Before the stream: the social and economic role of exotica in the central Mediterranean. The case of ivory items from Roca.

In this paper we have tried to highlight some of the probable social implications of the consumption and local working of exotica, using as a case study the assemblage of ivory items from the site of Roca in Adriatic Southern Italy. The definition here proposed for exotica as exogenous goods of small size and strong evocative power, has been used in order to explain patterns of use and deposition of ivories through the second part of the second millennium BC in the Central Mediterranean. As a result, it has been possible to ascertain that exotica normally predate the beginning of the circulation of bulky goods and they are a credible indicator of the possibility of the inception of more capital intensive forms of exchanges. These other forms may or may not start depending on various conditions (above all social and technological). Whenever they do occur, however, the start of local production of exotica is a common by-product, although control of maritime routes from certain sites may prevent this from happening. As has been seen at Roca, local production of exotica constitutes the culmination of a process of gradual osmosis where these new productive activities present strong linkages with others already existing in the settlement, as in the case of SAS X, where ivories were worked in the same areas as other animal-derived hard materials. Pottery production also represents another facet of this process, although, as a result of the abundance of this class of evidence, much work still needs to be done on this side. There are some hints suggesting that this process of osmosis may have influenced Roca’s social life, not only with respect of production but also of redistribution. This is the case of the large building erected in the SAS IX area, as well as of the specialized storage areas recognized in various areas of the settlement (Pagliara et al. 2007, 2008, Guglielmino 1999). These denote an ability to mobilize resources which probably goes beyond the possibilities of standard small-scale communities of Bronze Age Italy. An in-depth assessment of the mutual interplay between these aspects will require a systematic analysis of the evidence from key areas of the settlement, a work which is now ongoing.