- accepted on one or both of two grounds:because they formalism?This view would hold that marketsexisted are supportedconvincingly by the empirical evidence but were limited in scope and that elite groups max- affordedby the historical and archaeological records imized theireconomic self-interestbut tributewas more and/orbecause theymake sense (thatis to say, theyare importantthan tradeas a source oftheir capital accumu- supportedby a coherent and convincingtheory of the lation. An approach along these lines would go a long processes governingarchaic societies). Frank's essay way toward explaining the many anomalies Frank is fails to establish eitherof these groundspersuasively. constrainedto treat as exceptions. If tributeis the key Archaeologistshave various methods,none of them to the political economy, then one polity's difficulty beyondcontroversy, for determining the extentof trade constitutesanother's opportunity. Frank is aware of this betweensocieties, assessing changes in theirprosperity, possibility(as in his mention of "musical chairs") but and establishing dating frameworksfor those events. does not seem to recognize that such countercyclical Frank,rather disarmingly, absolves himselfof the need phenomenacontradict his generalizedswings of prosper- to examine such evidentiarymatters directly: he is a ity and decline. Widespread declines and revivals cer- sociologist,content to accept the conclusions of experts tainly occurredat times (the eastern Mediterraneanat directlyengaged in the study of the record. Unfortu- the end of the 2d millennium is a good example that nately,when the expertsdisagree about details (as they Frankmakes much of),but they are tied to historically must,given what theyhave to work with),he feels free specificcircumstances and should not be elevated into to pick the versionhe likes best (insteadof realizing that a generalpattern. he must get to the bottom of the issue); when the ex- Indeed, the greatestdefect of Frank's essay is that it pertshedge theirconclusions, he feels freeto disregard givesthe readerno reason to suppose that such a general theircaveats; when theyare unsympatheticto the prem- patternshould exist. In his conclusions he turnsbriefly ises of the world-systemapproach (e.g., Harding i984), to the demographicor climatic causes thatmight under- he ignoresthem altogether. Such selectiveculling of sec- lie his A and B phases. He providesno evidencefor them ondarysources merelypropagates error through the in- (apartfrom the usual selective quotation of secondary tertwinedhypotheses. sources), and he seems to be aware that such factors Speculative theorybuilding might still be useful if it would not constituteadequate explanations,that a com- could lead to fruitfulreexamination of the archaeologi- mon "warming can affectagricultural possibilities in cal record.Frank notes that archaeologyprovides diffi- arid and humid. . . areas in exactlyopposite ways," but cult evidence, but conceding difficultiesdoes not re- he has no alternativeto suggest.Empirical generaliza- move them. He is so insensitive to the archaeological tion, to the extent that it ignoresvariability, is a poor record'sconstraints that his hypothesescannot possibly foundationfor theory. be tied to evidence. His 2oo-year A and B cycles, for example,would be susceptibleto evaluation onlyon the condition that the general chronologyof events could CHRIS GOSDEN be specifiedmore tightly.If one could plot changes in Departmentof Archaeology,La Trobe University, citysizes or regionaldemographic densities or tradevol- Bundoora, Victoria3083, Australia. 8 III 93 umes at, say, 5o-yearintervals in a series of adjacent regions,Frank's proposed cycles would be imaginative The initial ideas concerningworld systems,developed and useful heuristic constructs(even if they were dis- by Wallerstein,Amin, and Frankhimself, were designed

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to elucidate a specificproblem: the creationof the mod- past s,ooo yearsall had the same social effectsand what ern world wherebyEurope was enriched and much of the nature of these effectsmight be. Not only are the the southernhemisphere systematically impoverished. theoreticalbases of the approachunclear but it is uncer- The problemwas well definedand had a directbearing tain whether the methods of measuring quantitative on contemporaryissues; furthermore,the processes of changescan ever be usefullyapplied. Earlyin the article colonialism and capitalism,such as those of capital ac- Frank mentions Kondratievand the cycles associated cumulation,could be understoodthrough existing theo- with his name, which immediately brings to mind reticalframeworks (see the introductionto Wallerstein graphs of the movement of prices (see, e.g., Braudel I974). In the case of the "modernworld-system," the I984: fig. 9). However, the main quantitativedata ad- problemprompted the model. Now thereis a dangerof vanced, such as they are, concern the numberand size the model's helping to shape historyin its own image. of cities, which are farfrom being a straightforwardin- Frank'sarticle is based on the assumptionthat if a s,ooo- dex of the health of the economic system.The nature year-oldworld systemcan be seen to exist this in itself of accumulationis seen to be centralto changeswithin will be of interest. I need more convincing that the the system,but no measures of accumulation are of- world-systemsframework is a useful one. fered.In short,I feel that both the theoryemployed and I do not, however,want to throwout the baby with the methods it necessitates are based too much on the the bath water.On an empiricallevel Frank(along with present,where the nature of the economic process and others)has identifiedan importantproblem: many areas its quantitativechanges are comparativelywell known of Eurasia have been linked throughthe movementof and some of the links between quantitativeand qualita- materialsand people over long spans of time, and these tive change can be specified. links may have had an importantimpact on local devel- Should we say that history at this scale from the opments.Although the existence of interconnectionsis Bronze Age onwards should not be written?There is a clear,their nature is not. Frankargues for some formof real problem to be tackled here; froman early period, capital accumulation from the Bronze Age onwards, which may or may not startin the Bronze Age, a series with a systemof "interpenetratingaccumulation" link- of interconnectionsin Eurasia was at least as important ingvarious cores and hinterlands.He goes fartherto sug- as local developments.The use of world-systemstheory gest a directhistorical connectionbetween the Bronze may lead us onto the wrongtrack, producing arguments and Iron Age world systems,on the one hand, and the about how similarBronze Age societies were to the pres- modernworld system,on the other. ent and temptingus to use methodologieswhich work Here it seems that he is tacklingan old problemin a well forthe past fewhundred years but cannot workfor new guise: the rise of civilisationitself. There is an im- periodsfive millennia ago, with theirmyriad uncertain- plicit argumentthat the Bronze Age, with the rise of ties of datingand quantitativeanalysis. cities, elites, and regularlong-distance trade, set up a structurethat was then unique in worldhistory and has stayedwith us ever since. However, archaeologicalevi- dence demonstrateswidespread connections and move- ments of material fromthe late Palaeolithic onwards. A. F. HARDING An explicit argumentis needed as to why the Bronze Departmentof Archaeology,University of Durham, Age world system formed the basis for the modern Durham,DHI 3NU, U.K. I5 III 93 world. As far as this argumentis advanced in Frank's article,it seems to revolve around the notion of the ac- Frankrightly suggests that a conventionalarchaeologist cumulation of value and/or surplus. It is implied that would have considerablequalms about charting"Bronze forms of accumulation were institutionalisedin the Age world-systemcycles." He lists many of the difficul- BronzeAge in a new way. The aim thus seems to be to ties involved-uncertainties of dating, ambiguity of providea quantitativeand economic definitionfor the both archivaland site evidence,uneven coverageof the term "civilisation." However, there is also a series of differentparts of the BronzeAge "world"-and to some confusions,the most crucial of which stems fromthe people theywill seem insuperable.We are thereforecon- use of the terms"surplus" and "value." siderablyin his debt forgiving us this articleand simul- To simplifycrudely, it is possible to say that since taneouslyproviding us much food forthought. There is Marx people have used "value" as a means of lookingat no doubt that it will serve as a landmarkand that his the mannerin which changesin quantity,deriving from "tentative findingsand propositions" will be exten- production, exchange, and distribution, turn into sivelyexamined and, perhaps,revised. changes in quality,in termsof social structures,styles A numberof difficultiesface the European prehisto- of life,and the uses to which materialthings are put in rian in attemptingto assess Frank's ideas, not least the the social process. The structureof the accumulationof fact that he has very little to say about Europe itself. value, its spatial distribution,and the periodicitiesof its Unfortunately,several of the key items that he quotes use can all be quantifiedand linked to theirsocial and are unpublished.For me most difficult,however, is the political consequences (see Harvey I989). However, fact that it is hard to know whetherthe statementshe Frankpresents no argumentas to the transformationof makes are trueor false; thereis littlein the archaeologi- quantityto quality, and we are left with the question cal recordon which to base a judgement,and since he whetherquantitative changes in the economy over the relies mainlyon the archaeologicalstatements of world-

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systems-theoryenthusiasts, paying little attention to disqualificationby "the profession"nor the timidityof contraryopinions, we are not reallymuch fartherahead. specialists but whetherdata are used accuratelyand in In some ways this applicationof grand theory is rather context.Dependence on secondarysources leads Frank like the concept of the Grand UnifiedTheory for physi- to repeaterrors and misconstrueevidence. For example, cists: if it can be correctlyformulated, it will providea indexingthe rise, collapse, and incorporationof various frameworkfor understanding all the remainingphenom- societies into a world systemaccording to citycensuses ena ofthe academic universethat we inhabit.It is likely, or quasi-historical accounts of warfare is simplistic. in my view, that the truthis considerablyless tidythan Taking such extrapolationsuncritically overlooks the this,and in the contextof an archaeologicalanalysis of complexity inherent in archaeological and historical the BronzeAge one would need to be convincedthat the analyses. Nor is it clear why changes in urbanism or cyclical movementsreally took place on a global scale. conflictat the local or regionallevels necessarilysignal Frank'scriterion for identifying the existenceof a world the developmentof intersocietalstructures. systemis that "no part of the systemwould be as it is The major theoreticalproblem with Frank'sargument or was if otherparts were not as theyare or were," and is that it equates correlationwith causation. Frankis at he lists trade connections,political relations,and the pains to correlatelocal sequences of rise and collapse. sharingof cycles as "criteriaof participation in the same Some of these correlationslikely representpanregional worldsystem." In the partof the BronzeAge thatI know phenomena;others, however, are epiphenomenaor sim- best, the "barbarian"world of Europe and its relations ply illusory. Establishing and dating local cycles are with the Mediterranean,it is common knowledgethat complex archaeologicalproblems, demonstrating inter- all of these are controversialmatters, and the contro- penetratingcausal relationshipseven more so. For ex- versyis certainlynot dispelled simplyby quotingfrom ample, the panregionalphenomena forming A and B cy- Kristiansen'swritings, openly partisanin approach. cles are subject to conflictinginterpretations. The Uruk How can one answer such questions? Are the data settlementsin Iran, Syria,and Anatolia are regardedas adequate? This will of course dependon time and place, colonies by Algaze (I989) but as refugeesfleeing south- and differentobservers will arriveat differentanswers. ern Mesopotamia by Johnson(I988-89). Contra Ratna- It is certainlypossible to believe, as Frank evidently gar and Shaikh,Shaffer (I982) doubtswhether Harappan does, that the evidence fromthe Near East, Mesopota- civilizationwas substantivelyaffected by contactswith mia, and India is strongenough to supportthe idea of Mesopotamia and the Gulf and whetherHarappa should economic and political cycles in the Bronze Age. I am even be regardedas a "state." Discussions of collapse less happy about using Chernykh'swork on metallurgy also show how importantelements of societies persisted to legitimisea vast "Eurasian world system"; the issues throughB phases; curiously,Frank's approachincludes involved in the spread of metallurgyare complex and neitherthese discussionsnor the fundamentalcontribu- the mechanisms involved in the transferof knowledge tionsof Braudel (Braudel I980; Lamberg-KarlovskyI985, not necessarilybest describedin "global" terms.In the I986; Yoffeeand Cowgill I988; TainterI989; Willey case ofEurope, we are mainlydependent on archaeologi- 1991). cal site evidence-desertions, destructions,evidence of That there were differentkinds of "trade," unequal trade fromartefacts, and so on-and it is correspond- development,and progressiveaccumulation of power in inglyharder to create interpretationsthat are both sup- cores duringantiquity is clear, but except for metals portedby adequate data and sufficientto the explanatory Frank does not explore what materials were being purposefor which theywere created. moved, when, by whom, and forwhat purpose. In con- Were there cycles at all? The idea of a cyclical rela- trastthe discussions of Edens (i992) on trade and con- tionshipbetween Europe and the Mediterraneanat the sumptionof utilitarianshell and grainin the Gulf and end of the Aegean Bronze Age was firstformulated by Mesopotamia,Kohl (I978) on chloritevessel production, Bouzek (i969: 86 fig. 3I) in the demonstrationthat as exchange, and consumption linking Mesopotamia to the number of settlementsin Attica declined around easternIran and Afghanistan,and Joffe(n.d.) on Mediter- I200 B.C. the number in central Europe rose dramati- ranean crop productionin the Levant and consumption cally, and vice versa in the 8th centuryB.C. Bouzek's in Egyptshow how tradein particulargoods resultedin interpretationof this phenomenonis a straighthistori- theirvaluation and commodificationand the impact on cal one, relyingon a combinationof climatic and demo- societies and elites of their production,exchange, and graphicfactors, but it is nonethelessa kind of ancestor consumption. Without referenceto mechanisms and to the moreformalised theories of cycles which thisarti- pathwaysof material transfers,Frank is left only with cle presents. correlations,while explanationis homogenizedto "total accumulation." "Total accumulation" is an essentialist featureacting as a prime mover if not a deus ex mach- ALEXANDER H. JOFFE ina. It is eithera reifiednotion of society or a partially Harvard Semitic Museum, Cambridge,Mass. 02138, articulatedtheory of elite behaviorthat ignores the con- U.S.A. 22 III 93 tingentroles of historyand culturein social evolution. Sanderson(I99i) has shown that world-systemstheory Frank's reconstructionpresents a number of method- is a formof evolutionarytheory that exclusively empha- ological and theoreticalproblems. At issue is neither sizes exogenousfactors. Frank's use of it ignoresthe in-

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ternalfeatures of local sequencesand acts as a latter-day cited in the acknowledgements(all of whom, by the form of diffusionism.His global perspective breaks way,work in westernor southernAsia, not in the Medi- down boundariesbetween units, but at its core thereis terraneanor NorthAfrica) would have benefitedthis ar- only a basic Marxian notion of a rulingclass. By taking ticle immensely and made it requiredreading for any local and regionalphenomena of rise and collapse out of BronzeAge archaeologist.As it stands,it makes a criti- contexthe deliberatelysacrifices explanation in contex- cal, innovative,but oftenmisleading contribution when tual termsin favorof a reductionistand homogenizing it seeks to treatareas beyond ancient westernAsia and framework. the Indus, and I thinkit is wrongto tryto include the Contingentfactors of local history and culture af- Lapita phenomenonand Oceanic prehistoryin this par- fectedsocial evolution and the developmentof interso- ticular argument (see e.g., Allen I984, Gosden et al. cietal formationssuch as world empiresand world sys- I989, BellwoodI987, Bellwoodand Kuhni984). tems (Kohl i984). The xenophobiaof Egyptand the Although Frank's paper purportsto treat everything cultural competition between Assyria and Babylonia from the Mediterranean to South Asia, the focus conditionedlocal, regional,and, ultimately, world devel- throughoutis on Mesopotamia, central Asia, and the opment. The pivotal roles of religion and ideology in Indus,only occasionally on Europe (Kristiansen'swork). the Inca and Aztec expansions have been discussed by Even then,the discussion of the "ancient economy" de- Conradand Demarest(I984). Helms (I988) has shown bate overlooksYoffee's (I98I) key articleand most rele- that "trade" is frequentlyinitiated by and for religio- vant studies on the Mediterranean(e.g., Earle I985, political elites whose goal is not "total accumulation" Knapp i985). The Mediterranean,which plays a key role but the accumulation of specifickinds of power.A con- in any considerationof a Bronze Age world system,re- cept of power comprisedof social, religious,economic, ceives verylimited coverage(brief references to the ad- and political aspects providesa more satisfyingbasis for mittedlysuperb paper of Sherratt and Sherratt[i99ia; see explainingancient trade and the evolution of intersoci- now I993]). Frank's focus on western and centralAsia etal interactionthan a purely materialist framework to the exclusion of the Mediterranean(South Asia does (RuncimanI982, Mann I986). Cyclesexisted in thean- not reallyfare much better;Wheatley I975, forexample, cientworld as theydo in the modern,but littlesuggests is not considered)results from his relianceon Edens and that the world system was tightlyintegrated prior to Kohl ratherthan on any past social or politico-economic the ist millennium B.C. and the advent of panregional reality.Without fullerconsideration of the Mediterra- empires. nean world, "the Bronze Age world system" is farless World-systemsconcepts have been diluted and re- comprehensivethan it should be. Contra Edens and formulatedby historiansand archaeologistsbut retain Kohl,for example, the BronzeAge worldsystem extends an undeniable appeal. It could be arguedthat theiruse- not just to the easternbut to the westernMediterranean fulnessis less interpretivethan heuristic. Frank's contri- (see Bietti Sestieri I988, Muhly, Maddin, and Stech butionis thus a challengeto specialiststo look outward. I988, Knapp I990; on the easternMediterranean see It is healthy and necessary fornonspecialists, particu- CherryI986, MuhlyI986, Manning I993, Knapp I993). larlythose with stronglydeveloped theoreticalperspec- Frankacknowledges the difficultieswith the IronAge, tives,to contributeto debatesthat frequently degenerate the treatmentof which is verygeneralized, underrefer- into squabbling over minutiae. But Frank cannot leave enced,and misleadingcompared with thatof the Bronze the details and explanationsof local changes to the spe- Age. It would have been useful, certainly,to have a cialists or ignoreexisting discussions. His earlierwork statementof the problemswith the Iron Age (following has contributedconsiderable insight into the present. the "B phase, I200-I000 B.C."), but otherwiseits inclu- Withoutgreater attention to the detail and characterof sion in this study seems entirelyinappropriate. In fact, the past, the structureand process of the ancient world the section on the "B phase I200-I000 B.C." contains and its connectionswith our own will not be revealed. an unfortunatemixture of "fact" and fiction(e.g., the Dorian "invasion" is mythological,and one must be skeptical of any invasion or migrationpostulated as a A. BERNARD KNAPP primarycause of cultural change, as Frank himself School of History,Philosophy, and Politics,Macquarie points out). Furthermore,one cannot just cite Jameset University,Sydney, N.S.W. 2I09, Australia. I7 III 93 al. (i99i) without pointingout how controversialthis studyis, even if it does highlightproblems associated Frank'spaper has greatpotential, and his knowledgeof with the close of the Bronze Age (see reviews and reply world-systemstheory has few counterparts.But the at- in CambridgeArchaeological Journal I[2] and 2[I]). tempt to interweave elements of that theoryinto the Other,more minorpoints of omission or commission vast area of "Afro-Euroasia" and the Mediterranean include the following: (i) The issue of tin sources is throughoutthe Bronze Age is veryweak at the seams, much more complex than Frankportrays it (foran over- seriously overextendedin time and space, often self- view of materialfrom Asia to England,see Muhly I985; indulgent,and replete with "factual" errors.The last on Taurus tin, see articlesby M. Hall and S. Steadman, complaint is minor and obviously beyond any single A. Yener and M. Goodway, E. Pernicka et al., and L. writer'scontrol, but fullercollaboration with an archae- Willies in the Journalof Mediterranean Archaeology ologist ratherthan reliance on comments fromthose 4[23 and 5[i]). (2) Woodand other organic materials were

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also traded widely throughoutthe eastern Mediterra- becomes that of sand castles constructedon top of one nean (see detailed referencesand discussion in Knapp anotheror a house of cards. How many levels can be I991). (3) The tradein silver,units of account, etc., was built beforeeverything collapses in on itself? also common in the Aegean, especially in the Cyclades Frank,of course, is aware of these difficultiesand is (e.g.,Stos-Gale and Macdonald I99i. (4) Any discussion honest enough to spell most of them out at the begin- of the developmentand impact ofmetallurgy in western ning.Nevertheless, he remainsundeterred from the for- Asia duringthe BronzeAge must incorporatediscussion midable task he has set forhimself: the delineationof of Cyprus (see Muhly I986, I989, i99i; Knapp I986, cyclical A and B phases of expansion and contraction I988, I993). acrossan essentiallyever-expanding single world system Frankhas ingeniouslyexamined BronzeAge cycles of (in the realm of believers,Frank is a staunch monothe- production,consumption, and exchange in a manner ist) that stretchback into the mists of the 3d if not the thatI fullycommend and with a scope thatwill be envi- 4th millennium B.C. There are limits to an admirable able to most archaeologistswho work in these regions. boldness of scholarship,and Frank's recognitionof the He is fullyaware of the shortcomingsI have belaboured severe methodological and epistemological problems here and rightlystates at the outset that simplyoutlin- that he is forcedto confrontdoes not excuse him or ingthe extentof the BronzeAge worldsystem is enough. make more credible the storythat he tries to relate. I My criticismsstem fromthe fact that, with collabora- am sure thatother commentators will criticizeFrank on tion, this article could have been a major contribution one or more of these recognizeddifficulties, particularly to Bronze Age archaeologythroughout the Old World those relatingto chronologicaluncertainties, and I do and fromthe belief that the role of the Mediterranean not want to appear as one more tiresome gainsayer. in the Bronze Age world systemhas been seriouslyun- Again, it is salutaryfor a nonspecialist to tryto reveal deremphasized.The latteris the faultnot of Frankbut broad patternsof economic decline and resurgenceto of the archaeologists he has consulted. For example, more timid archaeologistsmired in the complexitiesof whoever told Frank that Childe has been "discredited theirdata. One scholar's parochialism,however, may be by the profession"is seriously misguided him/herself another'sjustifiable caution. Frankrecognizes the diffi- (cf. Sherratti989). It is now time forsomeone to take culties but somehow fails to accept theirgravity. up the challenge of fillingthe gap leftby Frank,a role Let me just brieflydiscuss two underevaluatedprob- that the Sherrattshave already taken very seriously lems: First,what is not known archaeologicallyis fre- (i99ia, I993; Sherratti992). quentlymuch more impressivethan what has been dis- covered. Many areas or regions remain essentially archaeological terra incognita. The decline of settle- PHILIP L. KOHL ment in southernTurkmenistan at the end of the 3d or Departmentof Anthropology,Wellesley College, the beginningof the 2d millenniumB.C. was interpreted Wellesley,Mass. 02I 81, U.S.A. I 5 III 9 3 as part of a broad patternof settlementabandonment throughouteastern Iran ("prehistoricTuran") until So- Frankhas writtena bold, explicitlyprovocative article viet researchersin the early '7os began to document that is meant to stimulate prehistoriansto seek inter- massive Late Bronze settlementsfarther east in Bactria connectionsamong disparatecultures and to detect cy- and Margiana.A similar situationcharacterizes our un- clical contractionsand expansions of economic activity derstandingof settlement patterns today in most of overvast areas ofAfrica and Eurasia fromthe beginnings northeasternIran (and here one should observethat our of the Bronze Age throughthe end of Classical Antiq- lack ofunderstanding is not soon to be rectifiedfor obvi- uity.Insofar as his essay performsthis functionof forc- ous political reasons),particularly on the Gurgan plain ing archaeologiststo climb out of their trenchesand but extendingnortheastward onto the Meshed-Misrian search forbroader patterns of interactionstretching far plain of southwesternTurkmenistan. Hundreds of pre- beyondtheir local areas ofresearch, it is to be applauded; historic sites, some exceptionallylarge, have been re- insofaras it fostersthe illusion of a real, empirically corded for these areas, but practicallynone have been ascertainableprehistoric Bronze Age world system or- morethan superficiallyinvestigated or excavated.These chestratingthe course of world history,it must be re- gaps in the recordmust be appreciatedbefore one begins ceived more critically.At one level, the problemis one to paint one's broad canvas. Secondly,archaeologists of- ofreification: Frank's world system has become real and ten use termssuch as "trade" in impreciseor contradic- not just a model that is useful when it clarifiesunder- toryways. By no means does an archaeologicallydocu- standingand expendablewhen it does not. His "reality" mented movement of materials constituteevidence of wags the tail of the evidence when, for example, he marketexchange or the economic activitiesmost condu- writes that an earlier identificationof a B phase from cive to Frank's cyclically expanding and contracting I700 to I500/I400 B.C. "implies a previous A phase." world system; such materials can move by a varietyof At anotherlevel, Frank'smodel relies on the highlyse- means which have differentsocial and economic conse- lective utilization of largely secondary if not tertiary quences. Wheneverpossible, one must tryto get a han- sources that attempt to reconstructbroad patternsof dle on the scale or quantity of materials being ex- interactionfrom very incomplete and problematicmate- changed. Archaeologists notoriously inflate the rials,primarily the archaeologicalrecord. The metaphor significanceof theirown discoveries,and the literature

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is replete with impressive-soundingphrases such as introducea B phase fromI 7 50 to I 600/ I 500 B.C., which "massive movements" or "large-scale exchanges" accordingto the most recentdatings represents the My- which,when examined criticallyor fromperhaps an ex- cenean shaftgrave period and the flourishingof central cessively empiricistaccount, almost disappear. Resort EuropeanBronze Age cultures.The next A phase, from to an "invisible trade" in perishable commoditiesmay I600/I500 to I200 B.C., is recognizable.The subsequent be justified,but it may also be invented. At the very "Dark Age" afterI200 B.C. is of course the nearlyuni- least, it reflectsthe limitationsof dealingwith archaeo- versal collapse in the Mediterraneanand the Near East, logical evidence. but again it representsa flourishingperiod in central If one remains more of a skeptic than a believer,the Europein termsof agrarian expansion and metal produc- question becomes: Is Frank'smodel useful?Despite my tion. What we see here,then, is a more complex picture admirationfor the boldness of the endeavor,I am afraid in which centresand theirperipheries need not follow that my answer is largelynegative. With many signifi- the same pulse. Collapse in the centremay be followed cant reservations,which I need not reiteratehere, I have by flourishingin the formerperiphery. The same applies arguedfor the utilityof a world-systemsperspective for to some of the A and B phases of the Ist millennium the Bronze Age. It all depends on the looseness of the B.C. Thus the B phase of 800-5 50 representedcontinued model one employs and its scale. Frank's terminology commercialexpansion and colonizationin the Meditera- and search forevanescent cycles imply a fargreater ar- nean, while there was decline in large areas in west- ticulation of economic activity over vast areas than I centralEurope. This phase should probablyhave its end believe characterizedthe Bronze Age, at least in its be- date changed to 600 B.C. Also, the two phases 450-200 ginningphases. Much depends upon our understanding B.C. might be lumped togetheras representingone B of the productionand exchange of metals, and Cher- phase of Celtic migrationsin centralEurope. nykh's work is critical,with real differencesemerging AlthoughEuropean Bronze Age and IronAge research- possibly in the 2d millennium B.C. But here too I am ers will recognize the shiftsidentified by Frank, they much more impressedwith what needs to be done than may not in all cases follow the interpretationof them with what we now know (e.g.,our understandingof the as A or B in the European "hinterlands."Ups and downs exchangeand productionof tin-bronzes).Frank's effort, depended upon structuralposition within the world- unfortunately,misleads us in seeing all rises and falls systemhierarchy of core-peripheryrelations. This sug- as systemicallyinterconnected. History should be writ- gests thatfurther research should concentrateupon un- ten on a grandscale; culturesare open, not closed, sys- derstandingthe nature of these structuralrelations. tems,always interactingwith othercultures and partici- Frank'swork has provideda valuable platformfor such pating in shared historical processes larger than discussions. themselves.However, there is no god in the formof a world systemthat directsall these processes. C. C. LAMBERG-KARLOVSKY Peabody Museum, Harvard University,Cambridge, KRISTIAN KRISTIANSEN Mass. 02I38, U.S.A. 27 III 93 National Forestand Nature Agency,Ministry of the Environment,Skov-og Naturstyrelsen, Haraldsgade 53, Because of the enormous geographicand chronological DK-2ioo Copenhagen0, Denmark.22 IV 93 scale of the analysis, I suspect that few archaeologists will feel comfortablewith Frank'snotion of a worldsys- Frank has set out to "test" the existence of a single tem in the BronzeAge. In fact,however, Kohl (i989) has world systemoriginating in the Bronze Age by demon- proposeda "world system" involvingCentral Asia, the stratingempirically a common pulse of economic ups Iranian plateau, and Mesopotamia, and Edens (i992) has and downs runningthrough the system.This apparently attemptedto link the "world system" of Mesopotamia simple and yet enormous task is in itselfan important with that of the Persian Gulf and the Indus Valley. Tosi contributionto the widening discussion about world- and I arguedfor what Caldwell (i964) called economic systemtheory. Most case studies up till now have en- "interactionspheres" uniting Central Asia, the Indus, compassed only partof the system,assuming wider reg- the Iranianplateau, the Persian Gulf,and Mesopotamia ularities.Thus the primary"test" of the existence of a within a marketnetwork (Lamberg-Kalovsky and Tosi single ancient world system going back 5,ooo years is I973, I975). The question remains: What were the pre- indeedthe demonstrationof cyclical regularitiesin time cise "political-economicfortunes" that broughtdistinc- and space, definingits geographicaland chronological tive culturesinto contact? limits. I shall thereforecomment upon the interpreta- Even when large areas and several centuries are tion of A and B phases fromthe perspectiveof the Euro- lumped-which, given the relativepaucity of evidence, pean Bronze Age, as it representsthe core of the argu- is essential formaking a case fora Bronze Age "world ment. (I leave it to others to discuss the geographical system"-Frank's thesis remains highly strained.His limits of the system.) essay and the recent writingsof Kohl and Edens give While I can recognizethe firstA phase of the 2d mil- the impressionthat both finishedcommodities and raw lennium,which correspondsto the firstflourishing of a resourceswere being tradedin bulk over vast stretches real Bronze Age, employingtin, there is no reason to ofEurasia and that this commerceresulted in economic

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dependencies, political hegemonies, and exploitative Bronze Age is evident in the earliest systems of land core-peripheryrelations. Only Edens (I992) has made an tenurein Mesopotamia (Gelb, Steinkeller,and Whiting effortto quantifyhis argument,counting three items i989). While such studies as Larsen's (I976, I982) give made of shell: lamp cups, cosmetic containers,and cyl- clear evidence for the existence of capitalism, others, inderseals fromaround 3000 B.C. to the early2d millen- such as those of Saggs (I989) and Moran (I992), illustrate nium. Withoutattempting to controlfor differences in the coexistence of kin-orderedand tributarymodes of areas excavatedin the various time periodsor the differ- productionat a time when capitalism was being prac- ent functionalcontexts from which the shells were re- ticed. covered,he concludes that this small numberof items While I see the ancient and the modern economy as spread over the course of a millennium represents sharingmany attributes,I do not findthe cyclicitythat "transformationsof the Mesopotamian political econ- Frankaddresses very convincing. Contouring world sys- omy attendanton Akkadian and later imperialism"(p. tems and embellishingthem with a cyclical patternis I25). I applaud such efforts,but this grand conclusion adventurous,and the scale of the analysis is dizzying. seems to me to emergenot fromthe archaeologicaldata Perhaps today's economic world system,modern hege- but fromwhat the writtentexts explicitlysay. monic rivalries,and the developmentof underdevelop- Late-3dmillennium texts from Mesopotamia speak of ment cause us to see the same featuresin the past. I tradewith Dilmun (the Persian Gulf),Magan (Oman?), have little doubt that they were there,but it was at so and distant Melluhha (the Indus?). Yet archaeological differenta scale as to make thembear littleresemblance excavationshave not recovereda single Mesopotamian to those of the present. or Omani artifactin the territoryof the other,nor has a single artifactof incontestable Mesopotamian origin been recoveredfrom the Indus or from Central Asia. J. R. MC NEILL Thus the archaeological evidence fora "world system" HistoryDepartment, Georgetown University, is meager and tends to concentrateon a limited reper- Washington,D.C. 2005 7, U. S.A. 2I VI 93 toireof elite artifacttypes-etched carnelianbeads, Gulf seals, intercultural-stylecarved chlorite vessels, lapis la- Frank's cycles get shorteras time goes on. Is there a zuli, etc. At the same time, the textual evidence indi- reason forthis, or is it just that thereis more informa- cates that cereals, textiles,and copperwere extensively tion in more recent times? Is there any dangerhere of traded,at least betweenMesopotamia, the Persian Gulf, dignifyingmere eddies in the currentas distinctphases? and Oman. Other materials,such as Magan onions to Is there a terrestrialbias here? I wonder if seaborne Mesopotamia,were tradedbut apparentlyin lesserquan- tradeand connectionsare not being slighted.Was there tity.Generously combining archaeological and textual not perhaps a southern crust (Indonesian archipelago, data spread over a broad region and several centuries Indian Ocean, Gulf,Red Sea) to the world system,mir- readily allows assumptions to become conclusions. roringthe northernrim thatChernykh illuminates? And What is needed is carefularchival studyin conjunction did the East Africancoast not participate,as it did con- with a quantifiedstudy of an archaeological resource spicuouslyafter the rise of the Islam? allegedlycirculating within the "world system."Study- Does an expansionof metals tradeand metal use indi- ing the textsfrom one period at one site (and preferably cate prosperity,or might it not representmilitary exi- fromone archive)is the approachthat informedus that gency,so much of the metal being destinedfor military in the Ur III period the texts fromLagash, forexample, use? deal primarilywith the agriculturaleconomy of the tem- Doesn't relyingon citypopulation figures (necessarily ple, those fromUmma with the activitiesof merchants of highlydubious accuracy) as phase indicatorsneglect and state-runagriculture, those from Nippur largely or at least undervaluethe preponderanceof human expe- with a private economy, and those fromUr with the rience? Cities may have waxed and waned forreasons manufactureof products (Gelb I968). Prosopographycan other than economic upswings and downswings- be of enormous utility; thus Larsen's (I982) study of security considerations,for instance. In the modern Imdi-ilum,an Assyrianbusinessman residing in central worldcities sometimesswell preciselybecause the rural Anatolia, is an example of capitalism in the igth cen- areas are impoverishedand food fromafar comes only tury B.C. that united this region with Mesopotamian to cities. communitiesto the south. The debate with Wallersteinover whetheranything The ancient-vs.-modern-economydebate continues beforeI450 counts as a world systemseems unpromis- to turn on the outmoded notion that historical stages ing to me; call it ecumene or intercommunicatingzone characterized by specific social/economic/political or worldsystem or world-system,it existedand was un- types succeeded each other in linear fashion. Gelb til quite recentlythe cockpit of world history. (I987:7) long ago argued that "it is impossible to speak The I8th-I7th-centuryB phase is no mere cyclical of one type of economy to the exclusion of all others, swing but the chariot revolution. Are technical ad- be it templeor state or private."Wolf (I982) has ad- vances, even those destined for destructivepurposes, vanced three modes of production-kin-ordered,tribu- perhaps part of Frank's capital accumulation? At any tary,and capitalism-without presentingthem as evolu- rate, this particularB phase seems to me so strongly tionarystages. That the three modes coexisted in the relatedto war that some mention of this is appropriate.

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As he reaches classical times, Frank's resistance to ies, periods,and causes may be determinedby elements Hellenocentricchronology seems to weaken. Ought one of that contextas much as or more than by the affairs not look to China ratherthan to the Aegean and Persia? of human societies themselves. This may offendthe If I read Barfieldcorrectly, when China was stable and amour propreof our species, but it is true. prosperous the steppe peoples enjoyed their halcyon days,skimming surplus from it; when it could not pro- duce enough surplus to satisfythem, they had to tryto J. D. MUHLY conquerit. Thus A and B phases oughtto coincide fairly Departmentof Asian and Middle Eastern Studies, well between China and at least the easternsteppe peo- Universityof Pennsylvania,Philadelphia, Pa. ples, and using Chinese historyto definethem does not 19104-6305, U.S.A. I2 III 93 lead one astray.One mightsay that by earlyHan times perhapsthe world systemhad acquired a centerand the As an undergraduateat the Universityof Minnesota I centerwas China. If so, it would not be amiss to write was taughtthat scholars always worked fromprimary as Gernet has writtenand to see the whole system as sources. Stringingtogether a series of quotations from dancingto a Chinese beat. secondarysources was acceptable forundergraduate re- Ifthere was a BronzeAge worldsystem with common searchpapers but entirelyunacceptable in worksof seri- cycles,I can see only threecategories of plausible expla- ous scholarship.What we getfrom Frank's paper is some nation forthem: idea of what scholars such as Chernykh,Edens, Kohl, i. A core that dominates the whole. I suppose one Kristiansen,and Ratnagarhave to say about his general mightclaim China as a core by 200 B.C.,but I don't see topic. Where does that get us? Frankwould like to be- any cores forthe whole systembefore that. lieve that a world system(or world-system)was already 2. Climate change. Frank brieflyconsiders climate in operationin the 3d millennium B.C., if not earlier. change as a factor,and this strikesme as worth close No evidence is presentedto supportthis (or any other investigation.Rainfall and snowfall are the keys: the suggestionmade in this paper);Frank simply thinks that quantityand regularityof precipitationhave always im- it is an interestingidea and seems to feelthat his readers posed a powerfulconstraint on productionin the ecolog- should take it fromthere. Such a system might very ically marginal zones of northernChina, central and well have connected economies over a verybroad geo- southwesternAsia, and North Africa. Palynologycan graphical area in the Early Bronze Age, fromTroy to offerproxy evidence for precipitationhistory, and the Harappa,but whereis the evidencefor (and against)such resolutionis oftensharp enough for cycles thattake cen- a hypothesis? turies. If I remembercorrectly, Ellsworth Huntington Frank admits that he knows little about the periods triedto writeAsian historywith a climatic determinism and areas he tries to cover. He seems to see his role as at its heart,but he had no reliable data. Now thereare thatof an agentprovocateur, tossing out suggestionsand data, and the plausibilityof such a determinismcan be providinga frameworkdesigned to promotefuture re- tested. If I am wrong that there was no core, at least search.But such suggestions,if they are to be taken seri- before200 B.C., then it is possible that climate change ously,must (at least to some degree)be anchoredin real- in a core area rippledeconomically throughout. In other ity,in the survivingarchaeological and historicalrecord. words,if the whole systemwas (at least at times) driven Otherwisewe end up with the proverbialscholar who by ups and downs in a core, those ups and downs might reads three books on a subject in order to write the still have had climate as an importantdriving force. fourth. 3. Disease/population cycles. Another possibility Even on its own terms this paper cannot be taken brieflyrecognized by Frankis that cycles of population seriously.In seeking supportfor a particularinterpreta- growthand decline drove the economic cycles and that tion ofa periodof history it is always best to make refer- those population cyles were defined by the periodic ence to scholarswith known expertisein thatperiod. A eruptionof systemwideepidemics. Crosby(I972, i986), number of scholars will find themselves here in quite amongothers, has shown the historicalconsequences of unexpected contexts. Chernykhis certainlya scholar new infectionsamong populationslacking the requisite with recognized expertisein several differentareas of immunities.His examples all date fromthe past i,ooo research,but the end of the Late Bronze Age is not one years,but the mechanism may well have relevance to of them.In supportof the assertionthat "the Mesopota- the BronzeAge. Sharp oscillations in population(and in mian regionexperienced a long peace fromI 38o to I 33 I labor forceand extractablesurplus) might thereforebe B.C." (and what is that supposed to mean?), the reader definedby the rhythmof "virgin-soilepidemics" ofmea- is referredto a paper deliveredat the I992 meeting of sles, smallpox, typhoid,influenza, etc., acting singlyor the AmericanSociological Association. in groups.In the cases of the introductionof new infec- In attemptingto evaluate the implications of any tious diseases into New Zealand, Hawaii, and the Amer- broadlybased hypothesisit is always best to proceed icas, the decline lasted I20-I50 years. Recoverycame fromthe knownto the unknown.If world-system theory at morevariable rates. How mightsimilar phases (ifpre- is problematicfor the 3d millennium B.C. as Kohl has sumed to exist) correlatewith Frank'seconomic cycles? argued,then what of the 2d and Ist millennia?It is not Human historytakes place in a crowded ecological encouragingto be told that the period I750-I500 B.C., context.Insofar as historyshows cycles,their trajector- was a major B phase "Dark Age." In lightof the wealth

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ofmaterial from Akrotiri (Thera) and Zakro and Knossos ratherthan a realistic description.Indeed, it is the suc- (Crete), the incredible treasuresof the shaft graves at cessive changes of coherence (by no means a secular Mycenae,and the formationof the HittiteOld Kingdom trend)with the growthof scale and alterationsin eco- in centralAnatolia, with the Hittitespushing as fareast nomic organisation that may distinguish different as Babylonca. i600 B.C., it is hard to thinkof the period phases of development. The congruence of economic as a Dark Age. and political powerin the BronzeAge, forinstance, may Things get even worse in the ist millennium,with a contrastwith a looser relationshipin the earlier Iron downswingput at ca. 800-550 B.C. This is the period Age and give rise to a greatermeasure of interdepen- of the great Phoenician expansion to the farwest, the dence whose cycles are visible synchronicallyin both southerncoast of Spain and the opposingcoast of North economic and political spheres; but even so the strik- Africa(but are we reallyback with Phoenicians in Brit- ingly asymmetricdevelopment of the Mediterranean ain?), of the reawakeningof the Greek world in the age and PersianPlateau/Gulf sectors in the BronzeAge sug- of colonization and the Orientalizingperiod (with the gests shift(or alternation)rather than synchronismin developmentof the Greek alphabet and othermajor in- its long-termpattern of growth,with an even greater tellectual developments),and the establishmentof As- degreeof freedomfor marginal (as opposed to peripheral syrian control over eastern Anatolia, the Levant, and [SchneiderI972:2I; Sherrattn.d.]) zones ofthe system. even the island of Cyprus. FrangoisSimiand's terminologyof "A" and "B" phases I could go on, but thereis littlepoint in doingso. The may be misleadingif axiomaticallyassumed to describe world-systemconcept is a most intriguingone, and I the behaviourof all parts and phases of the Old World look forwardto the forthcomingbook edited by Frank systemrather than certaintemporarily coherent phases and Gills, but any theory,however intriguing, has to be of its development.Even more so, blocks of Kondratieff evaluated in terms of the credibilityof its supportive cycles may be discontinuousand characteristiconly of evidence. Frank refersto an individual shipmentof 20 limitedperiods. Cyclicity is not the sole criterionof sys- tons of copper,presumably during the Old Babylonian temic relationshipsand may divertattention from more period. I find this inconceivable. The largest copper fundamentalstructures. cargofrom the BronzeAge known to me, thatof the Ulu The evidence which Frankcites of interregionallink- Burun ship that sank offthe southerncoast of Turkey ages (oftenat a high-value/low-bulklevel) is well taken, about I 300 B.C., was approximatelyhalf that size. as is his discussion of capital accumulation within the core regions.So, too, are his attemptsto integratethe historyof (ist-millennium)steppe peoples and those of ANDREW SHERRATT AND SUSAN SHERRATT adjacent urban areas as more than arbitrarycollision. Ashmolean Museum, Universityof Oxford,Oxford However, in treatingthe 3d millennium as a similarly OXI 2PH, U.K. 8 Iv 93 coherentmacrosystem he underestimatesboth the inde- pendenceof the marginand the large-scalespatial shifts All interpretationsof the processes behind the develop- in the core/peripherynucleus, with the Gulf and the ment of civilisationsare to some extentvisionary. Since eastern Mediterraneanas to some extent complemen- many of our expectationswere generatedby writersof tary spheres of expansion. By the beginningof the 2d the stature of Max Weber and lie embedded in half- millennium, the eastern Mediterranean and central conscious assumptions of the uniqueness of the West Asian interaction spheres had effectivelybifurcated. and the developmentof capitalism,it is salutarywhen While both had theirups and downs, it is misleadingto a serious attempt is made to write the storyon new look forclose synchronicitybetween them-at least un- principles.It is especially encouragingto those of us til the Achaemenid period, when eastern and western with an interestin the BronzeAge when a distinguished ends of the urban world again developed to a common moderneconomist is motivatedto look at our material rhythm.Even within a single sector,however, shifts of because ofits relevanceto the growthof the worldecon- supplyroutes (as in the European"amber routes" around omy as a whole. It is also timely; similar ideas are 50o B.C. and, on a largerscale, betweenwest-central Eu- emergingto respectabilityamong (a few!)archaeologists rope and the Pontic steppes in the 3d centuryB.C., both and ancient historians,and attemptsare being made to in relation to Mediterraneanurban consumers)created overcomethe fragmentedpicture created by disciplinary alternativeand complementaryextensions of the periph- overspecialisation,the regionalautonomism of the New ery,with local boom and bust. Fittingthis local evidence Archaeology,and the surprisinglongevity of Polanyi's to a pattern of systemwide cycles is inherentlymis- substantivismamong students of ancient Greece (it is guided,although it has its own logic which deservesto soberingto realise that R. M. Adams's [I9741 program- be spelled out. matic paper on ancient tradein these pages was written An outsider'sview highlightsthe relativeimmaturity nearlytwo decades ago). of the archaeologicalliterature as a summaryof what is It is valuable, therefore,to have the question framed currentlyknown and how it is interpreted.Large-scale in such comprehensiveterms. This is not to say, how- informationsurveys are oftenliterally old or antiquated ever, that ancient world economies had anythinglike in theirpresentation of material. (Many ofFrank's major the coherenceof the recentworld system,and an initial B-phase migrationsmight disappear on modern scru- searchfor systemwide cycles may be a heuristicexercise tiny.)Our periodicals are full of excavation reportsand

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hot-shotreinterpretations of the nature of archaeology several participantsout of step is insufficientevidence but notoriouslyshort on interpretivesyntheses which that the otherswere not marchingtogether. (2) Some- can be reliablyused by visitorsfrom other disciplines. body is almost always out of step, particularlyin B Popularatlases sketch the scope but do not give the de- phases, like some "newly industrializingcountries" in tail. This paper is valuable not least in showing our- East Asia today. Kristiansenappropriately suggests that selves as otherssee us and in indicatingwhat theyneed collapse in the centermay be followedby growthin the to have from us. Marx and Weber wrote from their periphery,and I would amend this to "some partof the knowledgeof classics and ancienthistory, when archae- periphery."(3) It is this being out of step that permits ologyhad revealed only a fractionof what we know to- evolutionarytransformation in and out of any system day. If contemporaryeconomic theoristsreally do want and center shiftsin the world system. Therefore,the to know about the BronzeAge, it is up to us to tell them. Sherratts'suggestion that we are confrontedby evidence of centershift is well taken,but such shiftsneed not be alternativesto ratherthan complements or indeed re- sults of systemwidecycles. (4) I have alreadyreferred to Reply my observationthat everyB phase since A.D. I500 has generatedsome explorativeventure (e.g., by the Pilgrims to America in I620, by Captain Cook to Australia in ANDRE GUNDER FRANK I770) that laid the basis for larger investmentin the Amsterdam,The Netherlands.29 Iv 93 subsequent A phase (Frank I978a). (5) Others have ob- servedan increase in colonialism duringB phases in re- I thank all the commentators,especially those who cent centuries(Bergesen and SchoenbergI980). (6) Might agreeto disagreeor even to dismiss my suggestionsalto- it not have been preciselythe emergenceof economic gether.I am temptedjust to plead guiltyas charged,for crisis after800 B.C. that generatedPhoenician explora- although hardly anybody agrees with me much, I am tion and new colonies in the Mediterranean? glad to agree with everybody.I am obliged,however, to Muhly and Kristiansenalso demur at labeling I750- rise to chargesso wide-rangingand mutuallycontradic- I500 B.C. a B phase because of Mycenaean and Central torythat it seems unlikely that I could meritthem all. European growth.I have expressedsome doubts about Ifmy articleis, as one commentatorhas it, "fartoo gen- the datingsmyself, but thereis considerablesupporting eral and vague," let us make virtueof the necessityof evidence fromWest Asia, which is what promptedSil- clarificationto extendthis inquiryanother few steps be- ver's "Dark Age" label. McNeill, instead, asks for yond the limits I had set forthis occasion. Because the greateremphasis on war and destructionduring this B CA*-treatmentformat does not reallypermit the oppos- phase, which also included the introductionof the war ing partiesto confronteach otherbi- or multilaterally, chariot, mostly from Central Asia. I agree and have at least not in this round,I will tryfirst to act as a sort treatedthis more extensivelyelsewhere (Frank i992). ofhonest broker among them,summarizing as faithfully PerhapsMycenaean and otherEuropean growthin this as possible theircases and underliningtheir quite con- period should be considered, along with the above- tradictorypositions on several issues groupedby cate- mentionedlater Phoenician one, somethingof a B-phase gory.(To complicate matters,some commentatorsalso crisis-generateddevelopment at the marginof the world take seeminglycontradictory positions on the same is- system which then helped shift its center of gravity sue.) Then, foreach categoryof issues, I will state,reiter- westward.I leave it to the experts. ate, or extendmy own position,of course partipris. Hardingquestions the B-phaselabel for I200-I000 Most commentsdeal with the methodor lack of it in B.C. because of a settlementincrease in CentralEurope my madness. However, the proofof the puddingis in observed by Bouzek. The latter does, indeed, observe the eating, and thereforethis reply will proceed from "complementary" opposites between southern and the most specificand concretetaste test,issues of cycle northernEurope in several periods,and I have referred datingand worldsystem extent, to the most generaland to thisobservation, albeit obliquely,citing "contributors abstractrecipes. I apologize fornot quite followingthis to Harding(i982)." Bouzekfinds these opposites inti- pedagogical maxim in my article,but then most com- matelyconnected with climatic rhythms.The Sherratts mentatorsdo not do so either. findphase contradictionsover a wider area and suggest Cycle datings and phase identifications:Some chal- that looking for systemwidecycles is inherentlymis- lenged, most not. Barcel6, Harding, Kristiansen,and guided. However, the existence of a "dark age" after Muhly offerwelcome critiquesof my cycle datingsand/ I200 B.C. is among the least controvertedof views, and or phase identifications.Barcel6 contendsthat Iooo-8oo the EuropeanistKristiansen comments that "after12o00 B.C. was not an A phase because Phoenician expansion B.C. is ofcourse thenearly universal collapse in the Med- occurredlater. Harding and Muhly argue that for the iterraneanand the Near East." There may be morelegiti- same reason 8oo-550 B.C. would not have been a B mate controversyabout the precise dating.In referring phase, and Kristiansenexpresses doubts, though his sug- to the "controversial"dating of Jameset al. I only said gestionthat it ends in 600 B.C. implies that he accepts that the case I had already made on other grounds it. Perhapsthey have a point about the Phoenicians,but "would gain in credibilityto the extentthat" theirdat- several defenses are possible: (i) Finding one or even ing revisionis well taken. Therefore,I do not see why

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legitimatereservations about Jameset al.'s work (which "may be a heuristicexercise" but then thatthis attempt I also noted) should or need detractfrom mine. is "inherentlymisguided," although it has "its own Discussion and revision,even rejection,of my identi- logic." Multiple choice! Check "All of the above"? The ficationand dating of other cycle phases would have disagreementsabout cycle dating and phase naming of offereda most welcome additional tastingof the pud- the other commentatorsmentioned above suggestthat ding.Only Kristiansenoffers any, and thatfrom a Euro- they are talkingabout cycles/phasesthat are both real pean vantage point: He recognizes the 2000-I800/I750 and identifiable.I can only replythat cycles may well and the I600/I500-I200 B.C. A phases and suggestsfus- be questionable,but unless we ask the question we are ing the unusullyshort 450-200 B.C. phases into a single unlikelyto get an answer. B phase marked by Celtic migrationsin Europe. Is ab- Chase-Dunn wants furtherclarification of cycles. sence of disagreementon other cycle datings evidence Lamberg-Karlovsky,true to form,rejects them. In CA* of the good taste of my cyclical pudding,or does the commentson related topics, he has also complained of archaeological truism "The absence of evidence is no lack of "evidence" to Kohl (I978:479) and absence of evidence of absence" apply here as well? "fact" to Zagarell (i986:427), fromwhom he has also The existenceof cycles.For the archaeologistLamberg- sought "greaterclarity." If thereis more or clearerevi- Karlovsky,cycling is adventurous and unconvincing. dence to supporthis denials of the existence of cycles, For the more climatologicallyoriented Harding, cycles he does not offerit. Perhaps he wishes to invoke the exist but far from being systemwide are in opposite above-mentioned archaeological truism for himself. phases in differentplaces at the same time, and it is Chase-Dunn, in contrast,cites evidence of cycle phases questionablewhether we know or even can know that that coincide between the Mediterranean-WestAsia (my)statements about them are true.McNeill questions and East Asia (but not India) since 430 B.C.; the graph whetherincreases in metals findscan be used as indica- in the paper he cites (Chase-Dunn and Willard I993) torsof A phases, since theymay be relatedto war (more shows the same since about 600 B.C., which not inciden- associated with B phases). This is a serious reservation tallyis when I claimed East and West Asia were united thatI hope is largelyunfounded, but I have no satisfac- in a singleworld system. Chase-Dunn and Willard'stest toryanswer and hope that Chernykhand otherscholars ofthe datingitself yields only "mixed results,"and their can provideone. constructionof city-sizedistributions is doubly incon- McNeill attributesimportant causation to climatic clusive. They disconfirmas many of Gills's and my dat- changes but says that precipitationis more important ings and identificationsas they confirm,but theirdata than temperatureand that population growth,in turn begin only in I360 B.C. and have such long time gaps affectedby disease, is more causative than derivative.I that several cycles cannot be evaluated at all. Barcelo suppose that all of these are interrelatedin turn,but for and the Sherrattshave reservationsabout "absolute" de- now I have to deferto McNeill's ecological expertise, nominationsof A and B phases,pointing out thatan "A" which he combines masterfullywith socioeconomic may be only a "B + " and that phases in differentplaces analysis. In his recent book (dealing primarilywith a appear to go in differentdirections at the same time. much later period)he observes in passing that "it may Chase-Dunn accepts cycles but asks whetherto regard well be true that one of the reasons for the decline of phases of economic growthand hegemonyas alterna- ancientcivilizations is environmentaldeterioration and tives or as complementary.Friedman also accepts cy- consequent falling economic productivity"(McNeill cles, albeit perhapsnot systemwideones, but expresses I 992:74). reservationsabout these and othercomponents. His re- McNeill finds that my cycles get shorterover time quest formore specificationin a "processual model" is, and perhapsbecome mere eddies. I do not see this, de- of course,acceptable, but his alternativeis dubious. He spite my qualifiedsuggestion of some shortercycles be- arguesthat empire building is simultaneouswith decen- tween 550 B.C. and IOO B.C. From then until I450 they tralization,both being associated with-and decentral- become equally long again (Gills and Frank i992). I did ization being a "cause of"-decline and crises of accu- not, as Barcelo says we should not, confuse them with mulation.He notes thatI maintainthe contrary,and the the Kondratieffcycles since then, but I do not exclude Mesopotamian, Chinese, and European cases he men- the possibilityof Kondratieff-lengthor even -typecycles tions have not [yet?]moved me to change my mind. within the longer ones. In this regard, a brief self- Thus, my answer to Chase-Dunn is that economic and criticism:Strictly speaking, we should speak not of cy- political expansion seem to complement each other cles but of one cycle with recurrentA and B phases (Frankand Gills I992; Gills and Frank 1990, 1991). This whose turningpoints are endogenous.Failing the latter, is not necessarilyto denyKristiansen's valuable sugges- we would do betterto speak of "waves" (Frankn.d.). tion that some peripheralgrowth follows central col- Joffeseems to agree that thereare correlationsin the lapse. cyclical eventsreviewed here (and we can leave the mat- The alleged world system: Too big or too small. For ter of causation till later). More than a correlation,I Edens and Kohl, who have taught me so much, there found almost complete coincidence between the cycle was a world systemin West Asia, but it did not extend phases identifiedby Gills and me (i992) and the periods as far east as early as I suggest. McNeill, in contrast, independentlydistinguished by the Sherratts.Now they detects a neglect of seaborne extensions of the world writethat the search fora systemwidepattern of cycles systemstill farthereast, not to mention south to East

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Africa.Here my inclination,also by referenceto the tru- motes the search forthem. A major case in point is my ism about evidence,tilts towardMcNeill. Algaze reiter- inclusion in one "integrated"world systemof both the ates his perceptionof several world systems,to which I regionsmostly south ofthe mountainsstudied by Edens, have alreadytaken exception.Knapp findsmy bounding Kohl, Lamberg-Karlovsky,et al., and those mostly far- of the world systemtoo limited in the west because to thernorth-and east-reviewed by Chernykh.For Kris- his tasteI do not pay enough attentionto the Mediterra- tiansen, the demonstrationof cyclical regularitiesin nean and Europe. The EuropeanistsKristiansen and the time and space is the "primary'test"' of the idea of a Sherrattsdo not, however,complain of neglect of their singleworld system and its geographicaland chronologi- areas. It is thereforedifficult to know what to make of cal limits. Of course, Edens is rightin notingthat not the Sherratts'comment that the 3d millennium wit- all contact need be systemic.But what pattern,degree, nessed spatial core-peripheryshifts but by the early 2d and/orevidence of interactionand interdependence,not millennium Central Asia and the (eastern)Mediterra- to mentiondynamic structure, would Edens and Algaze nean had "bifurcated."Is this intendedto suggestthat then accept forinclusion in one world system,and why theybecame two separateworld systems until theywere should cyclical "correlation"not be among them? "united" again in the Achaemenid period?What is the Mechanisms of the worldsystem: Unspecified or non- rationalebehind this suggestion?On presentevidence it existent.Edens rightlyfinds insufficient specification of seems unlikely that the world systemextended farther the mechanisms whereby interactionis propagated- west and not farthereast, especially until (as several somethingI said could be left for another time or to commentatorsobserve and I have already noted) the those better qualified (such as Edens himself).I hope Phoeniciansextended it into the westernMediterranean thathe will continueto providesuch specification.Bar- in the Ist millenniumB.C. McNeill suggeststhat China, cel6 rightlyasks for considerationof the intensityof which I saw as incorporatedinto the world systemby interactionand/or of the operation of these mecha- the middle of the millennium,was already its "core" nisms. With Edens, Gosden laments that these mecha- beforethe end. Perhapsit was, if therewas a singlecore, nisms are insufficientlyquantified; right again. (This but this does not justifyhis rejectionof my reservations was also, as Kohl [I978:488] noted,"the most frequent about Gernet's Sinocentrismor his suggestionthat the and fundamentalobjection" to his analysis.) I applaud systemdanced to a Chinese beat. I was suggestingthat all appeal to evidence forthe mechanisms and intensity China, CentralAsia, and otherparts of Eurasia were re- of interaction,direct and indirect-such as the prima spondingto a world-systemicbeat, not simplyor primar- facieevidence of cyclical connectionsand of Eden's sug- ily a Chinese one. gestionof "sloping horizons" of theirpropagation from Algaze's plea forseveral world systemsof course con- west to east. Chase-Dunn rightlydemands more atten- tradictsall of the above. Unfortunately,Algaze also con- tion to differencesin the spatial dimensions,especially tradictshimself: His definitionof a world system in of political/militaryand trade networks.He complains termsof "a dynamicstructure of relationshipsof inter- that I "never made clear" that the latter are typically dependency,principally (but not solely) economic" is largerthan the formerand, specifically,that economic preciselywhat Gills and I used to delimitthe world sys- relationsbetween Egypt and Mesopotamia antedatedpo- tem in the Bronze Age. That "polities" A and C have litical ones by at least i,ooo years. I am sorry,since I relations with B and not with each other or with the devoted a number of pages to this theme, and Chase- worldsystem as a whole is a caricatureof my argument. Dunn's clearerstatement only supportsmy contention It hardlyqualifies A, B, and C (or, more concretelyfor that the effectiveworld system emergedearly on and Algaze and me, Egypt,Mesopotamia, and the Indus Val- was much largerthan political ones such as those in ley) as separate "world-systems,"much less so if we termsof which Algaze identifies"world-systems." considertheir relations in turnwith Arabia,the Levant, Thus, the "incongruences between settlementpat- Anatolia, and parts of Central Asia, not to mentionthe tern,politics, and economy" that Edens refersto require steppesnorth of the mountainsexamined by Chernykh. much more evidence and analysis to refinethe identifi- Unfortunately,no commentatorrefers to Chernykh's cation, not to mention the interpretation,of possible and my inclusion of this vast Eurasian expanse in the cycles (forwhich I never proposed a single measure, as world system,and it remains unclear of what this ab- he claims). Friedman, however, mentions three very sence of commentis evidence. similar processes-in commercialization,politics, and Of course,as the Sherrattspoint out, "cyclicityis not social existence-but implies, contraryto Edens, that the sole criterionof systemicrelationships," and I no- they are congruentand synchronous.Though culture wheresuggested that it was. But thereis no reason,con- and ideologyare now a major interestof Friedman,his tra the Sherratts,that attentionto cyclicityand the ob- lone referenceto them duringthe "axial age" is consis- servationof cyclical "correlation"or "coincidence" over tent with my observation(Frank I978a), which he dis- a huge area in Eurasia should "divert attentionfrom putes, that, at least more recently,paradigmatic ad- rathermore fundamentalfactors" such as the ones Al- vances in science, technology,philosophy, and the arts gaze and I set out in principleand in practice. Rather, are generatedby B-phase economic crises. cyclical correlationis prima facie evidence, as Chase- McNeill suspects an urban bias. I thinkthat thereis Dunn writes,"that somethingis goingon," that is, that less bias then lack of the clarityon my part. Cities go "more systemicrelationships" are at work, and it pro- with complex society,population growth, long-distance

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trade,center-periphery structure, imperial and colonial Since then therehave been some changes. For instance, ventures,war, etc. I did not "rely" on city-sizedata to Central Asia is no longer "Soviet," and in the English identifycycle phases but reportedtheir tests by other versionof a book by a formerlySoviet archaeologist(for scholars, who use them because-notwithstanding which Kohl wrote the introduction)we can now read doubts about their inclusiveness and reliability-they that "the world system has turnedout to be far more offerpartly prima facie and partlysubstitute evidence extensive than appeared earlier" (ChernykhI992:304). forother indicators of connectionswhich are less likely It is thereforedifficult to take that Kohl now says flatly to have survived.Other commentatorscomplain that I thatthe worldsystem idea is not useful.Other commen- lend too much or the wrong weight to migrationand tators,such as Knapp, complain that my reliance on war. Kohl is excessive. Perhaps! All of the above is contradictedand rejectedin princi- Accumulation ofcapital and migration:No-but yes. ple and in practiceby Gosden, Gilman, Joffe,and, most Barcel6 accepts everythingin my model except capital strangely,Kohl. The same Gosden who lamentsthe lack accumulation. The Sherratts,on the contrary,find the of a measure of world-systemicinteraction also alleges discussion of capital accumulation well taken but take that in principlethere is no point in pursuingone for exception to much else. Chase-Dunn "agrees" that the Bronze Age. Gilman prefersto confineus to primi- "markets and capitalism have existed for millennia," tivist-formalistanalysis ofsmall societies and areas,but, thoughI deliberatelymade no referenceto "capitalism." generallyspeaking, this seems like a move in the wrong Schneider(I977) argued for the importanceof trade in direction.(It would be especially difficultfor me after luxuriesand preciousmetals, and Ekholm and Friedman having [mistakenly?]invoked formalismin the second (i980), among othersI cited, saw capital accumulation issue of CA over 30 years ago [FrankI960] and rejected in the ancient empires. But Friedmannow proposes a boththat and substantivismin these pages over 20 years "refinement"of capital accumulation throughabstract ago [Frank I970].) wealth, regardingwhich I in turn would like clarifica- Joffewants us in practiceto concentrateon the local tion and/orexamples. In any case, it seems that even and the contingentand eschew all else, so it is not sur- more recognitionand attentionis meritedby the role of prisingthat he recommendsMann's (i986) analysis. I trade in luxuries and, of course, in precious metals in have already explained elsewhere why I do not find capital accumulation (Gills and Frank I990, i99i). Mann's "politics in command" approachcommendable. Chase-Dunn also finds an undefined "distinction be- In recenttimes, both in theoryand in praxis,this Maoist tween capital accumulation and capitalist accumula- approach has been overwhelmed by world economic tion" valuable forunderstanding the differencesin the forces,along with the politics and ideologyof Mikhail world systembefore and afterA.D. I500, which brought Gorbachev and Ronald Reagan (Gills and Frank I990, a "fundamentaltransformation." Since it was not my 1991; Frank and Gills I1992; Frank I993). Power is cer- topic here, I did not mention that I no longer see any tainly one of the mechanisms that Edens would have such transformation(Frank 199Ib, I993). I am also ac- us study,but to lend priority,let alone exclusivity,to cused of excessive attentionto major migrations;I con- political power and disdain economic forceas it under- fess to the sin of excessive omission instead. lies the exerciseof power is false consciousness thathas Worldsystem analysis: Not as far back as the Bronze led to griefboth in recenthistory and in and about the Age-but as farback as theNeolithic. Most commenta- BronzeAge. torssaid or implied that "modern" world systemanaly- Surprising,however, is Kohl's emphaticrejection of a sis is not applicable as early as I want to use it, and "worldsystem." I noted his repeatedcaveats and expres- Lamberg-Karlovskythinks that nothing so modernis ap- sion of reservationsabout the "use and abuse" of world plicable to earliertimes at all. To the contrary,Gosden systemtheory and his recognitionof the need to "adapt" (the same one who questions the applicabilityof this Wallerstein'stheory for use in earliertimes, but he still idea in the Bronze Age?) wants us to push it much far- seems to be wrigglingin its straitjacket.This has not ther still, to the Neolithic. He is probablyright about preventedhim fromdoing much to advance the analyti- readingworld (system) (pre)history back as faras we can, cal and practical use of world system theoryfor the though the Neolithic may remain beyond our reach. BronzeAge. He concluded his own CA replyas follows What we need, of course, is evidence, if not measures, (I978:489): of world system interactionand its mechanisms. Wil- kinson (I987, I993, and elsewhere) traces and maps One purpose of this studyof long-distancetrade in "central civilization" (what Chase-Dunn calls the cen- southwesternAsia was to show that even the earli- tral world system) back to interactionbetween Egypt est "pristine"example of state formationcannot be and Mesopotamia in 1500 B.C. Gills and I adduced indi- explained entirelyas an internalprocess of social dif- rectcyclical evidence back to I700 B.C. and some other ferentiationbut must be viewed partlyas a product evidencebeyond that. Pursuingthe same, I have sought of a "world economy" [sic: no hyphen!]at different to bringmore evidence to bear back to 3000 B.C. and levels of developmentwhich stretchedat least from pointed to admittedlyscattered additional evidence for the Nile Valley and southeasternEurope in the west the 4th and perhaps sth millennia B.C. Chernykhof to Soviet Central Asia and the Indus Valley in the course has access to and command of vastly more evi- east. dence for those millennia and suggeststhat the world

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systemhas turnedout to be not only farmore extensive diffusionist "Afrocentrism" (e.g., "Beethoven was but also much earlier than we thought.Was there one black") had gained some adherenceand notorietyin the or not? United States,and at least the pristineantidiffusionism Reificationvs. diffusionism.Other commentsrise to of Sinclair et al. unwittinglyserves to debunk this ten- the stratosphericlevel of metatheoryin discussingthe dency.As Kohl has shown in paperson archaeologyand method in my madness: (i) Barcelo sees a model, of politics in Transcaucasia and elsewhere,the "evidence" whichhe approves,and Kohl says thatthis is useless and dug up or ifnecessary invented by archaeologistsis now ofcourse unwarranted reification of the "worldsystem," invokedby politicians to "prove that this land is mine" which really exists only in our heads. (2) For Edens and needs "ethnic cleansing." "world system" involves circularityof definitionbe- Evidence: Yes, no, and maybe. The range of rules of cause (to translatehim into plain English)you know one evidence attributedto me is wide. If therewere no evi- when you see one. (3) A "world system"is an empirical dence, as Gilman suggests,neither my sources nor I generalization,according to Knapp, who forreasons un- would have gotteneven this far,and those who adduce known rejects this much-usedinductive method as in- contraryevidence would have had nothingto criticize. adequate fortheory construction. (Is an "empiricalgen- Additionalevidence is now supplied by UNESCO's i5- eralization" differentfrom an "empirical law," which years-in-the-makingfirst volume of the Historyof Civi- Barcel6 contrastswith a "model"?) (4) "World system" lizations of Central Asia: The Dawvn of Civilization, is really a latter-dayversion of old-fashionedand long- Earliest Times to 700 B.C. (Dani and Masson i992). It since-discrediteddiffusionism, according to Algaze and refersto "accumulation of wealth" (p. 232), "large-scale Joffe,the formernonetheless giving the effortpassing investment"(p. i96), and many extensive east-westas marks and the latter failing ones. With this multiple well as north-southinterregional links between West, choice, it is hard to know if I should check none of the South, Central,and East Asia (pp. i96-338). Although above or perhaps3, since I do relypartly, and quite legiti- none of the contributorsmentions a "world system" or mately,on this inductivemethod in boundingthe world "cycles," severalchapters on the BronzeAge presentevi- "system" and datingits "cycles." dence in supportof the cycle datingproposed in my es- I don't deny that in my head there is some world say, especially for the 3d millennium. The chapteron system"model," though it is less clear what is in the Iran and Afghanistanremarks on a highergrowth rate, head of Kohl, who has writtenso much about it. But urban expansion,and accumulation with increasingur- contrapostmodernists, I am well aware ofthe difference ban-ruraland "hegemonic-centre"-peripherydisparities between my head and the rest of the world and do not duringthe firsthalf of the millennium and generally confusethe contentsof the formerwith the real world. declining ones during the second (pp. I96, 204, 206). However, I do not deny that thereis a real world out There is also additional evidence formy shortercycle thereand that,contrary to Algaze, Joffe,and others(now dating: The provisional A phase 3000-2800 B.C. wit- includingKohl?), duringthe Bronze Age this realityin- nessed "considerable increase in size of each regional cluded widespread interconnectionsand mechanisms, centre... [and]maximum expansion,"especially in the perhapstoo dimlyperceived or understood,to which it Helmand Valley (p. i99). Similar expansion occurredin is useful to give the name "world system." Using this Mehrgarhuntil it was abandoned before2600 (pp. 254- handy label thereforeneed not involve any circularity. 55). Supportfor the next A phase comes fromeastern As McNeill says, call it what you will (WilliamMcNeill Iranand Afghanistanin 2500-2300 B.C., when therewas [1I963] and Marshall Hodgson [I974] called it the "ecu- constructionat Mundigakand Turang-tepein "the phase mene"), "it" certainlyexisted and was "until quite re- of most rapid expansion of urban centresand the most centlythe cockpit of world history." extensiveterritorial integration" (p. 207) whose "timing It seems equally clear to me that this inductive and stages . . . apparentlycorresponded to, or just pre- method is a far cry fromany diffusionism,discredited ceded,those of the Indus civilization" (p. 2i0). In Khora- or not. Moreover, since these commentators have san and Transoxaniaalso, the "pinnacle oflocal culture" broughtit up, is diffusionto be denied? The Swedish was reached in 2300 B.C. Then, however, in what I archaeologistSinclair (Sinclair and Pwiti I988, Sinclair termeda B phase after2300 B.C., "crisis affectingthe et al. n.d.) and his team ofseveral dozen Africangraduate whole basin" came "towardsthe end ofthe thirdmillen- studentsdigging up East Africaare hell-benton demon- niumB.C." (pp. 2I2-I3). "Urbancivilization suddenly stratingeverything they find to be pristinely"indige- collapsed.It lost all ofits featuresof centrality, and most nous," because theyexplicitly want to counterthe false of the cities were sharplyreduced or abandoned in the chargethat Africans are and have always been unable to space of a few years" (p. 2I5). Indeed, elsewhereas well do anythingfor themselves. But why should recognition "afterthe year 2200 ... theurban system begins to dete- of interconnectionshave to mean (one-way)diffusion to riorateand thereis radical and rapiddecline in the large Africa,throwing out all the Indian Ocean connections? centresin all the enclaves of Central Asia. None of the I can only reiteratewhat Kohl (I978:488) has already explanationsproposed so farsuccessfully link up the nu- said in responseto a similar charge: "Today, the danger merous conditions of the archaeological evidence over lies in ignoringor neglectingthe fact of diffusion,not such a wide area" (p. 200). The cycles I have proposed misusingit as a deus ex machina typeof explanationor are an attemptat such an explanation,and althoughit as a disguised formof racism." Kohl wrote beforethe may not yet be "successful,"why deny the evidence?

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It is not true, then, that thereis no archaeological eventsare led to suppose thatthere may be some mutual evidence (Lamberg-Karlovsky),though there is certainly or common causation into which we would do well to less of it than we would like. Chernykhsurveyed such inquire.Why does Joffenot only sit back-for he admits evidence; I hope that the SouthwestAsianist and Euro- to correlations-but insist that othersdo so too? peanist commentatorswill uncoveras much or more in Braudel,of course, confineshimself to a much later the areas of theirown specialization. And why not use periodand concentrateson the Mediterranean,so there secondarysources (Muhly)? To begin with, just what seemed little reason to bringhim into the Bronze Age. makes a "primary"one primary?Moreover, I was very However, since Joffeinsists, in The Perspectiveof the explicitthat this articlewas not to presentany new evi- World Braudel (i982) distinguishes between several dence but to relate the observationsof othersand derive "world-economies"and one "world economy" and sets some "empirical generalizations"therefrom. In I966, I out to use Wallerstein'smodel of the former,but time wrote a historyof Mexican agriculturefrom i 52I to and again he demonstratesthe vital and even systemic I630 which reinterpretedtwo renowned scholars' pri- interconnectionsamong the supposedly"autonomous" mary evidence and challenged theirlocal institutional European, Russian, Ottoman, Indian, Chinese, and explanations and instead explained the same (better,I Southeast Asian "world-economies"in a single world argued)as local adaptationsto worldeconomic relations, economy (albeit in the much later period he covers, forces,and cycles. I sent the draftto one of these au- since A.D. i ioo). Citing chapterand verse fromBraudel, thors,and he replied that it should not be published alas only a secondary source, I have recentlydemon- because it relied only on secondarysources. I followed stratedthe same (Frank I993). his bad advice for I3 years. When I finallysubmitted it Accordingto Knapp, my sources, evidence, and even "as is" and it was published (FrankI979) by Cambridge acknowledgmentsgive short shriftto Europe and the UniversityPress, the same authorityreviewed the book Mediterranean.However, Kristiansen comments that and said that it should not have been publishedbecause "European Bronze and Iron Age researcherscan recog- by now my thesis was old hat. Indeed it was, insofaras nize the shiftsidentified," and the Sherrattsalso do not in the interveningyears primary and secondaryscholar- remarkon such neglect. I certainlydid not intend to ship had completelyreversed,the previously orthodox neglectthis area, and I acknowledgedthe help of Kristi- interpretationof the data and vindicated my thesis. I ansen and Sherrattin the preparationof the article; but insist on the necessityof evidence,but Thomas Kuhn's forKnapp's sake I am glad to do so once again and to work on paradigm shiftshas shown that they do not add my thanksfor their further help in theircomments emergefrom confirming old theses with more and more above. primaryevidence. Instead,paradigms are changedby of- Barcel6 notes a failureto use some veryrecently pub- feringa differentperspective, even forthe collectionand lished (secondary)sources; Joffecomplains instead that use of evidence. Muhly is welcome to reject,modify, or I relytoo much on material that is not yet published.I even collaboratein this task. use what I can get. According to Gilman and Joffe,using secondary Usefulness:No-and yes. Is thereany point to this? sourcesis OK butnot quotingthem only where and when Again opinions are diverse.For "cons" it is fartoo gen- convenient.Really? Accordingto the SherrattsI have eral and vague,not useful,misleading, simplistic, highly drawn on "relevant,reliable authorities."It would be strained,unacceptable as serious scholarship,and the improperindeed ifI had suppressedthe authorityof con- work of an agent provocateur."Pros" call it an impor- traryevidence, but that is not the charge.Gilman and tant contribution,a brilliantportrait, a salutaryserious Joffewant me to cite writerswhose paradigmis different attempt,stimulating, food for thought,a landmark,a frommine and who thereforemay not even considerthe valuable platformfor discussion, and explicitlyprovoca- kind of evidence I adduce. Of what use mightthat be? tive (is this the same as "the work of an agent provoca- Tainter (I989), forexample, with whose neglectJoffe teur"?).Why not compromiseand evaluate this modest chastises me, reviews dozens of explanations grouped effortby splittingthe differenceand settling on the into six categoriesof theoryof the collapse of complex golden-but more humdrum-middle? Perhapswe can societies beforeoffering his own. Many of these might furthersuch compromise by noting that some of the indeed be useful in identifyingB phases. Unfortunately, entrieson the credit and debit sides of this ledger are all of them attributecollapse to internalfactors alone. by the same person.Besides, Algaze attributesheuristic Even when they observe several empires collapsing at value to "world system" but thinks that Kohl uses it the same time (in a B phase?), these scholars are not better,while Kohl now findsit misleading.Even if,ac- moved to inquire whether there might be a trans- cordingto Edens, it overreaches,"world system"analy- "societal" or common cause, as Teggart(I939) did when sis does seem to lead somewhere afterall-alas, not he examined"correlations in historicalevents" in Rome where Joffeand others would choose but apparently and China. Teggartdid not, and contra JoffeI do not, whereBarcel6, Chase-Dunn, Friedman,Kristiansen, and equate correlationwith causation. However,all statisti- perhapsMcNeill and the Sherratts(not to mentionprob- cal tests and thereforemany scientific methods are ably Chernykh,who was unable to comment, and of based on the probabilitypremise that where there is course myself)want to go. smoke,there is at least some presumptionof fire. There- Finally,I did referto a "central world system,"com- foremost scientists who findhigh correlationsamong biningmy terminologywith Wilkinson's because, as I

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thoughtI had clarified,Chase-Dunn (and Hall [i99i]) ASKAROV, A. A. I973. Sapalli-depe.Tashkent: FAN. [CE] had told me to. However, I never referredto the "total AUBET, M. I992. Tyreand the westernPhoenician colonies. accumulation" that Joffeattributes to me, nor is there Cambridge:Cambridge University Press. [JAB] BELLWOOD, P. S. I987. The prehistoryof Island SoutheastAsia: any "basic Marxian notion of the ruling class" at the A multidisciplinary,reviewofrecent research. Journal of World core ofmy analysis. On the contrary,I went to consider- PrehistoryI:I7I-224. [ABK] able lengthsto show how the powers of ruling classes BELLWOOD, P. S., AND P. KOON. I989. "Lapita colonistsleave have always been seriously limited by world- boatsunburned!" The questionof Lapitalinks with Island SoutheastAsia. Antiquity63:6I3-22. [ABK] systemwide competitive and cyclical forces beyond BERGESEN, ALBERT, AND RONALD SCHOENBERG. I980. theircontrol. It is Joffeand not I who arguesthat ruling- "Longwaves of colonialexpansion and contraction,I4I5- class politics is in command. It may be overreachingto I969," in Studiesof themodern world-system. Edited by A. J. put the BronzeAge in the same lightas our own, but,as Bergesen,pp. 23I-78. New York:Academic Press. Kohl (quoted above) has said, it is impossible to explain BIETTI SESTIERI, A. M. I988. The "Mycenaeanconnection" and its impacton the centralMediterranean societies. Dialoghi "pristine"state formationentirely as an internalprocess di Archaeologia6:23-5 I. [ABK] of social (class) formation-in a "world economy" that BOSWORTH, ANDREW. I992. Worldcities and worldsystems: A he saw as stretching"at least" fromthe Nile to the In- testof A. G. Frankand B. Gills' "A" and "B" cycles.Paper pre- dus. Does the same not applyto the collapse of the com- sentedat the CanadianAssociation of GeographersConfer- plex (class?) societies reviewedby Tainter?How illumi- ence,Vancouver, May 2I. BOUZEK, j. I969. HomerischesGriechenland im Lichteder arch- natingis it, then, forJoffe and others to insist, against dologischenQuellen. Acta UniversitatisCarolinae, Philosoph- the evidencepresented above and elsewhere,that Bronze ica et Historica,Monographia 29. [AFH] Age societywas governedonly by locally contingentpol- . I982. "Climaticchange and CentralEurope," in Climatic itics and ideology in command? Is this not a vain at- changein laterprehistory. Edited by A. F. Harding,pp. I62-78. Edinburgh:Edinburgh University Press. temptto maintainideology in command here and now? BRAUDEL, F. I966. La mediterraneeet le mondemediterraneen In closingthis replybut I hope not the debate,I would a l'epoque de PhilippeII. Paris:Armand Colin. [JAB] like to agreewith Knapp thatmy effortwould have ben- . I980. On history.Chicago: University of ChicagoPress. efited from archaeological coauthorship. And if by [AHJ] . I982. Theperspective of theworld. (Civilization and cap- chance this is an elegant way of saying that it would italismI5th-I8th century,vol. 3.) Berkeley:University of Cali- have benefitedfrom exclusively archaeological author- forniaPress. [CG] ship,I would agree-so much so that beforewriting the BRUMFIEL, ELIZABETH M., AND TIMOTHY K. EARLE. I987. firstword I suggestedto Chris Edens and Phil Kohl that "Specialization,exchange, and complexsocieties: An introduc- theydo it. They did not choose to do so, and so I used tion,"in Specialization,exchange, and complexsocieties. Ed- itedby ElizabethM. Brumfieland TimothyK. Earle,pp. I-9. I993 my letter to them (suggestingrevisions to their Cambridge:Cambridge University Press. [AG] paper) as a point of departure.I only sought to follow BUCCELLATI, G., AND M. KELLEY-BUCCELLATI. I983. Terqa: theirlead. Beyondthat, all the usual disclaimersapply, The firsteight seasons. Annales Archeologiques Arabe- and so do my thanks again to all and sundry. Syriennes33(2):47-67. [CE] CALDWELL, J. R. I964. Interactionspheres in prehistory.Hope- wellian StudiesI2:I33-43. [CCL] CHAMPION, TIMOTHY C. Editor.I989. Centreand periphery: Comparativestudies in archaeology.London: Unwin Hyman. CHANDLER, TERTIUS. I987. Fourthousand years of urban growth:An historicalcensus. Lewiston/Queenston: St. David's ReferencesCited UniversityPress. CHASE-DUNN, CHRISTOPHER. I992. The comparativestudy of ABU-LUGHOD, JANET. I989. BeforeEuropean hegemony: The world-systems.Review I5 (3). [CC] worldsystem A.D. I250-I35o. New York:Oxford University CHASE-DUNN, CHRISTOPHER, S. EDWARD CLEWETT, AND Press. ELAINE SUNDAHL. I992. A verysmall world-systemin North- ADAMS, ROBERT MC C. I974. Anthropologicalperspectives on ernCalifornia: The Wintuand theirneighbors. Paper presented ancienttrade. CURRENT ANTHROPOLOGY I5:239-58. at the annualmeetings of the Societyfor American Archaeol- . I98I. Heartlandof cities.Chicago: University of Chicago ogy,Pittsburgh, Pa., April8-I2. [CC] Press. [CE] CHASE-DUNN, CHRISTOPHER, AND THOMAS D. HALL. Edi- ALGAZE, GUILLERMO. I989. The Urukexpansion: Cross- tors.1991. Core/peripheryrelations in precapitalistworlds. culturalexchange in earlyMesopotamian civilization. CURRENT Boulder:Westview Press. ANTHROPOLOGY 30:57I-608. [AHJ] CHASE-DUNN, CHRISTOPHER, AND ALICE WILLARD. I993. . I993. Expansionarydynamics of some earlypristine Systemsof citiesand world-systems:Settlement size hierar- states. AmericanAnthopologist 95(.2). In press. chies and cyclesof political centralization, 2000 B.C.-I988 A.D. ALLEN, j. I984. "Pots and poorprinces: A multi-dimensionalap- Paperpresented at the annualmeetings of the International proachto the role ofpottery trading in coastalPapua," in The StudiesAssociation, Acapulco, Mexico. [cc] manydimensions of pottery. Edited by S. E. van derLeeuw CHERRY, j. F. I986. "Politiesand palaces: Some problemsin Mi- and A. Pritchard,pp. 407-63. (Cingula70) Amsterdam:Albert noan stateformation," in Peerpolity interaction and socio- Eggesvan GiffenInstituut. [ABKJ politicalchange. Edited by C. Renfrewand J.F. Cherry,pp. ALLEN, MITCHEL. I992. The mechanismsof underdevelop- I9-45. Cambridge:Cambridge University Pres. [ABKI ment:An ancientMesopotamian example. Review i5:453-76. CHERNYKH, E. N. I99I. The Circumponticmetallurgical prov- AMIN, SAMIR. I992. The ancientworld-systems versus the mod- ince as a system.IsMEO 4I: I I-45. ernworld-system. Review I5:349-85. . I992. Ancientmetallurgy in the USSR: The earlyMetal APPADURAI, A. Editor.I986. The social lifeof things:Commod- Age. Cambridge:Cambridge University Press. ities in culturalperspective. Cambridge: Cambridge University CHILDE, V. GORDON. I936. Man makes himself.New York: Press. [JAB] Mentor.

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GOING, C. j. 1992. Economic"long waves" in the Romanpe- I993. "Emergence,development, and declineon Bronze riod?A reconnaissanceof the Romano-Britishceramic evi- Age Cyprus,"in Developmentand declinein theMediterra- dence. OxfordJournal of Archaeology II:93-II8. nean BronzeAge. Editedby S. Stoddartand C. Mathers.Shef- GOLDSTEIN, JOSHUA S. I988. Long cycles:Prosperity and war field:John Collins Publications.[ABK] in themodern age. New Haven: Yale UniversityPress. KOHL, PHILIP L. I978. The balance of tradein southwestern GOLDSTONE, JACK A. I99I. Revolutionsand rebellionsin the Asia in the mid-thirdmillennium. CURRENT ANTHROPOLOGY earlymodern world. Berkeley: University of CaliforniaPress. I9:463-92. GOSDEN, C., J. ALLEN, W. AMBROSE, D. ANSON, J. GOLSON, . Editor.I98I. BronzeAge civilizationof CentralAsia: Re- R. GREEN, P. KIRCH, P. LILLEY, J. SPECHT, AND M. centSoviet discoveries. Armonk: M. E. Sharpe. SPRIGGS. 1989. Lapita sites of the BismarckArchipelago. An- . i984a. 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Commenton: The balanceof tradein businessman,"in Societiesand languagesof the ancientNear southwesternAsia in the mid-thirdmillennium, by PhilipL. East: Studiesin honourof I. M. Diakonoff.Warminster: Aris Kohl. CURRENT ANTHROPOLOGY I9:480-8I. and Phillips.[CCL] OPPENHEIM, A. LEO. I954. The seafaringmerchants of Ur. Joul . I987. "Commercialnetworks in the ancientNear East," nal of theAmerican Oriental Society 74:6-I7. in Centreand peripheryin the ancientworld. Edited by Mi- . I977. Revised edition.Ancient Mesopotamia. Edited by chael Rowlands,Mogens Larsen, and KristianKristiansen. Cam- EricaReiner. Chicago: University of ChicagoPress. bridge:Cambridge University Press. POLANYI, KARL. I975. "Traders and trade,"in Ancientciviliza LIVERANI, MARIO. I987. "The collapseof the Near Easternre- tionand trade.Edited by JeremyA. Sabloffand C. C. 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Calendar

I993 AAA, I703 New HampshireAve. N.W., Washing- ton, D.C. 2ooog, U.S.A. October 27-3i. American Folklore Society,Annual Meeting,Eugene, Ore., U.S.A. Write:AFS, I703 New HampshireAve. N.W., Washington,D.C. I994 2ooog, U.S.A. November4-7. AmericanSociety for Ethnohistory, An- January5-8. Society forHistorical Archaeologyand nual Conference,Bloomington, Ind., U.S.A. Write: AdvisoryCouncil on UnderwaterArchaeology, An- ProgramChair, RaymondJ. DeMallie, or Local Ar- nual Meeting,Vancouver, B.C., Canada. Plenary rangementsCo-Chairs, Douglas R. Parks and R. Da- theme: Science and Technologyin an Interpretation vid Edmunds,American Indian Studies Research In- and Presentationof the Historic Past. Write:Pro- stitute,Indiana University,422 N. Indiana Ave., gramChair, Departmentof Archaeology,Simon Fra- Bloomington,Ind. 47405, U.S.A. ser University,Burnaby, B.C., Canada VsA iS6. November11-14. ChacmoolConference, Calgary, Al- March 21-24. InternationalConference on Ethnic Tra- berta,Canada. Theme: Cultural Complexityin Ar- ditional Culture and Folk Knowledge,Moscow, Rus- chaeology.Write: The I993 ConferenceCommittee, sia. Write:Organizing Committee, International Departmentof Archaeology,University of Calgary, Conference,Institute of Ethnologyand Anthropol- Calgary,Alberta, Canada T2N iN4. ogy, Leninsky Prospect 32A, Moscow II7334, NovemberI7-2I. AmericanAnthropological Associa- Russia. tion, 92d Annual Meeting,Washington, D.C. Write: April 5-II. William RobertsonSmith Congress,Aber-

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