Center for the Dynamics of Social Complexity (DySoC), University of Tennessee, Knoxville, TN, United States of America.
Department of Anthropology, University of Tennessee, Knoxville, TN, United States of America.
PLoS One. 2020 Nov 25;15(11):e0240414. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0240414. eCollection 2020.
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.
可靠商业信息的可用性被认为是区域间贸易的一个关键特征，如果罗马经济高度整合的话。然而，考古学和历史上区域间贸易的来源在多大程度上反映了经济一体化的程度，这仍然没有被充分理解，这是当前罗马研究中争论的核心问题。陶瓷餐具是罗马几个世纪以来区域间贸易中唯一具有可比性和可量化的信息来源之一。公元前 200 年至公元 300 年期间来自东地中海的餐具的分布模式和风格特征表明，这是一个竞争激烈的市场，在这个市场中，购买决策可能受到可靠商业信息获取的影响。我们通过在基于代理的模型中代表三个相互竞争的假设来为这场辩论做出贡献：餐具购买策略的成功偏向的社会学习（需要从所有贸易商那里获取可靠的商业信息）、无偏差的社会学习（需要有限的访问）和独立学习（不需要访问）。我们使用近似贝叶斯计算（ABC）来评估哪个假设最能描述考古学上观察到的餐具分布模式。我们的结果表明，成功偏向不是一个可行的理论，相反，我们证明了本地创新（独立学习）是区域间餐具贸易的一个合理驱动因素。我们还建议，应该将餐具分布作为以食品、金属和建筑材料为主的长途贸易货物的一小部分来进行探索。
