section_path: History/Prehistory
section_name: Prehistory
paragraph_text: 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.
  
  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.
  
  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.
  
  The earliest use of obsidian in the Near East dates to the Lower and Middle paleolithic.
  
  Robert Carr Bosanquet investigated trade in the Stone Age by excavations in 1901. The first clear archaeological evidence of trade in manufactured goods is found in south west Asia.
  
  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.
  
  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". Interestingly, Obsidian has held its value relative to flint.
  
  Early traders traded Obsidian at distances of 900 kilometres within the Mediterranean region.
  
  Trade in the Mediterranean during the Neolithic of Europe was greatest in this material. Networks were in existence at around 12,000 BCE Anatolia was the source primarily for trade with the Levant, Iran and Egypt according to Zarins study of 1990. Melos and Lipari sources produced among the most widespread trading in the Mediterranean region as known to archaeology.
  
  The Sari-i-Sang mine in the mountains of Afghanistan was the largest source for trade of lapis lazuli. The material was most largely traded during the Kassite period of Babylonia beginning 1595 BCE.
  
  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.