The Indus Civilization Trade with the Umm an-Nar Communities of the Oman Peninsula. A New Paradigm?
Résumé
This paper presents a paradigmatic change in defining the commercial and cultural interactions between Indus trading groups and the Umm an-Nar communities of the Oman Peninsula. The traditional model assumed the seasonal arrival of Indus seafaring merchants along the Omani coasts to provisionally trade with autochthonous commercial partners.
Although experiencing a degree of cultural transmission, the local inland trade relied instead entirely on indigenousintertribal exchanges. The application of a multidisciplinary, analytical approach to restudy the Indus-related materials found in the region led the authors to propose a more complex interaction model involving the stable presence of small groups from the Indus Valley settled in interior Oman. Even if integrated into the local communities responsible for the extraction and first processing of strategic raw materials, such Indus groups still followed some of their socioeconomic and cultural customs, often adapting their traditional productions to the use of local resources. The extensive use of complementing geochemical analyses and technological studies eventually allowed to differentiate between actual imports, local productions and imitations, each made using various combinations of either local or imported techniques and materials.