Abstract
The availability of reliable commercial information is considered a key feature of inter-regional trade if the Roman economy was highly integrated. However, the extent to which archaeological and historical sources of inter-regional trade reflect the degree of economic integration is still not fully understood, a question which lies at the heart of current debates in Roman Studies. Ceramic tableware offers one of the only comparable and quantifiable sources of information for Roman inter-regional trade over centuries-long time periods. The distribution patterns and stylistic features of tablewares from the East Mediterranean dated between 200 BC and AD 300 suggest a competitive market where buying decisions might have been influenced by access to reliable commercial information. We contribute to this debate by representing three competing hypotheses in an agent-based model: success-biased social learning of tableware buying strategies (requiring access to reliable commercial information from all traders), unbiased social learning (requiring limited access), and independent learning (requiring no access). We use approximate Bayesian computation (ABC) to evaluate which hypothesis best describes archaeologically observed tableware distribution patterns. Our results revealed success-bias is not a viable theory and we demonstrate instead that local innovation (independent learning) is a plausible driving factor in inter-regional tableware trade. We also suggest that tableware distribution should instead be explored as a small component of long-distance trade cargoes dominated by foodstuffs, metals, and building materials.
Highlights
1.1 Tableware trade in the Roman EastVast quantities of foodstuffs, stones, minerals and craft products were traded over huge distances in Roman times, despite the significant limitations imposed by the -current transport and communication technologies, and the uncertainties caused by climate, piracy and other factors
The data used in this paper comes from the open access ICRATES database, the largest collection for the Roman East of excavated and published tableware fragments found at 275 sites across the eastern Mediterranean [9]
One of the key elements to all approximate Bayesian computation (ABC) approaches is the function used to calculate the distance to the data (the Δ(s, x) at line 10 in Algorithm 3) and how the data (x) and simulations (s) are represented
Summary
1.1 Tableware trade in the Roman EastVast quantities of foodstuffs, stones, minerals and craft products were traded over huge distances in Roman times, despite the significant limitations imposed by the -current transport and communication technologies, and the uncertainties caused by climate, piracy and other factors. Archaeologists can gain insights into long-distance trade patterns and the availability of commercial information to ancient traders by excavating, documenting and studying ceramics. One of the most abundant and well studied sources of inter-regional trade flows is offered by imported ceramic tableware (non-local thin-walled fine ware plates, cups and bowls). They provide one of the most robust, well-studied and ubiquitous sources of data enabling comparison and quantification over centuries-long time periods, allowing for the study of the direction and intensity of trade throughout the Roman world [7, 8]. We present a computational model using this distribution of ceramic data to formally test hypotheses about the impact of the availability of commercial information to tableware traders (degree of market integration) on the distribution of the traded goods
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