A Sketch on the Development of Merchandise in Central and Eastern Europe at Prehistoric Times

Historical evidences, which would allow judging the state of the inter-tribal trade in the prehistoric times, are extremely scanty, but archaeological finds, among which there are objects obtained or manufactured in distant places, show that in Europe, as well as in Asia as early as the late Neolithic and Bronze Age exchange trade was already quite widespread and represented one of the aspects of the development of human civilization. The topic of the connection between trade and civilization has a great theoretical interest and many works of specialists are devoted to it. At the same time, the understanding of the nature of trade changes substantially in proportion to receiving new historical evidence about it. The range of issues that arise when considering the connection between trade and civilization is very wide. Among them are: How do the institutions of trade relate to political power? Is trade a prerequisite for the making of stable political structures, or vice versa? What is the relation between trade and a predatory economy and, furthermore, between trade and war? Under what circumstances could trade networks promote the dissemination of religion, art, and ideology? etc. (KRISTIANSEN KRISTIAN, 2018: 1-3). Such questions are very important for understanding the patterns of the development of human civilization, but unequivocal answers to them cannot be obtained if the ethnic component of the trade processes is ignored.

Trade developed from the simple exchange of necessary items between people which led to the accumulation of wealth from individuals. The question of the nature of people's desire for wealth is a separate and complex topic that specialists should deal with. Earlier than others, even some Marxist philosophers realized that the overestimation of material interest in human life is fraught with a certain threat to society:

The desire for wealth, embracing individuals and entire nations, leads to the opposite result – decay and death (Giambattista Vico, cited from LIFSHITS MIKH. 1994, X).

For suppressing the feelings of fear that are constantly present in the life of a primitive man, not material values ​​that were, in principle, possible to satisfy, but psychological comfort that could be provided only by spiritual values were more important. According to Radan Květ, following in the footsteps of Mandelbrot, the configuration of the hydrological network on our planet is predetermined by geological faults, a phenomenon of fundamental importance. A network of prehistoric paths is connected to the hydrological network, which at the same time served as a means of exchange not only and not so much with goods, as an opportunity for the exchange of information between distant human collectives:

In the history of mankind, the original network of paths became the first information network. It did not have the main goal of trade and military relations: all kinds of technological experience, as, of course, a cultural one, led to the unity of thoughts, ideas, philosophical and religious views, just as well as artistic tastes (KVĔT R., 1998: 43).

Modern philosophers also agree that material values do not provide a person with peace of mind in our time:

Ultimately, the main price for a consumer society is the feeling of general insecurity that it generates (BAUDRILLARD JEAN. 2006: 46).

Based on this point of view, in this presentation we will assume that both in prehistoric and in our time, providing people with the necessary goods is not a goal, but a means of achieving it.

The first exchange goods were products of mineral and rock formations, which are passed from hand to hand at ranges in the hundreds and even thousands of kilometers, as raw materials could not be found everywhere. The most common were flint and obsidian tools and weapons, the manufacturing of quartzite, diorite, jade were to a lesser extent. Minerals with decorative qualities, such as lapis lazuli, malachite, agate, carnelian were used for jewelry. Without interest, that women's jewelry was one of the oldest exchange commodities. This primarily refers to the attractive and shining shells, which have been used by women of those times for neck jewelry. The shells, which could be found only on the shores of the Atlantic Ocean, got into quite a large number of people of Central Europe still 30 thousand years ago (KRÄMER Walter, 1971, 46). The shells were used even as means of payment in some places. With the beginning of the Bronze Age, copper and tin became a commodity.

As expected, cultural influences on Central and Eastern Europe came from the cradle of human civilization in the Middle East. On trade routes formed as a result of tribal trade during the Neolithic, cultural and everyday objects from Palestine and Syria along the eastern and northern shores of the Mediterranean Sea, through the islands of the Aegean Sea, and then along the Vardar and Great Morava rivers came into the Middle Danube Basin. Together with everyday goods, technological experience and creative tastes spread. According to Gimbutas, almost all the archaeological artifacts of the cultures of Central Europe had prototypes or analogs in Egypt, Northern Iran, on the Syrian-Palestinian coast, and in Cyprus:

These are neck-rings with rolled ends, curved shank pins with knot heads, called Cypriote pins, or with simple spiral or loop heads, sheet-metal belt plates with rolled ends and embossed decoration, cylinders wound of thin copper wire, double-wire spiral rings, earrings with flattened ends, plain spiral bracelets, and double-spiral pendants. (GIMBUTAS MARIJA. 1965: 32).

Not only archaeological findings, but the study of the vocabulary of the peoples, places settlements which we know from the research, can be of great help in the coverage of this topic, and the last is dedicated to making this essay. However, we take as the starting point of this essay reliable evidences of ancient, primarily by Herodotus:

These are the extremities in Asia and in Libya; but as to the extremities of Europe towards the West, I am not able to speak with certainty: for neither do I accept the tale that there is a river called in Barbarian tongue Eridanos, flowing into the sea which lies towards the North Wind, whence it is said that amber comes; nor do I know of the real existence of Κασσιτερίδας, "Tin Islands" ( from which tin comes to us: for first the name Eridanos itself declares that it is Hellenic and that it does not belong to a Barbarian speech, but was invented by some poet; and secondly I am not able to hear from anyone who has been an eye-witness, though I took pains to discover this, that there is a sea on the other side of Europe. However that may be, tin and amber certainly come to us from the extremity of Europe. (HERODOTUS. III, 115)

What is this river Eridanus not clear so far, but Cassideridas – this is obvious, the British Isles, wherein those days deposits of tin were discovered and guided its development for export. Trafficking of this metal needed for the production of bronze was engaged by Phoenician sailors, and they concealed the true location of these islands. Also, you can think of, traders of amber concealed location of the country where were large deposits of this fossilized resin of coniferous trees. However, the Greek navigator Pytheas, who visited the Jutland peninsula in 325 BC, argued there was amber so much that the locals use it as fuel instead of wood. At the same time, it is well known that most of them are located on the coast of the Baltic Sea and, therefore, at least one of the ways of amber trading had to be in Eastern Europe. It is believed that it started east of the mouth of the Vistula, and then followed this river to the Upper Oder, crossing the Moravian gate between the Sudeten and the Carpathian Mountains, overlooking the Hungarian Plain (Great Plain) and further along the Danube reached Greece (KRÄMER WALTER, 1979: 185-186). However, the nearer way was over the Vistula and on the Western Bug, or San, and then on the Dniester to the Black Sea. Another way went along the Vistula River and further along the Western Bug or San rivers, and then along the Dniester reached the Black Sea. However, Marija Gimbutas claimed that back in the 14th century BC amber reached the shores of the Caspian Sea, so there could also exist a trade route from Central Europe through the Pontic area to the North Caucasus (GIMBUTAS NARIJA. 1965: 88).

Left: Amber routes during the period between ca 1600 BC and 11600 BC.

The map was compiled after (Marija Gimbetas. 1965: Fig 1, p. 49 Johannes Richter)

In the Days of Yore intertribal merchandise has been evolved as a consequence of the availability of excessive production of a certain type at different groups of people and the lack of or insufficient amount of other types of products, the need for which has been pressing.

Changing redundant things to lacking ones is a natural action among people of the same community, and this practice has been applied in relations between different ethnic groups, even if among them there was a certain lack of confidence. In such circumstances, the so-called "silent trade" was developed when customers leave their goods at a particular place and went to a safe distance, then buyers came up for them and left instead the goods in an amount equivalent, to their opinion, for the obtained ones. Abuse of trust entailed a break "trade intercourse", in which nobody was interested. The presence of certain goods in certain places and its absence in others, as well as geographical conditions, led to the emergence of trade routes, but not yet to the emergence of a class of people who were engaged in merchandise professionally, but it is gradually gaining new forms and heavily promoted cultural exchange:

Of course, the goods were transferred to such long distances, not by individual merchants, they were passed in the exchange from hand to hand, from village to village, from country to country. However, the exchange trade itself resulted, at least, to the contacts with the neighboring regions, and thus the first information about distant lands and peoples could be passed on. It is even possible that individual traders and then moved further than we can now imagine (KRÄMER WALTER, 1961, 13).

Since the tin deposits in Eastern Europe were absent, pay attention to the other items mentioned by Herodotus – amber. As early as the 6th mill BC, it was used for jewelry among the peoples of Northern Europe, and from the 16th cent BC such ornaments were found in the tombs of Mycenae and the early state of Urartu. The regular supply of amber from the eastern Baltic to Greece and Asia Minor begins at about 900 BC (KRÄMER WALTER, 1979, 184, 186).

Amber was used for making necklaces, earrings, pendants, etc.

Right: Amber ring pendants. (Photo from the pageВсе о янтаре.

The characteristic shapes of the jewelry, as well as the percentage of succinic acid, make it possible to determine trade routes from the place of mining to consumers. The richest deposits of amber are in East Prussia and Lithuania, but products from it were found not only in Greece but also in southern Italy, Sicily, Iberia (Gimbutas Marija. 1965, 48).

We know that the ancient Bulgars, the ancestors of the modern Chuvash, were the creators of the Corded Ware and battle-axes culture, and one of its variants was spread in the Baltic States (Vistula-Neman, or Rzucewo culture). The Bulgars also inhabited the main trade routes along the Vistula and Dniester, so could have a monopoly in the production and trade of amber. In this connection, will try to find in the Chuvash language words which would mean an interesting subject. Two very similar words were found yantar and yantar'. The second word, of course, was borrowed from Russian and means just "amber". The first word, the more ancient, and now obsolete, meaning "glass" is semantically close to the name of amber, and such sense is clearly secondary. Other languages, the speakers of ancestors of which would have to deal with amber (primarily Estonians and Finns) have no similar words. The remote match to Estonian and Finnish names (Finn meripihka "marine resin", Est pihkakivi "resin stone") can be found only in the Udmurt and Komi languages where the fossilized resin is called stone resin. Other Finno-Ugric peoples use loanwords for the name of amber of completely different origin. This suggests that the ancestors of the Estonians and Finns, just like other modern Baltic peoples came to the shores of the Baltic Sea considerably later than Bulgars. In this regard, one might think that Chuv. yantar can be close to the original name, which versions are presented in different languages.

The origin of the Russian word yantar', which was also borrowed in the Belarusian and Ukrainian languages, is unknown. Lit gintaras, Let. dzintars "amber", Hung. gyanta, gyantar "tree resin, amber, rosin", Mari yanda "glass", yandar "clear" are phonetically similar to the Russian word. Having reviewed all these names, B.A Larin concluded that the Baltic words were borrowed from an unknown ancient language, the name of amber in the form yentar came from the Baltic languages to Russian, Mari words were borrowed from Chuvash, and Hungarian forms with diverse values indicate their greater proximity to the initial forms of an original language (LARIN B.A., 1959). Since the closeness between the Hungarian and Chuvash language is known, the choice of a search way for etymologizing the by means of the Chuvash language looks promising and, indeed, we find in the dictionary Chuv. ĕnt "to burn, singe," which can be taken as the part of a compound word for the name of amber. The reason for such assumption gives available German word Bernstein denoting amber as "combustible stone". Recall that the Teutons, the ancestors of the Germans were northern neighbors of the ancient Bulgars. In this case, the second part of the word yentar should mean "a stone". Chuvash called stone chul having the common for all Turkic languages protoform *taĺ (in most of Turkic taš). Thus, the "combustible stone" in the Bulgar language could be called enttal, wherefrom is not far from the modern name. However, the existence of Mari and Hungarian truncated forms of the name of amber let suggest that the word enta could be used, meaning simply "flammable". However, these words are borrowed in the Mari and Hungarian languages from Chuvash.

According to our study, the Urheimat of the Slavs was in the immediate vicinity of the amber deposits on the shores of the Baltic Sea, and later some of the Slavic tribes were dwelling on its shores, so amber would be known to them and they had to have a common Slavic name for it, but its traces meanwhile were not found. Obviously, the Slavs appeared on the Baltic Sea shore after the split of the Slavonic Community. Acquainted with amber, Slavs obviously used for calling amber calque from Bulgar, not without reason that an expression "white-combustible stone" exists at Russians that for no other stone, except amber, will not work.

Export goods of Slavs could be wax and honey because they have long practiced beekeeping. Less confident we can talk about the furs, as ancient Slavs were more fisher as a hunter. Therefore, Slavs could have for the sale of fish. However, such a perishable commodity was not interesting for the nearest neighbors, being also abundant on fish resources, but to transport fish over long distances would need to use a preservative, which could be salt.

Salt, without a doubt, was one of the first merchandise, as its deposits were not everywhere, but during the Neolithic role of plant foods in the human diet was increasing and the need for salt was also increased. However, salt founds different uses in human life:

Since ancient times, salt was the main preservative of key foods (meat, fish, cheese). This mineral is removed the man's dependence on the seasonal availability of food and made available to travel considerable distances. Salt is also multifunctional medicine for people and livestock. It was involved in the technology. In particular, salt used as one of the key components in leatherworking. Similarly, in religious rituals in many cultures, salt is an important attribute that symbolizes friendship and incorruptible purity, because of what appeared in the funeral and wedding ceremonies (BOLTRYK Yu.V. 2014, 63-64).

It is a common custom among the peoples of Eastern Europe to give a loaf of bread and salt shaker on it to the honored guests. But the very greeting of bread and salt, which is a calque of Chuv. çăkăr-tăvar, is common in the everyday life of the Slavs:

The greeting of visitors in peasant societies with bread and salt (khlyab i sol), and its variants in the different Slavic languages reflects the important role played by these two items: bread as the “staff of life” (the basic foodstuff), and salt as the symbol of well-being (HARDING A., 2013: 13).

Other subjects of exchanging were livestock, dried and salted fish, tools and handicrafts. This is evidenced by existing in the Turkic languages of western areas and in the language of their neighboring people words of different meanings but being united by common value "goods, the subject of the exchange." Just this word is tovar and the similar ones meaning "commodity". It has the form tavar in the Armenian language and means "sheep", "flock", the Turkic languages have such words: Kum tuuar "herd", Turk. tavar "property", "cattle", Balk., Cr. Tat tu'ar "property", Chuv tăvar "salt", tavăr "to return the debt", "revenge", "meet", "turn out", etc. Chuvash words are very illustrative. The ancestors of the Chuvash Bulgars had the opportunity to extract salt, because they inhabited the area close to the Sivash Bay. Although the salt obtained from seawater or sludge has a bitter taste, there are technologies that make it possible to get rid of this drawback (ibid 2013: 28). The Bulgars mastered handicraft, which provided them with salt as an export item, and therefore it acquired the meaning of “commodity”. The Second Chuvash word tavăr phonetically and semantically is a bit further. But in principle at first it could mean "to pay back", "to offset" that are semantically close to "price" which could develop from meaning "goods of exchange". Many Iranian languages have a word tabar / teber / tevir "an ax", and Finno- Ugric similar words mean "textile" (Saam. tavyar, Mari tuvyr, Khanty tagar). Obviously, they all have the same origin, as both tools, as well as production has been the subject of trade. Maybe Slav tur "aurochs", Lat. taurus and Gr. τυροσ, "bull" could be included here, although competent professionals (Vasmer, Walde and Hofmann, Menges) are silent about such relationships. Finally, this word can be attributed to such Germanic words of unknown origin: Ger teuer, Dt duur "expensive", Eng dear.

As this name of goods so clearly revealed its antiquity, it is possible to raise the question about the search for traces in modern languages a word for the process meaning the equivalent exchange of goods. We can trace the etymology of the words have the value "trade", "price", "to buy", "to sell", "to cost", "dear", "cheap" etc. But many of them have no matches in other languages, but correspondences are available just for the word torg and similar "merchandise". According to M. Vasmer, Slavic *tŭrgŭ presented in different ways in all Slavic languages have cognates words also in Lithuanian, Latvian, Illyrian, Albanian, Swedish, Danish, Finnish, and others (VASMER MAX. 1973. V IV: 82). The root of this word can have front and back vowels and, labialized and not labialized what, in fact, points to the itinerant character of the word – torg-, turg, targ-, tirg-, terg-. The origin of the Slavic word *tŭrgŭ was clarified by G.I. Ramstedt and M. Räsänen. According to Ramstedt, Turkic words meaning "silk" and in general "fabric", "goods" were borrowed from the Mongolian language (Mong. torga "silk", Tung. tōrga "cotton fabric", "goods") and further in other similar meanings spread all the way to Scandinavia (RAMSTEDT G.J. 1949: 99; RAMSTEDT G.J. 1957: 49). On the contrary, Räsänen considered Trc. turku, turγu "station" to be the original (A. RÄSÄNEN M. 1946: 82), although he did not return to this thought later, limiting itself to mentioning the Turkic-Mongolian matches in the name of silk (RÄSÄNEN M. 1969: 490).

Trade places had to be certain for those who wish to exchange goods could easily find a counterpart. They were mainly determined by geographical conditions according to location, the availability of drinking water at the intersection of routes. Understanding of the features of the organization of trade gave grounds to put it at the basis of a purely materialistic logistic theory of modern civilization (SHKURIN I.Yu. 2013). From the point of view of logistics, the shores at crossings, the mouths of river tributaries, where both sellers and buyers could easily reach, were well suited for shopping centers, where permanent settlements arose:

…location of late Neolithic settlements may also testify about the possible ways of applying by local community control over natural crossings, therefore, for ways to move and intertribal exchange, which gave them an advantage in social development and the opportunity to expand their influence (TOVKAYLO M.T. 1998:14).

Besides O.T. turku, formed from tur-"to stand", "to be", "to live", which has matches in many Turkic languages, can also consider other words suitable for our situation: O.T.. tera "valley lowland", 1. terkäš "confluence of river branches"; Yakut. törüt "river mouth". It is natural that in such markets there has been a large crowd of people, and this is also reflected in the Turkic languages: O.T. ter "to collect, hoard"; terig "meeting, gathering"; törkün "tribe", O.T. terkäš "crush"; Tat. törkem "crowd, group"; Bash. törköm "crowd"; Balk., Karach. türtüšou "crush"; Tur. türük, "kingdom, world", teraküm "accumulation". It was also natural tension between sellers and buyers, the frist tried to sell their goods more profitable, the latter, trying to bring down the price, argued, scolded, were capricious, that was really traded. Such a conclusion can be reached by considering the following words: Chuv. tirke "be picky", tirkev "capriciousness, fastidiousness", Tur terk "abandonment, rejection, repudiation", diriğ "refusal", O.T. terkiš "grumpy", Tat. tirgərgə "to scold", Bash. tirgəü "curse". The contradictions between the seller and the buyer is also displayed by the etymology of the ancient Indo-European word *kʷrinā- "to buy" (OInd krīṇāti, Gr. πρίαμαι, NPers. xarīdan, OIrl. cren-, OLyt. krieno and other similar). This word orinates from Old Bulgarish *keren "to be stubborn, to balk" (Chuv. xirĕn). Likewise PIE. mizdhō "payment" can have Bulgarian origin too (OSlav. mьzda, Osset. mizd, Got. mizdō a.o.), if the word is derived from the question of the buyer "how much"? Chuv. miçe "how?" and tav "thank" corresponds such question.

It is noteworthy that the root *torg is presented in languages whose speakers were living on the right bank of the Dnieper river in the 2nd mill BC. The Greek, Latin, Celtic, Iranian, and Indian languages don't have it. Therefore, we can assume that the source of the word was the language of the ancient Bulgars but not other Turkic peoples populated land on the left bank. Considering Chuv. turkhan with OT tarqan "privileged person title", it can be restored as *turk? with a meaning associated with the trade. The city of Turka has a similar name in the Carpathians, where many place names are deciphered using the Chuvash language. The antiquity of this town can be confirmed by the message of Constantine Porphyrogenitus on white Croats living "beyond Turkia in the land called them Boyki" (CONSTANTINE PORPHYROGENITIUS. 1961: 32). It is believed that the land Turkia has to be understood as Hungary, and the Boyki is one of the Celtic tribes. One does not exclude the other, because Hungary is close to the town of Turka, and all the immediate areas could be called by the name of the town. Turka is now considered to be the "capital" of the Boyki, one of the tribes of the Carpathian Ukrainians, so one might think that this ethnonym they had inherited from the Celts. The transfer of the ethnonyms from one tribe to another is a common occurrence in history. And due to its convenient location on the way from Hungary to Galicia Turka could well play the role of the merchant center. It was not for nothing that nine large fairs a year were held here in the 18th century (PULNAROWICZ WŁADYSŁAW. 1929: 29). It is commonly believed that the name origins from Ukr tour "aurochs", but this explanation seems questionable since the motivation giving word suffix -ka is unclear, as there is a village of Turka in Poland not far from the city of Lublin, a town of Turka on Lake Baikal at the mouth of the same name river, the city of Turku in Finland. Assume that they are all derived from the word tur is difficult, so you need to look for different explanations for these names, while a more plausible interpretation of them as "market" is very suitable for settlement.

In addition to those mentioned above, among the objects of exchange had to be as grain, leather, furs, wax, honey, drinks, and other goods less durable than amber, so the archaeological remains of them are rare and can not confidently testify to their value in the commodity exchange. However, the vocabulary of different people has some traces of inter-tribal trade indicated by borrowed words that often roamed the world together with the very product. If we talk about grain, the first thing to be called barley, millet, oats. In this case, the characteristic is transferring the name of one cereal to another. For example Trc dary "millet", which is borrowed in Hungarian and Mari, can be associated with Georg keri "barley", and Trc. sulu / sula / suly "oats" with Georg svili "rye". Trc. arpa "barley", which have exact matches in gr. αλφι and alb. el'p, was adopted in Germanic as "pea" (Germ. *arwa - Ger Erbse). If the grain trade and, therefore, the spread of cereals went from south to north, the leather, furs, wax, and honey come into the southern lands from the north. At least the Turks gained honey and wax from their northern neighbors Italics and ancient Armenians, as evidenced by correspondence Trc. bal "honey" – Lat. mel, Arm. mełr "honey". Sir Gerard Clauson wrote on the origin of the Turkic name for honey:

It is generally accepted that this word is a very early borrowing from some Indo-European language, which can be dated by a period when m was unacceptable at the beginning of words, and therefore was replaced by b (CLAUSON GERARD. 2002.)

An example of amber says that the decorations and materials for them also were coveted objects of exchange. In the excavation of ancient tombs, archaeologists find gold and silver pendants, earrings, necklaces, bracelets, etc. Long before the use of metal to make tools and weapons gold and silver because of durability, ease of processing, and visual appeal are used in human creativity. In this case, due to their rarity noble metals were readily bought by people, and therefore had a high cost. Acting initially as an ordinary commodity, gold, and silver after a long search for a universal equivalent in the trade have become ubiquitous perform the basic functions of money. The etymology of the names of silver in different nations confirms this. For example, common in many Iranian languages the word arg/arz and having the basic meaning "price", comes from the name of silver (Lat. argentun, Av. ərəzata- a.o.) Another example would be a Turkic word kümüĺ (Chuv. kěměl) "silver" which seems to have been borrowed by Turks from Trypillians, which language we have identified as Semitic. Trypillian and Turkic settlements were divided by the Dnieper River, which, especially in the winter, could not be an insurmountable obstacle to neighbors, so the primitive trade and cultural exchange between the Turks and Trypillians took place. Traces of Tripillian influences on merchandise are found among words meaning "product", "payment", which we discussed above, cf. Heb. davar "a word", "a thing", "something". Trypillians could also have the word *kemel, corresponding to Heb. gemel "to give back" which we associate with Chuv kěměl "silver" ( See the article The Names of Metals in the Turkic and Indo-European Languages). Since silver performed the function of money, changing the value of the word by Turks occurred by to the fact that the trading parties interacted without an interpreter and could therefore give different meanings for the same subject. What was simply pay for one, took for another persona particular value of silver. This word was borrowed from the Bulgars by Italics and used for naming silverware, particularly silver dishes (Latin caměl-la "plate of soup").

Another word, which meant "payment, price" and borrowed by Turks from Trypillians, could be a word *demirz, which corresponded to the Heb. demis "money." Modern-day Turkic words demir / temir mean "iron" and it raises doubts about the possibility of the use of iron as a means of payment when this function belonged to silver. In addition, iron was not yet known at the time of contact between Turks and Trypillians. However, it could be assumed that for a long time Turkic word *demirz was used just in the general meaning of a costly thing, and only later, while the advent of the first iron products, which, indeed, had great value, changed its meaning. It is also possible that the word was first taken from the Turks to "copper", because, after the appearance of copper, it could also run as money of minor value.

This more affordable and suitable for different household crafts metal was found while the search for noble metals in nature, together with whom it was often present in deposits. The advantages of copper and later bronze replaced stone tools were appreciated by people very quickly, but the possibility to get metals from the earth was not everywhere. Therefore, the need for copper was covered by exchange for other goods. The population places rich on copper deposits began to specialize in the production for its profitable exchange. In Eastern Europe, such place was the Carpathians:

Copper Age was characterized by forming Balkan-Carpathian Metallurgical Province. This system of related manufacturing hotbeds occupied mining and metallurgical centers of the Northern Balkans and Carpathians, where extremely bright farming and animal husbandry Eneolithic cultures of Gumelniţa–Karanovo, Vancea-Pločnik, Tisapolgar-Bodrogkerestur, Petreşti were localized. Widely known Trypilla culture in the southwest of the USSR was only the eastern province of the block and did not know their own industry: its masters used imported copper. Since the formation of the province, a large proportion of products from the Balkan and Carpathian centers was sent further to the east in the Eastern European Steppe and Steppe-Forest (CHERNYKH E.N., KUZMINYKH S.V. 1990: 136).

It is understood that the function of money could act as metal ingots of a certain weight. Archaeology does not yet have the data when a balance in Eastern Europe has appeared, but the possibility of its existence was cloudily testified by linguistics. For example Mari punda "money" corresponds to OE.. pund "pound, as a measure of weight". Maybe the word came to the Mari language through Mordvinic which have pandoms "to pay", pandoma "payment", borrowed from the Anglo-Saxons. Similar words are in the other Germanic languages. It is believed that they have been early borrowed from Latin where pondō "pound" and pondus "weight" are present (KLUGE FRIEDRICH. 1989: 542). However, the Mari word is closest to the Latin words and if no other explanation for its etymology will be found, its appearance can be connected with the time when the Italics were still living in Europe.

The formation of the numerals in different languages can also light some of the details of intertribal trade. For example, a common Indo-European protoform of the numeral for ten was restored as *deќm. It can be linked to the ancient Turkic *dekim "a lot", the warrant for its existence is the presence O.T. tekim "a lot, many". Obviously, during inter-tribal trade Turkic word with a total value took at Indo-Europeans a more concrete meaning. Fin. *deksan "ten", present in words kahdeksan "eight" and yhdeksän "nine" can be associated with the Turkic numerals doksan / tuksan "ninety". For a time words like toquz and on / un were synonymous, meaning "ten", in the Turkic languages. Then the words doksan and tuksan can be explained as "ten of tens" that when trading by dozens of units of goods (such as skins) could be perceived by Finnish people simply as "ten" and the Turkic word was taken in the western Finnish languages just in this sense. More details about all of this in section "To the primary formation of numerals in the Nostratic languages". The fact of trade by dozens can be confirmed by the replacement O.S. word četyredesętĭ in East-Slavic by the word sorok "forty" borrowed from the ancient Bulgars (Chuv. hĕrĕh "forty"). It is known that four dozen small articles were perceived as a distinct trade unit, namely by the Eastern Slavs as "a bunch of sable skins" (VASMER M. 1971: 722). Obviously, this is the number of skins needed for the manufacture of sable fur.

This paper outlines sketched a schematic picture of trade in Eastern Europe, mainly adjacent to the Northern Black Sea coast. However, no doubt that there were trade relations between the Baltic, Volga, and Ural regions. The Volga river and along the coast of the Caspian Sea should be the trade route in the direction to Central Asia. While linguistic data to review the topic are enough scanty as the ethnic composition of the population in these regions is not enough clear.