Nomads Trading with Empires: Intercultural Trade in Ancient Somaliland in the First to Seventh Centuries CE

This article presents new data from fieldwork in the de facto state of Somaliland, a region in the Horn of Africa historically inhabited by nomadic pastoralists who played a key role in commercial exchange from the first century BCE onward. Relations between ancient empires and nomadic populations have received comparatively little attention in relation to other groups living within or outside imperial boundaries. Our understanding of these interactions has been colored by stereotypes from classical authors and the elusive nature of their archaeological record. It is thus not surprising that the role of nomadic groups in long-distance trade networks in antiquity has been often downplayed. This is the case in the Western Indian Ocean region. Archaeological evidence from survey and excavation work conducted between 2018 and 2020 in Xiis and the Berbera area reveals the strong integration of the region in the Indian Ocean network, the high purchasing power of the nomads, and their heterogeneity. Participation in long-distance trade seems to have provoked important social changes in local communities that did not, however, put them on the path to sedentism and political centralization.