Networks of Communication and Exchange 300 B.C.E. 1100 C.E.

1
Networks of Communication and Exchange 300
B.C.E. 1100 C.E.

• The Silk Road
• The Indian Ocean
• Routes Across the Sahara
• Sub-Saharan Africa
• Adapted from Earth and Its Peoples Instructors
  Resource Manual
• By Harold M. Tanner

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Networks of Communication and Exchange 300
B.C.E. 1100 C.E.

• Trade Routes
• Led to the exchange of agricultural goods,
  manufactured products, and ideas
• But the interaction of people also key
• Routes like the Silk Road became a social system
• System that lay neither within a state or empire
  nor gave rise to one
• Had a deep impact on world history

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Networks of Communication and Exchange 300
B.C.E. 1100 C.E.

• Traders
• Customers were usually wealthy elites
• Were not always admired or respected
• Were often secretive to not help their
  competition
• HOWEVER
• Even so, their efforts contributed more to
  drawing the world together than all but a few
  kings and emperors

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Networks of Communication and Exchange 300
B.C.E. 1100 C.E.

• The Silk Road
• an overland route that linked China to the
  Mediterranean world via Mesopotamia, Iran and
  Central Asia
• Origins
• May be from occasional trading of Central Asian
  nomads
• In 128 BCE, Chinese General Zhang was an
  important pioneer

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Networks of Communication and Exchange 300
B.C.E. 1100 C.E.

• The Silk Road
• Large scale trade
• Fostered by the Chinese demand for Western
  products (esp. the horse)
• Also fostered by Parthian control of northeastern
  Iran and the markets of Mesopotamia
• Parthian culture was similar to nomadic pastoral
  groups and was very interested in trade.
• Parthian Empire
• http//www.parthia.com/

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Networks of Communication and Exchange 300
B.C.E. 1100 C.E.

• The Silk Road
• Hybrid Camels
• an industry that developed along with caravan
  trade
• the shaggy camel combined the merits of the
  Bactrian (two-humped) camel with the Arabian
  dromedary (one-humped with heavy coat of hair)
• Chinese imports
• horses
• alfalfa, grapes (brought by Gen. Zhang)
• Medicinal products, metals, precious stones

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Networks of Communication and Exchange 300
B.C.E. 1100 C.E.

• The Silk Road
• Chinese exports
• peaches and apricots
• spices
• Manufactured goods silk, pottery, paper

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Networks of Communication and Exchange 300
B.C.E. 1100 C.E.

• The Silk Road
• Impact
• Turkic nomads became the dominant pastoralist
  group in Central Asia
• Their elites
• Constructed houses and lived settled lives
• Also became interested in foreign religions such
  as
• Christianity, Manicheanism, Zoroastrianism,
  Buddhism, and eventually Islam

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Networks of Communication and Exchange 300
B.C.E. 1100 C.E.

• The Silk Road
• Impact
• Central Asian military technologies were exported
  both East and West
• The Stirrup
• One of most important inventions
• Gave riders far greater stability in the saddle

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Networks of Communication and Exchange 300
B.C.E. 1100 C.E.

• The Silk Road
• Impact
• Many became prosperous
• Each Central Asian caravan city seemed to have
  its own ruling family
• Each city seemed to relate to each other through
  trade
• A fear of losing trade may have been why no one
  seems to have attempted to conquer others

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Networks of Communication and Exchange 300
B.C.E. 1100 C.E.

• The Silk Road
• Impact
• By the mid-8th century CE a Turkic speaking
  group, the Uigur did establish a short-lived but
  extensive kingdom.

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Networks of Communication and Exchange 300
B.C.E. 1100 C.E.

• The Indian Ocean Maritime System
• linked the lands bordering the Indian Ocean
  basin and the South China Sea
• Trade took place in three distinct regions
• The South China Sea, dominated by Chinese and
  Malays
• Southeast Asia to the east Coast of India,
  dominated by the Malays and the Indians
• The west coast of India to the Persian Gulf and
  East Africa, dominated by Persians and Arabs

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Networks of Communication and Exchange 300
B.C.E. 1100 C.E.

• The Indian Ocean Maritime System
• Trade was made possible by and followed the
  patterns of the seasonal changes in the monsoon
  winds.
• Sailing technology was unique in the Indian ocean
  system
• Very different from Mediterranean sailing where
  ships were nailed together and rarely ventured
  out of the sight of land
• Included the lanteen sail thanks to monsoon
  winds could cover long stretches entirely at sea
• Shipbuilding technique that involved piercing the
  planks, tying them together, and caulking them

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Networks of Communication and Exchange 300
B.C.E. 1100 C.E.

• The Indian Ocean Maritime System
• Distances made trade different than in other
  regions
• Because of the distances traveled, traders rarely
  retained political ties to their homelands
• Warfare, therefore, between the various lands
  participating in the trade was rare.

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Networks of Communication and Exchange 300
B.C.E. 1100 C.E.

• The Indian Ocean Maritime System
• Origins of Trade
• There is some evidence of trade between
  Mesopotamia and the Indus Valley civilization
  stopped at some point.
• Two thousand years ago Malay sailors from
  Southeast Asia migrated to the islands of
  Madagascar. No link continued.
• Written sources are extremely rare and
  archaelogical evidence is hard to interpret in
  regards to this trading system, yet it is still
  quite significant.

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Networks of Communication and Exchange 300
B.C.E. 1100 C.E.

• The Indian Ocean Maritime System
• The impact of Indian Ocean Trade
• We do not know too much about it before the rise
  of Islam in the 7th century.
• What we do know comes largely from a single 1st
  century Greco-Roman text, The Periplus of the
  Erythrean Sea.
• Periplus describes a well-established,
  flourishing trading system
• Goods traded included a wide variety of spices,
  aromatic resins, pearls, Chinese pottery, and
  other luxury goods.
• The overall volume of trade was probably less
  than the Mediterranean trade

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Networks of Communication and Exchange 300
B.C.E. 1100 C.E.

• The Indian Ocean Maritime System
• The impact of Indian Ocean Trade
• The culture of the Indian Ocean ports was often
  isolated from their inland populations. Even
  Indian and Malay peninsula ports did not have
  large access to inland populations and therefore
  those populations did not become oriented toward
  the sea.
• Traders and sailors in the Indian Ocean trade
  system often married local women in the ports
  they frequented. These women became mediators
  between cultures.

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Networks of Communication and Exchange 300
B.C.E. 1100 C.E.

• Routes Across the Sahara
• Early Saharan Cultures
• The current dryness of the Sahara dates only to
  about 2500 BCE.
• Even then it was not until 300 BCE that the
  scarcity of water made travel only available on a
  few difficult routes.

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Networks of Communication and Exchange 300
B.C.E. 1100 C.E.

• Routes Across the Sahara
• Early Saharan Cultures
• Undatable rock paintings indicate the existence
  of an early Saharan hunting culture that was
  later joined by cattle breeders (these breeders
  were portrayed as looking like contemporary West
  Africans)
• The artwork also indicates that the cattle
  breeders were later succeeded by horse herders
  who drove chariots. There is no real evidence to
  show were these chariot riders came from or what
  happened to them.

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Networks of Communication and Exchange 300
B.C.E. 1100 C.E.

• Routes Across the Sahara
• The coming of the camel
• The highland rock art indicates that camel riders
  followed the charioteers.
• The camel was introduced from Arabia and was
  probably related to the introduction of
  trans-Saharan trade.

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Networks of Communication and Exchange 300
B.C.E. 1100 C.E.

• Routes Across the Sahara
• Trade across the Sahara
• Trade across developed slowly when two local
  trading systems were linked. One in southern
  Sahara was linked with one in the north.
• Traders in the southern Sahara exported salt to
  the sub-Saharan regions in return for kola nuts
  and palm oil.
• Traders in the north exported agricultural
  products and wild animals to Italy.

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Networks of Communication and Exchange 300
B.C.E. 1100 C.E.

• Routes Across the Sahara
• Trade across the Sahara
• When Rome declined (3rd cent. CE) and the Arabs
  invaded north Africa (7th cent CE), the trade of
  Algeria and Morocco was cut off. The Berber
  people of these areas revolted against the Arabs
  in the 700s and established independent
  city-states including Sijilmasa and Tahert.

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Networks of Communication and Exchange 300
B.C.E. 1100 C.E.

• Routes Across the Sahara
• Trade across the Sahara
• After 740 CE, the Berbers of North Africa began
  trade. They traded copper and manufactured goods
  to the nomads of southern desert in exchange for
  gold.
• The nomads of the southern desert had gotten the
  gold by trading salt with the people of Niger and
  other West African river areas.

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Networks of Communication and Exchange 300
B.C.E. 1100 C.E.

• Routes Across the Sahara
• Trade across the Sahara
• The Kingdom of Ghana
• One of the early sub-Saharan beneficiaries of the
  new trans-Saharan trade.
• First mentioned in an Arabic text in the late 8th
  century but presumed to date back to the 6th
  century.
• First detailed account was given by the Arab
  geographer al-Bakri in the 11th century
• After 1076, Ghana was weakened by the invasion of
  the Moroccan Almorovids.

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Networks of Communication and Exchange 300
B.C.E. 1100 C.E.

• Sub-Saharan Africa
• Development of Cultural Unity
• Cultural Characteristics
• Iron
• Bantu Migrations

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Networks of Communication and Exchange 300
B.C.E. 1100 C.E.

• The Spread of Ideas
• Ex. The domestication of pigs.
• Spread of Buddhism
• Spread of Christianity