Page 133 - Life & Land Use on the Bahrain Islands (Curtis E Larsen)

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External trade networks in the gulf have not been constant. Thus, Bahrain
was not continuously exposed to major markets for either pearls or dates. TTie
rapid abandonment of land areas on Bahrain following the Barbar period, for
example, closely paralleled the disintegration of the Harappan civilization at the
one pole and the economic failure of Old Babylonian Mesopotamia at the other
(Wright 1981, Stone 1978). This suggests a collapse in the external long distance
maritime trade network as a major factor in the decline of Bahrain. If Polanyi’s
paradigm for long distance trade as a stimulus in socioeconomic development is to
hold true, the converse relationship must also be considered as a significant force.
The removal of such exogenous stimuli has not been dealt with by either Renfrew
(1975) or by Smith (1976), but surely a form of socioeconomic regression must occur.
Because the early development of the initial urban center on Bahrain is linked to
the urban revolution in the Middle East, a complete return to the previous
condition of subsistence oriented villages is not reasonable. Rather, a modified
form of urban center or central town can be suggested.
Interruption of the external long-distance trade network decreases the
importance of export-import interests in the social hierarchies, diminishing the
revenues previously collected by the ruling elites. Tliis reduces the overall wealth
of all classes. Emigration of specialists and artisans to new areas of greater
opportunity takes place, thereby reducing the population of the urban center.
Concomitantly, the demand for food by the urban population decreases and allows
the agricultural villages of the hinterlands to adopt a more autonomous subsistence
pattern. Spatially, a devolution in the central place hierarchy occurs and is
accompanied by a decrease in the total land area under cultivation. Tlie resultant
(2B, fig. 19) is a greatly diminished state dominated by an urban center or large
town but with fewer demands on the surrounding villages.
The intervals of decreased land usage reconstructed here appear
explainable in terms of changing economic markets. TTius, the contractions of land
use that were exhibited in the second millennium B.C. appear related to a
breakdown or decrease in external trade. The unraveling of the
Mesopotamian-Harappan trade network fits this type of explanation. Secondly, the