Tin Trade Research Articles

Tin isotopes reveal changing patterns of tin trade, connectivity and consumption from Anatolia and Central Asia at Kültepe

Until recently, what was known about the trade of tin in the ancient Near East was based in large part on information derived from the extensive commercial archives found at the archaeological site of Kültepe (ancient Kaneš) in Turkey dating to the Middle Bronze Age (MBA) c. 1900-1750 BC. These archives were produced by an expatriate community of traders native to the city of Assur in modern-day Iraq and document an extensive shipping of tin ingots from unnamed sources east of their hometown. Tin was carried by donkeys through northern Syria and across the Taurus Mountains to Anatolia where it was sold for silver.This paper presents the first set of tin isotope analyses of bronze objects from Kültepe to test the image provided by these ancient archives, finding that all artifacts dated to the main period of Assyrian trade excavated in the residential areas of the site indeed have high tin content and high values of δ124Sn (0.77–1.74‰) relative to the NIST 3161a standard. Such high values currently compare best with ores from Central Asia. The isotopic analysis of artifacts from the Assyrian Trading Colony Period of Kültepe is therefore consistent with the textual evidence.However, Early Bronze Age samples recovered at the site are instead characterized by lower ranges that extend to neutral δ124Sn values (0.02–1.31‰). Likewise, one artifact coming from Mound Level 7 (c. 1830-1700) at the center of the site where public buildings were concentrated, and one object dated to the Hellenistic Period (Mound Level 2), when the site saw a resurgence in political importance, likewise have lower δ124Sn compositions of 0.11 and 0.31‰, respectively. Both samples also have low to moderate tin content.The Early Bronze Age artifacts form a linear array between artifacts from low δ124Sn-low Sn wt% to high δ124Sn-high Sn wt% that suggests a mixing of two compositional groups – not simply the mixing of two isotopically distinct reservoirs of tin, but also distinct in the amount of tin present in the alloy. This would be consistent with the recycling of low tin bronze objects with local tin, together with high tin bronzes containing tin from Central Asia. The two samples from Mound Levels 7 and 2 suggest that although Central Asian tin was predominant in the MBA, Anatolian tin may have continued to be used in a separate bronze production system that remained active at shifting varying of intensity throughout antiquity.

Isotopic metal compositions of Viking and medieval tin artifacts from Poland reveal expansive trade network

The lack of historically known tin deposits in Poland requires that the source of tin metal in ancient artifacts must be derived from foreign sources. To identify these external sources in the Viking Period, a combination of Pb and Sn isotope compositions and trace element analyses on a group of tin and tin rich alloys from three settlements in Poland was conducted. The integration of the chemical techniques reveals several sources for the tin rich artifacts, where group: 1) possesses Pb isotope values that overlap the Europe array which possess the highest (+1.6 ‰) and lowest (−1.1 ‰) Sn isotope values coupled with elevated In concentrations 2) has Pb isotope values that overlap the Slovakian array which possess lower Sn isotope values (+0.1 ‰ to + 0.3 ‰) coupled with low In and Te concentrations 3) has a Pb isotope value that is radiogenic which possesses a high Sn isotope value (+1.1 ‰). Group 1 artifacts are split into two sources designated by the higher Sn isotope values from Cornwall and the lower Sn isotope values from Brittany and are found in the two coastal settlements. Group two artifacts match a Slovakian origin, while one artifact labeled in group three possesses an Anatolian source. Defining the tin rich artifact sources allows constraint of the tin sources for the mixed alloys like bronze and pewter. In this instance the tin isotope values fall within two sources defined by the tin metal artifacts, Brittany and Cornwall. The chemical approach presented here defines distal metal sources to reveal a geographically expansive interconnected tin trade network that was predominantly European, in Viking times through chemical analysis of ornaments, coins, and beads.

The Archaeology of the Bronze Age Levant: From Urban Origins to the Demise of City-States, 3700–1000 BCE

The Archaeology of the Bronze Age Levant: From Urban Origins to the Demise of City-States, 3700–1000 BCE

The authority of the Queen of Aceh and the Sultan of Perak in tin trade negotiations with the Dutch 1640-1670

Aceh reached its zenith, during the reign of Sultan Iskandar Muda Mahkota Alam. However he died at a young age, leaving an heir and legacy of enormous ruling power. Its main enemy, both in the military and in trade, is the European power in the Straits of Malacca. The Ruler of Aceh after his death had to deal with the Dutch colonialists who are interested in tin mining in the state of Perak in the Malay Peninsula. Perak at the time was under the auspices of Aceh. The main goal of this paper is to review the role and authority of the ruler of Aceh and Perak, when dealing with a Dutch ploy to monopolize the quarry. This study uses a qualitative method, with a fully literature approach. Based on the data analyzed, it was found that the Queen of Aceh and the Sultan of Perak managed to maintain the tin in Perak, from completely monopolized by the Dutch. The attitude of Queen of Aceh, and Sultan Perak's patience and diplomacy to treat the ills of the Dutch; finally resulted in the Dutch themselves have to bear the losses because of their greed by blockading the port of Aceh and Perak, who angered local merchants and foreigners.

Tracing the global tin flow network: highly concentrated production and consumption

Tin is closely associated with daily life and scientific and technological development, being widely applied in electronic products (e.g., computers, mobile phones) and high-end manufacturing, but the sustainability of tin resources has aroused global concern. To understand the global tin trade and its implications, a material flow analysis framework is established in this study, to analyze the tin flow among countries during 1999–2018. Tin production is concentrated in nine countries, which account for more than 90% of global tin production; while tin consumption is concentrated in ten countries, which account for some 80% of total tin consumption. In addition, the level of economic development measured in GDP/capita, is found to be highly correlated with the role of a country in the global tin trade. The countries with low per capita GDP are usually principal tin producers and suppliers; while eight of the world's top ten refined tin consumers (accounting for about 70% of global consumption) are those with high per capita GDP. In addition, a significant correlation between refined tin consumption and GDP per capita is observed in developing countries, but this correlation weakens in developed countries. This study not only fills the data gap in global tin flow but also provides a reference and basis for tin resource decision making and for follow-up research on tin material flow.

TAXATION POLICY AND LAND REFORMS IN COLONIAL MALAYA

During the 18th-19th centuries, British influence started to change the situation of the economy and the society of Malaya as a whole. Steps towards the further expansion of the tin mining industry was a turning point, which affected the whole society. The British Straits Settlements of Penang, Malacca, and Singapore were established between 1786 and 1825 and were governed by the East India Company. The tin trade was thrown open to private individuals. Further developments required more labor and funds involvement and as a result, the Chinese came to the central scene and started to invest hugely in Sungei Ujong and Negeri Sembilan’s tin mining industry. This article discusses the colonial time reforms regarding Malaya’s taxation and land matters. Using library-based research, this study investigated colonial taxation and land issues. Reforms, which occurred in the last two decades of the 19th century in land relations, helped to reshape existed in pre-colonial period subsistent agriculture to the more advanced and systematized export-based income generator to the British. In the last quarter of the 19th century, there was a huge increase in exportable crop production. The rubber depression, which occurred in the 1920s, gave chance for palm oil to become successful agricultural produce. Kennedy states that many of the plantation areas were large ones; by 1933, there were 32 estates with 64,000-planted acres, and this acreage had increased to 79,000 by 1941. Authorities, in order to encourage the production of palm oil and diversify the economy, granted lands on favorable terms. This research fnds that at the end of the colonial rule the British started to use the benefcial terms for the landowners to boost production.

Iron oxide concretions as raw material for iron IIA iron metallurgy in the southern Levant: New evidence from Tel Beth-Shemesh, Israel

Recent discovery and analysis of a series of iron production and manufacture sites and installations in the southern Levant opened the door for a variety of important studies concerning iron metallurgy in the region. However, the provenance of raw materials used to produce iron artifacts in the majority of these sites still eludes us. Based on new analytical data the present study suggests that the source of iron worked in the 9th century BCE iron smithy excavated at Tel Beth-Shemesh is local and comprises iron oxide concretions that are abundant at a few locations in the close vicinity of the site, and could have been easily collected for processing. This suggestion further emphasizes the localized and idiosyncratic character of the Iron Age sociotechnic systems of iron metallurgy which conspicuously differed from the complex international system of copper and tin trade that characterized the bronze industry of the 2nd millennium BCE in the region.

Revisiting “Tin in South-eastern Europe?”

The important role of the Balkans in the origin and development of metallurgy is well established with respect to copper. In addition, Aleksandar Durman, in his 1997 paper ?Tin in South-eastern Europe??, essentially initiated studies into the role of the Balkans in Europe?s Bronze Age tin economy. He identified six geologically favourable sites for tin mineralisation and associated fluvial placer deposits in the former Yugoslavian republics, and suggested that these may have added to the tin supply of the region. The viability of two of these sites has been confirmed (Mt Cer and Bukulja, Serbia) but the exploitation potential for the other locations has remained untested. River gravels from these four sites (Motajica and Prosara in Bosnia and Herzegovina; Bujanovac in Serbia; Ograzden in North Macedonia) were obtained by stream sluicing and panning. The sites of Prosara and Bujanovac were found to be barren with respect to cassiterite (SnO2). Streams flowing from Motajica and Ograzden were both found to contain cassiterite, but in amounts several orders of magnitude less than at Mt Cer and Bukulja. Although it is possible that minor tin recovery occurred at Motajica and Ograzden, it is unlikely that they could have contributed meaningfully to regional tin trade. This is supported by the fact that the isotopic signature (?124Sn) of cassiterite from Motajica is highly enriched in light isotopes of tin compared to that associated with Late Bronze Age artefacts of the region.

Tin isotope ratios in Early and Middle Bronze Age bronzes from central and southeastern Europe

The paper presents the results of two case studies. A first sample set includes tin isotopic compositions of 15 bronzes from three large hoards of the Early Bronze Age Únětice Culture in Central Germany. A major research question was, whether local tin from the Saxon-Bohemian Ore Mountains or from different sources was used to produce the artefacts. The tin isotope composition in the bronzes of these comparably early hoards of the classical phase of the Únětice Culture shows a small variation. The second sample set comprises 16 isotopically investigated objects from Romania and Hungary, belonging to hoards and settlements. In addition, the tin isotopic compositions of a dagger and an axe from Crete were examined. Considering the large geographical distance between the finds a major research question was, whether the tin isotope composition of central and southeastern European bronzes differ, and whether the isotopic compositions of the Aegean bronzes differ from those of the Carpathian Basin. Generally, it can be said that the tin isotope composition in this second sample set show a slightly larger variation than observed in the bronzes of the Únětice Culture. The Cretan objects show 124/120Sn isotope compositions, which are higher than the southeastern as well as the central European samples. This suggests that different tin sources might have been used to manufacture the bronzes. The paper discusses the variation of the tin isotope compositions and their bearing on the debate about tin trade in Europe.

Estimating the impact of China's export policy on tin prices: a mode decomposition counterfactual analysis method

China is an important country for the storage, import, production and consumption of tin ore and is an exporter of refined tin. Since 2002, China has engaged in the export quota management of both tin and tin products. In January 2017, the Chinese government officially abolished quotas and tariffs for the export of refined tin. In this paper, we propose mode decomposition counterfactual analysis method, which is composed of the mode decomposition extreme event analysis and a counterfactual analysis, to estimate the resulting policy effects. We also use this method to estimate the effects of China's export policy on tin price. In empirical research, we compare three kinds of mode decomposition methods, and finally select empirical mode decomposition. Finally, we chose EMD results. The main conclusions are as follows. First, China's market has comparative advantage on tin trade, the change of China's export policy will not affect the SHFE tin price. Second, cancellation of China's export policy results in an increase in the supply of international tin market, so LME tin prices has a downward trend in the long run. Third, change of China's policies exacerbated the investors' concerns about the uncertainty of tin market, resulting in the short-term fluctuation of LME tin prices. Fourth, market feedback is lagging behind policy, and price is an effective indicator of feedback policy. Finally, we discuss directions for future research.

Staple Trade, Real Wages, and Living Standards in Singapore, 1870–1939

ABSTRACTThis paper examines the impact of Singapore’s rise as a staple port on the city’s real wages and living standards during the late nineteenth and early twentieth century, when this British colony acted as the heartland to surrounding hinterlands. Based on an analysis of newly reconstructed nominal wage and price time series, it is shown that real wages in Singapore fluctuated substantially over this period, rising and falling with the port’s staple trade in tin and rubber. As the city transformed itself into a commercial and financial hub during the interwar period, however, Singapore’s real wages rose, though this was accompanied by a widening skill premium. Compared to its peers in Asia, the city appears to have enjoyed a relatively higher average living standard before 1900, and possibly by the late 1930s as well.

A miner’s canary in eastern Congo: Formalisation of artisanal 3T mining and precarious livelihoods in South Kivu

Numerous initiatives are currently trying to reform eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo’s (DRC) ill-reputed artisanal and small-scale mining (ASM) sector through formalisation, traceability, and certification of the region’s trade in tantalum, tin, and tungsten (3T). While this ethically driven impetus derives from consumer pressure following numerous reports on the militarisation of the area’s ASM sector and concomitant human rights abuses, the ability of the resulting initiatives to address these problems remains unclear. In this paper, we enhance long-term qualitative research with an experimental quantitative survey to generate insights into two questions: how has the formalisation of eastern DRC’s resource markets, through traceability and certification, altered the socio-economic dynamics around artisanal mines and trading routes? What is its actual impact on the everyday life of miners, their families, and associated professions? Based on in-depth research in South Kivu, a pioneer case for traceability and certification of 3T mining, we demonstrate the ambiguous outcome of these reforms so far and analyse how they threaten an informal ASM sector already in jeopardy. In figurative terms, the artisanal miners themselves have become a proverbial ‘miner’s canary’ whose livelihoods are increasingly under stress in sequence to formalisation efforts.

African and African American Histories in Europe: Joining the Conversation

African and African American Histories in EuropeJoining the Conversation Stephen Tuck (bio) and Elleke Boehmer (bio) From the time that Nubian soldiers contributed to the defense of Hadrian’s Wall, one of the Roman Empire’s northern most frontiers, British history has been threaded through with African lives, presences, materials, and objects, as Peter Fryer’s research back in the 1980s first showed us (1–5). Indeed, the threading together and intercalation of Africa and Britain that Fryer exposed may go back even further than the Romans, to when Phoenician and Greek sailors visited the British Isles to trade in tin and circumnavigated the archipelago’s largest island. More broadly, the history of northern Europe is everywhere imprinted with trade-routes and traces of exchange between the sub-continent and other communities, nations, and peoples, both of the south and east, and of the far north. Yet eugenicist and imperial histories of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries often blurred or overwrote these signs for ideological reasons, to shore up racially coded hierarchies. A Callaloo-sponsored early career day-conference, held in conjunction with Callaloo’s own annual conference in November 2013, took the opportunity of the latter’s transatlantic focus to excavate precisely these buried and suppressed cross-border and intercultural relations. The brief of the scholars, seven of whose papers are collected here, was precisely to investigate what African and African American involvements in European history were, in particular in the two occluded centuries since 1800: What did African cultural contributions in this period entail? What were the roles of African historical actors both major and minor? And, importantly, what archival and inter-textual methodologies are most appropriate to carry out this work of excavation, unraveling, and re-interpretation? A key feature of the 2013 Callaloo Conference was that it was being held in Europe for the first time, at the University of Oxford. Titled “The Transatlantic, Africa, and Its Diaspora,” the intention was that “conference members and invited speakers will engage each other in discussions dealing with issues in the growing field of transatlantic studies” (Rowell). Crossing the Atlantic, then, was also an intellectual and methodological move. As the journal’s founder and editor, Charles Henry Rowell, explains, “During this period when the transatlantic discourse is rapidly developing, it is very important that . . . Callaloo joins that conversation by staging its 2013 conference at Oxford University” (“Booker and Pulitzer”). Rowell was right about the rapid development of transatlantic discourse. The field has been transformed since the founding of Callaloo in 1976 as a journal for black writers in the United States South.1 Indeed, the so-called transnational turn at (roughly) the end of the twentieth century has been the key development in most, if not all, humanities disciplines.2 In many ways, of course, black or diasporic studies—unlike many other fields in the humanities—have been transnational from the outset.3 Nevertheless, the transnational and cross-border turn has opened up new ways of exploring how people and ideas, texts and [End Page 98] organizations, moved across national borders and, in so doing, recast accepted narratives of control and resistance, identity and culture. Or, as Elleke Boehmer writes in Empire, the National and the Postcolonial, historically anti-colonial and other freedom struggles have gained strength from being articulated “amongst others,” which is to say, collaboratively, across national divides (1–2). Rowell also explains the significance of the choice of Oxford. In an innocent-enough sounding statement that was duly used in a university press release, Rowell highlighted “the central roles Oxford, as an educational institution, played in the origination and development of the African Diaspora,” (a statement that brought knowing laughter from the conference delegates when read out on the opening evening) (“Booker and Pulitzer”). Coded it may have been, but the point was well made. “Wherever he went in the Empire,” says noted historian Richard Symonds, in his 1991 book Oxford and Empire, “Cecil Rhodes observed [that] he found Oxford men on top.” As Symond’s study further recognizes, under the Vice-Chancellorship of Benjamin Jowett (from 1883), the university at the end of the nineteenth century was developed into a place of...

The Tin Trade and Medieval Ceramics: Tracing the Sources of Tin and its Influence on Mediterranean Ceramics Production

This paper examines the role played by the availability of tin in the development of a commercial, glazed ceramics industry in the medieval workshops of Paterna, in eastern Spain. Tin was an essential ingredient that was used by potters since the ninth century in Iraq to make ceramic glazes opaque. However, it is a relatively scarce raw material, which had to be sourced and imported by many potters; in this paper I explore these possible sources of tin, from the Far East to Iberia and south-west England. Although many factors contributed to the development of a ceramics industry in eastern Spain in the medieval period, I argue that one hitherto overlooked and important stimulus was the expansion of the trade in tin from south-west England – Devon and Cornwall – to the Mediterranean.

Trade Costs and Deviations from the Law of One Price

The link between relative prices across countries and trade costs requires a theoretical foundation that is absent in the literature to date. Empirical tests on the law of one price are based on an arbitrage equation, which is of very limited relevance in understanding this link. The application of a new set of arbitrage equations to the tin trade market yields results that are consistent with our theoretical expectations. We find evidence in favor of the law of one price between the United States and Japan. However, evidence of price discrimination is also found for the Los Angeles market.

L'âge du bronze en Asie centrale: La civilisation de l'Oxus

The Bronze Age civilisation of Central Asia developed during the second half of the third millennium BC. Besides elements resembling Middle Eastern contemporary civilisations (e.g. economy, art), it displays also some peculiarities resembling earlier periods (e.g. importance of hunting), as well as specific steppe relations (e.g. pottery, horses) and purely local traits (e.g. animal burials, camel domestication, lapis lazuli, tin trade). This original 'Oxus civilisation' raises a number of issues related to environmental (arid period), ethno-linguistic (Indo-Iranian), historical (chronology, origin, decline) and methodological problems, such as its place in a neo-evolutionist scheme as a manifestation of a proto-urban phenomenon. The longue durée, revisited as a system in the Middle Asian interaction sphere, seems a promising way of understanding this civilisation.

The Metals Trade in Southwest Asia in the Third Millennium B.C.

The external manifestations of ancient trading networks have generally been of greater scholarly concern than the internal needs and systems of the societies which created and participated in them. Both aspects of commercial relations are, however, inextricably linked. Preliminary research supports the idea that much of the movement of luxury goods in Southwest Asia during the third millennium B.C. was generated in response to the specific and unique demands of Sumerian society, and that such commercial enterprises continued under the Akkadian rulers. This hypothesis can be used to explain the distribution of certain metals in the third millennium, notably tin and silver. The sources of the tin used in ancient Southwest Asia have, despite considerable research, remained a mystery for years (see most recently Muhly 1985).Following is a speculative attempt, using archaeological and scientific evidence, to explain the reasons why tin bronze is of limited distribution in Southwest Asia and the eastern Mediterranean during the third millennium. Tin bronze occurs in third millennium contexts in Mesopotamia, the Troad, and central Anatolia, and rarely elsewhere until late in the millennium. Such a pattern of distribution might be explained by the presence of tin deposits in each of these areas, exploited to fill only local needs, but geological research has failed to detect tin ores in any of these places. Since some source of tin was clearly being exploited to supply these areas and because there seems to have been differential access to it, geological presence or absence of tin must not have been a determinative factor. An alternative explanation is here developed by examining the nature of the tin trade and of the entities involved in it.

BRITAIN, the VENETI and BEYOND

Summary: Archaeological and documentary evidence for contact between north western France and central southern Britain in the first millennium BC is presented and discussed. the tin trade may well have been the principal motivation for contact until the late second century BC when, following the foundation of Provincia Gallia Transalpina, the Roman‐dominated wine trade appears to have itensified cross‐channel intercourse. the position of Armorican middlemen is considered and port sites such as Alet and Hengistbury are discussed. A Wessex Contact Zone is defined within which overseas trade and local industrial production were focused. the economic and social effects of these systems on other parts of Britain are briefly outlined.

Some Assyrians at Sippar in the Old Babylonian Period

The trade in tin, textiles, and silver between Ashur and its trading colony Kanesh is by now well known from the partly published archives from Kanesh. While the textiles involved were primarily produced in Ashur itself, a small proportion of them were imported from Babylonia, being described in the texts as “Akkadian textiles”. This link in the trading chain is still scarcely documented in the absence of the trading archives which must be presumed to have existed at Ashur, and probably at Sippar. The Babylonians themselves were actively involved in the trade, as is shown by the well-known but still inadequately published letter VAT 9249, referring to the absence of the Akkadians and their textiles from Ashur because of a revolt in their country.From its geographical position the city of Sippar must have occupied a focal position in trading relations between Babylonia and the kingdoms to the north and north-west. It naturally figures in the Old Babylonian itinerary from Larsa to Emar. Some years ago W. F. Leemans summarised the evidence for trading relations between Sippar and Assyria and the Middle Euphrates and for Sippar's involvement in the trade in tin in the reverse direction from Ashur to Babylonia.

The Copper Ox-Hide Ingots and the Bronze Age Metals Trade

Trade in metals, notably the precious metals gold and silver, and the base metals copper and tin, represents one of the major aspects of Bronze Age commerce. It has been argued that the first large-scale growth of a metals trade, during the mid-third millennium B.C., stimulated the development of international commerce and made possible the wealth of the EB II period in the Aegean, Anatolia and the Near East. Trade in metals continued to be one of the most important elements of commerce down to the end of the Bronze Age. Thus a proper understanding of the nature and the scope of this trade is essential to the study of Bronze Age civilization and the nature of foreign relations in the third and second millennia B.C.Since these metals were available only in certain areas, trade was essential for the development of metallurgy in those parts of the ancient world without native mineral resources, especially the Aegean and Mesopotamia. As virtually no work has been done on sources or uses of silver in the Bronze Age this paper will concentrate upon trade in gold, copper and tin. Technological developments will be discussed only in so far as they made possible the utilization of certain types of ores and hence influenced the growth of trade.