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100 Ecology and Beyond
durée these developments transform themselves into a framework
that becomes part of the history of the Mediterranean.
A third and fourth level must now be addressed, which are on
the one hand the connectivity inside each of the two basins of
the Mediterranean, and on the other hand the connectivity
that could exist in the whole Mediterranean. It is easy to
prove that the basic norm was sub-zone and/or west- or eastbasin
exchange, rather than general internal connectivity all
over the Mediterranean. This holds true even in the framework
of the Roman Empire, at a time when the Mediterranean connectivity
was probably at its maximum. During the neolithic
and early Bronze Age, the lack of technology that would have
made very long sea journeys possible seems to have prevented
the development of a direct exchange between the eastern and
the western basins. This is why, for instance, it has so far been
impossible to prove the direct arrival of third-millennium Cypriot
ceramics or metal artefacts in the western basin, be it in
Malta, Sicily, or Sardinia. 20
It would be a caricature to present exchange within the
Mediterranean as an ever-growing connectivity zone, gently
leading to a complete unification under the Roman Empire,
then to a final collapse, followed two centuries later by a strange
north–south partition of the Mediterranean which is still operative
today. Matters were vastly more complex. Yet this scenario
is not wholly misleading. A big issue for a macro-history would
be to understand why this seemingly ‘ideal state’ of general
connectivity did not survive. Addressing this point would be
going too far, or rather, would be going far beyond the ecological
approach to which a conceptualization of ‘Mediterraneism’
invites us. Perhaps these considerations also show the
limits of a purely ecological approach, but that is another story.
If we consider the phases and forms of connectivity, it should
be stressed once again that direct connectivity between very
distant parts of the Mediterranean came into being comparatively
late, being well attested only in the second millennium
bc. Then it developed rapidly in the first millennium up to the
final unification by Rome. In the East, in the third and second
millennia, the permanent great power was Egypt, which under
20 Guilaine, La mer partagée, 82–4.