Knowing the weight of a commodity provides an objective way to value goods in the marketplace. But did a self-regulating market even exist in the Bron

Researchers investigate the spread of weighing systems across Western Eurasia 4,000 years ago - The Archaeology News Network

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2021-07-06 04:00:09

Knowing the weight of a commodity provides an objective way to value goods in the marketplace. But did a self-regulating market even exist in the Bronze Age? And what can weight systems tell us about this? A team of researchers from the University of Göttingen researched this by investigating the dissemination of weight systems throughout Western Eurasia. Their new simulation indicates that the interaction of merchants, even without substantial intervention from governments or institutions, is likely to explain the spread of Bronze Age technology to weigh goods.

To find out if the gradual formation of these systems could be due to propagation of error from a single weight system, the researchers modeled the creation of 100 new units. Taking into account factors such as measurement error, the simulation supported a single origin between Mesopotamia and Europe.

It also showed that the Indus Valley probably developed an independent weight system. The research demonstrated that if information flow in Eurasia trade was free enough to support a common weight system, it was likely to be sufficient to react to local price fluctuations.