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Etymology of Trade

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12 views

Etymology of Trade

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Tesfaye
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© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
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Etymology

Trade is from Middle English trade ("path, course of conduct"), introduced into English by
Hanseatic merchants, from Middle Low German trade ("track, course"), from Old Saxon trada
("spoor, track"), from Proto-Germanic *tradō ("track, way"), and cognate with Old English
tredan ("to tread").

Commerce is derived from the Latin commercium, from cum "together" and merx,
"merchandise."[8]

History
See also: Economic history of the world and Timeline of international trade

Prehistory

Trade originated from human communication in prehistoric times. Prehistoric peoples exchanged
goods and services with each other in a gift economy before the innovation of modern-day
currency. Peter Watson dates the history of long-distance commerce to c. 150,000 years ago.[9]

In the Mediterranean region, the earliest contact between cultures involved members of the
species Homo sapiens, principally using the Danube river, at a time beginning 35,000–30,000
BP.[10][11][12][13][need quotation to verify]

The caduceus, traditionally associated with Mercury (the Roman patron-god of

merchants), continues in use as a symbol of commerce.[14]


Ancient Etruscan "aryballoi" terracota vessels unearthed in the 1860s at Bolshaya Bliznitsa
tumulus near Phanagoria, South Russia (formerly part of the Bosporan Kingdom of Cimmerian
Bosporus, present-day Taman Peninsula); on exhibit at the Hermitage Museum in Saint
Petersburg
There is evidence of the exchange of obsidian and flint during the Stone Age. Trade in obsidian
is believed to have taken place in New Guinea from 17,000 BCE.[15][16]

The earliest use of obsidian in the Near East dates to the Lower and Middle paleolithic. [17]

— HIH Prince Mikasa no Miya Takahito

Robert Carr Bosanquet investigated trade in the Stone Age by excavations in 1901.[18][19] The first
clear archaeological evidence of trade in manufactured goods is found in south west Asia.[20][21]

Archaeological evidence of obsidian use provides data on how this material was increasingly the
preferred choice rather than chert from the late Mesolithic to Neolithic, requiring exchange as
deposits of obsidian are rare in the Mediterranean region.[22][23][24]

Obsidian provided the material to make cutting utensils or tools, although since other more easily
obtainable materials were available, use was exclusive to the higher status of the tribe using "the
rich man's flint".[25] Obsidian has held its value relative to flint.

Early traders traded Obsidian at distances of 900 kilometres within the Mediterranean region. [26]

Trade in the Mediterranean during the Neolithic of Europe was greatest in this material. [22][27]
Networks were in existence at around 12,000 BCE[28] Anatolia was the source primarily for trade
with the Levant, Iran and Egypt according to Zarins study of 1990.[29][30][31] Melos and Lipari
sources produced among the most widespread trading in the Mediterranean region as known to
archaeology.[32]

The Sari-i-Sang mine in the mountains of Afghanistan was the largest source for trade of lapis
lazuli.[33][34] The material was most largely traded during the Kassite period of Babylonia
beginning 1595 BCE.[35][36]

Adam Smith traces the origins of commerce to the very start of transactions in prehistoric times.
Apart from traditional self-sufficiency, trading became a principal faculty for prehistoric people,
who bartered what they had for goods and services from each other. Anthropologists have found
no evidence of barter systems that did not exist alongside systems of credit.

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