2000–500 BCE: (Commercial Revolutions — The Rise of the First Commercial Revolutions in the Second and First Millennia BCE, a New Class of Society — Merchant…

2000–500 BCE: (Commercial Revolutions — The Rise of the First Commercial Revolutions in the Second and First Millennia BCE, a New Class of Society — Merchants — Becoming the Central Facilitators of Newly Expanding Networks of Long-Distance Trade, People Living Well South in Africa Being Initiators and Major Participants with the Towns of Tichit Providing Notable Early Examples Already in the Second Millennium BCE, a Similar Trend Separately in Progress in the Eastern Mediterranean and Levant by or Before the Beginning of the First Millennium BCE, the Growing Demand for Metals Especially Iron Being a Major Contributing Factor): A fourth major theme of this age, under way in the second and first millennia BCE, was the rise of the first commercial revolutions — with a new class of society, merchants, becoming the central facilitators of newly expanding networks of long-distance trade. People living well south in Africa were initiators and major participants in these transformative shifts in economic relations. The towns of Tichit provide notable early examples of this kind of economic activity already in the second millennium BCE. By or before the beginning of the first millennium BCE a similar trend of economic development was separately in progress in the eastern Mediterranean and Levant. A major contributing factor to the expansion of long-distance commercial relations was the growing demand for metals. Across Africa and in Eurasia, the first inventions and spreads of ironworking technology particularly stimulated this kind of demand. Africans living well south in the continent were once again notable instigators. The commercial revolution — the emergence of a merchant class, the creation of trade networks spanning hundreds or thousands of kilometers, the rise of towns as manufacturing and transport centers — is typically narrated as a Levantine or Phoenician achievement. Ehret repositions Africa at the center of this story. The towns of Tichit, in what is now Mauritania, were nodes of long-distance trade a full millennium before the Phoenicians established their commercial networks across the Mediterranean. Africa did not wait for the Mediterranean world to show it how to trade. Africa was trading, manufacturing, and building commercial towns while the Phoenician cities were still villages.