Forum

But how can you confirm economic and political relations between states without texts?

Let's say you find ivory beads in Spain. It's clear that they came from Africa, but how exactly – plunder, tribute, trade, or a gift? In other words, archaeology can establish the fact of contact between different regions, but not the nature of their relationship.

It's even worse with political status – you can compare the degree of wealth of cities and burials, but this does not mean that poorer territories were subordinate to richer ones. And it is even more difficult to assess the nature of this subordination.