What Makes Civilization? by Wengrow David;

Author:Wengrow, David;
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Published: 2010-07-08T16:00:00+00:00

‘Potlatch’ Societies in the History of Eurasia

Contrasts between highland hoarding zones and lowland urban centres have often been seized upon as evidence for deeply rooted cultural, linguistic, or even racial difference. Among the categorical oppositions framed around these contrasts we find ‘nomad versus settled’, ‘tribal versus urban’, ‘barbarian versus civilized’. Since the late nineteenth century, spectacular burials of metalwork (‘hoards’) have also been frequently linked to postulated migrations of Indo-European-speaking groups (‘hordes’). But such contrasting and symmetrical patterns of wealth consumption are not limited to the Bronze Age. Later examples include the rich tumulus burials of the Scythians, aligned across the margins of the Hellenic world and vividly described by Herodotus; the distribution of Roman coin hoards along the eastern coastline of the Indian subcontinent (distantly echoed on the Empire’s north-west European frontier); and the vast numbers of central Asian dirhams recovered from Viking hoards and burials in Scandinavia and northern Russia, where they mark the termini of riverine supply routes that fed slaves and furs to the markets of the Middle East. We are dealing, then, with a phenomenon of extremely long duration in the history of Eurasia.

In seeking alternative explanations, some historians have appealed to comparisons with the Potlatch ceremonies conducted by indigenous societies along the Pacific coastline of America and Canada. Potlatch was a ritual tournament. Its aim was to secure legal access to intangible rights and privileges such as ranks, titles, and land tenure. The public destruction of particular kinds of wealth, notably woven blankets and sheets of copper, formed an important part of the ritual process. As Marcel Mauss (2002 (1923–4): 47) wrote in The Gift:

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