Exchange is a mechanism that brings goods and people together between ecological zones and across social boundaries, and exchange creates strategic opportunities for individuals and institutions. Exchange is sometimes used to reinforce status differences because the possession of exotic goods, and the necessary surplus to acquire non-local products, differentially favors those with established regional ties. However exchange across boundaries, along with warfare and ritual, can be dangerous and may be the domain of strategic and opportunistic individuals as traffic in the exotic, and contact with foreign elements, is liable to challenge the social order. Conversely, one of the often-noted social consequences of regular exchange is more mundane: exchange serves to reinforce long distance social ties over time, to buffer risk, and to express cohesiveness through common access to distinct resources.

In recent decades, exchange studies in archaeology have acquired new technical rigor with advances in chemical proveniencing. While the cultural, institutional, and theoretical ramifications of exchange remain complex and nuanced, the demonstrable fact of chemical characterization offers refreshing certainty to the otherwise conditional and qualified study of ancient exchange.