Page 132 - Life & Land Use on the Bahrain Islands (Curtis E Larsen)

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TTie development of Bahrain following this change in Mesopotamian
political organization fits Childe's conception of an implanted colonial enclave on
the island solidified by intensive and frequent trade. On the other hand, it is also
suggests Smith's observations among extant groups where exogenous forces
transform the social order and institute an internal market system. Here we can
envision the development of a central-place hierarchy of villages about the single
port. An increasingly stratified but contemporary urban society may have
developed on Bahrain emphasizing the export-import market. Such ruling elites
later extracted tribute and taxes from foreign and local trading ventures and
accumulated wealth in the form of various luxury goods. Partially because of
perceived prestige, sophistication, or still unexplained reasons, the population was
increased by immigration as well as by internal growth. This, in turn, intensified
the demand for food resources from the agricultural portion of the population.
Rural land use expanded to meet the increase in these demands and reached a peak
of land use expansion. The limits to this growth, at least in preindustrial times,
was in terms of minimization of effort involving the distance to the market center
and the availability of suitable water and land.
TTie Barbar period exemplifies this type of social and land-use situation,
which is marked by the first appearance of an entrepot on the islands. Similar
examples for Bahrain as an entrepot also occurred in the first millennium B.C. and
during late medieval times when external trading networks linked the gulf with
outside sources of raw materials and luxury goods. The Barbar period was marked
by some control of the copper trade while pearls made an appearance as a luxury
item. In later times, the pearling trade took precedent over other items. When
dates were a major export, demand intensified, expanding the areas of date gardens
under cultivation to meet this increase. Demands for foods may also have been
significant during the medieval period, when Bahrain was tied to the Hormuzi
trading network in the gulf. Smith’s (1976) model has a greater meaning at this
later time when the ruling elites of Hormuz maintained a sizable urban center on a
nonarable island, Extraction of foodstuffs from more agriculturally favored
members of the trading system may have been a necessity.

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