"The following review of the archeological and document evidence indicates that three events occurring in the first half of the first millennium BC trigger the emergence of a specialized and integrated classical economy after 500 BC: (i) growth in demand for silver as a medium of exchange in economies in the Near East; (ii) technical breakthroughs in hull construction and sailing rig in merchant shipping of the late Bronze Age; (iii) perfection of ferrous metallurgy into the European hinterland."
Dramatic wage & price fluctuations influenced the hierarchies of well-being & working conditions in French prison workshops 1900-1940, according to Elsa Genard (Harvard) at the 2023 SSHA conference in Washington DC https://ssha2023.ssha.org/sessions/177