CHAPTER I - Trade and Industry in Barbarian Europe till Roman Times

Summary

Introduction

The antecedents of trade and industry in the European continent extend continuously through time to the activities of the earliest hominids, a million years ago, in a Europe that we would now scarcely recognise; a Europe with an unfamiliar geography, a different climate and an exotic fauna and flora. In Man's own knowledge and continuing experience there have been not one Europe but a succession of Europes through time, each with its own distinctive character. Indeed, the minute penetration of the European environment which mapped the resources of later trade and industry was the cumulative consequence of this successive experience of every aspect of Europe, under every kind of condition, collectively stored in the cultural traditions of its inhabitants. It might almost be said that Man stayed still and let Europe fluctuate about him in its oscillation trajectory. But this, of course, is not true, for Man's ancestors continuously adapted both biologically and culturally in such a way as to intensify his branching penetration deep into the interstices of his environment. In this process Man's cultural adaptations have increasingly insulated his population from environmental fluctuations by means of the increasing regulatory variety of his material and social artefact assemblages.

It at once seems incongruous to take historical concepts of trade and industry back into a series of contexts in which ultimately Man is not even Homo sapiens and in which perhaps formalised speech itself may be doubted. Nevertheless, the most primitive tool-using hominids practised complex economies – elaborate time and role allocation strategies, combining various subsistence methods and extraction processes with which to feed and equip the community and ensure its continuity.