The astonishing nature of this revelation cannot be overstated. How did people in Turkey and Palestine, at the time the Great Pyramid was being built in Egypt 4500 years ago, know there was tin ore in England? How did people in England know anybody wanted it, a thousand miles away? There were no cities in between, no open-ocean sailing vessels. How did it even get across the Channel?

There was clearly a hell of a lot going on all over Europe and Asia that didn't need cities or books.

I don't know if finding cloves from the Moluccas in a middle-class house in Syria in 2000 BCE is more, or less astonishing.