Re: Etymology and archaeology


Uwe Müller wrote:


>Flint breaks with a conchoidal fracture, there's no way that
arrow heads made from a dagger would have the same value
as the original dagger as small bits of flint are common,
big bits rare.

If you have a mine or a similar concentrated deposit, not really.
But using the dagger yourself will make the others envious, especially when
you allready have an 'exotic' dagger. Giving the dagger to one guy, will
make the others mad at you. Giving arrow heads to the lot will make them all
glad.

So what is value in that example?

I see your point but flint is still second rate as 'currency'

Bales of cloth were at one time used similar to money. There would
naturally
have been some spread of quality, but would this have kept from cutting
up
the bales when needed?

>I can see bales of cloth working but we're still in the realm of
barter
as the bales would have contained several pieces of cloth as looms
didn't
make long lengths. Also cloth is something every household could make
it's not got that extra something that puts its value above the
everyday.

I shouldn't have used the word 'bales'. It was pieces of cloth, as they came
off the loom, made to a standard size. And they were use with a nominal
value, no matter if the quality was high or low.

So the piece of cloth was used as a symbol of value and as a means of
exchange, it would not deteriorate or spoil with time, and could be used
'normally' when you needed it.

The connection between cloth and gold might be closer than at first
appears. When I was researching early English goldsmiths
as far back as I could go in written records their wives produced
high value fine embroidery.

>Why does a wealthy person today buy dozens of pairs of shoes
or an expensive watch ? No one can wear more than one pair of shoes
at a time and new shoes are less comfortable than old. A cheap watch
will tell the time sufficiently well for almost any purpose.
>Status and power, the ability to buy and reward 'friendship'
with items that are considered superior to the everyday is what
is happening.

Or, another theory, it is the act of buying, not of possesing or even using
something, that gets people turned on. And since being 'rich' usually
translates as having little time to spend on important things, a high price
is substituted for high quality.

True, I never cease to be amazed at price tags being mistaken for
quality.

My porcelainite axe head in an area with a surplus
of perfectly good flint axes, a finely decorated vase from a distant
place found in an area that made good every day pots these
things are the beginning of things being valued above their
utilitarian value.

Or a reminder of a hollyday spent in Ireland, some special person that you
might have met there, an indicator of how far reaching and substantial
friendship ties of your family were, an example of how not to work stone, or
a remnant of some person, who simply could never throw things away, even if
not especially usefull.

Could be.

Usually things are considered more valuable for some superior quality. The
pot from the Med would be much more watertight, not leaving stains on your
table. It would be harder fired, so it would be less vulnerable to breaking.

Above all it would make your neighbours green with envy, for not having one
(or it might turn out to have everybody laughing at you, because it was not
usable the way the local pots would be).

The usual way this goes is that the person with the 'pot' likes to
think
that the neighbours are green with envy but really they think him a
twit.

Who feeds the miners and smelter, the smiths and traders, who provides
their
clothes? So you'd need quite a bit of surplus over quite some time before
it
would be worthwhile to think about trading it away.

Or think of it the other way round, the ability to own the slaves who
work the mines, to have the power to organise long distance trade,
to have the secret knowledge to know how to smelt, the skill to
transform metal into something of beauty. This is not something
everyone can do. The person who can do these things is a man
who stands above the common crowd.

Which is often a dangerous thing to do.

But for most of prehistory there is little to indicate personal ownership of
things above what one would use personally, or personal control over land,
sources of raw material etc.

The question is does the use of precious metal and coins coincide with
a change in attitude towards control over land and sources of raw
materials ? Does it coincide with the rise of an elite that had the
power to do the dangerous thing.

You'd have to have some surplus that others lack or some product, others
can't make, and many other, which succesfully follow your example with
products you'd fancy having. Only then money can become more than minted
metal, aiding a network of transactions because it's a widely accepted
equivalent


>Careful control of production and supply and you have a 'currency'
something that is possesed by the wealthy in society more than
by the poor and so is perceived to have value.

The next draught would have made an end to all that, as you can't eat gold.

Water and food have true value but make a poor currency. See what
actually happens,
the amount of 'gold' needed to buy food and water rises but once it has
been established that 'gold' has a high value it rarely drops to zero
value and the 'wealthy'
are the survivors of the drought.

There are few things that would work as such a symbol.
If everyone could mine and work gold its value would be like
any other product. As long as a mystique surrounds it people
will 'buy' into the myth.

According to Marxist thinking it is the amount of labour that goes into
furnishing a product, that will regulate it's price. But again you'd have to
have a market economy for anything to have a fixed price.

If that was true there wouldn't have been a need for Marxism and I
would be wealthy.

Water is a high priced commodity in areas, where there is little water, and
it takes lots of effort to build wells and cisterns. In other areas people
would pay for the water to be removed.

Only with transportation as it is today, gold will buy you food, drink,
clothing or housing. So it makes sense to want gold. Providing some fancy
trinkets to your local persons of authority, a reliquary for the church, a
golden lunulae for the Bronze age Big Man, will not do any of those. So
you'd be better off caring for supplies of those, and hoping to be able to
provide them for the people, that do not have enough of their own. That will
enhance your status, making life easier the next time you need help.

Thius strategy will work fine without a market, good transportation, fixed
social inequalities, a steady flow of ressources etc. It leaves you with
enough flexibility to survive.

It also leaves you with gold as the obvious precurser to coins.

Celia

.

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