In Vietnam, a trade network was already operating 4,500 years ago

Trading networks today will not surprise anyone. Thanks to sophisticated logistic mechanisms and well-developed infrastructure, we can go to any store in a trading network and be sure that we will find exactly the same on the shelves as in other stores of this network. A familiar consequence of civilization. But the first retail chains appeared long before supermarket trolleys were invented. According to scientists, one of the first examples of such a structure is ancient Vietnam, where such a network operated approximately 4,500-3,000 years ago.

Vietnam traffic

The researchers found that a number of settlements in the Mekong Delta in South Vietnam at one time was part of a complex scheme in which large volumes of products spread hundreds of kilometers from their place of manufacture. This discovery significantly changed the previous ideas of scientists about early Vietnamese culture.

Archaeologists used to know that some goods in these places moved from place to place. But the discovered scale of production and the geography of the network indicate that we are talking about an important trading structure, which also includes the transfer of tools, technologies and experience.

Time to collect stones

In South Vietnam, there are numerous archaeological sites of the Neolithic, which are located relatively close to each other and demonstrate a significant diversity in material culture, methods of building settlements and household features. This suggests that the communities that built settlements along various tributaries and on the coast quickly developed their social, cultural and economic ties. Complex trading networks emerged between these communities, some of which led to the movement of materials and technologies over long distances.