The search for wealth, enlightenment, and survival
Our ancestor have always been migrating, moving with or without their knowledge. They’ve moved out of Africa about two million years ago and spread across the globe. By forty-five thousand KBP they reached Europe and began to thrive. People traveled long distances in the ancient and medieval world to seek for places to survive, wealth, and enlightenment. That created a common culture where they can establish good relations with each other around the globe, and an expanded market.
Survival
One point seventy-five million years ago, our ancestor moved out of Africa, by chances, to explore new environments suitable for their survival. Eventually they scattered across the globe and began to form
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The Silk Road, or many trade routes helped to established of merchant colonies (trading center), relations, technologies, alliances, and the spread of religion and ideas. Traveling in long distances was sufficient for people, goods, and ideas to travel back and forth across large stretches of land and sea. Map 4.1 depicts how bananas, sugarcane, cotton, and songhum spread from Southeast of the Pacific Ocean all across to the Atlantic Ocean with the help of the trade road . Take cotton for example, cotton was originated in South Asia, but it traveled all the way to Africa, specifically somewhere near the Nigeria River. Most long-distance trade in the ancient and medieval words wasn’t in bulk commodities, it was luxury items. Each place has their own specialty and that was either sold at trading centers or trade across the globe. There is a bay facing the east, called Dioscorida, “its specialty was crocodiles, snakes and lizards” were traded across the world, if others needed them, they were also sold at their trading …show more content…
The Afro-Eurasian world connected places from all over the world. The more things moved from one place to the next through trading, the more people, and when people move they tend to bring their culture along with them. With all of the moving, no wondered why ideas, beliefs, anything would spread as much connected people everywhere together. A religion was just a religion, a belief, but as it spread, the religion became larger with a figure, temples, churches, etc. The process of cross-cultural encounter during the period 600 to 1000 gained wider exposer than earlier. For example, the spread of Hinduism and Buddhism traveled the roads of traders so much that it was best exemplify the capacity of religions and values . Eventually trade brought about encounters between people of different cultural traditions
In the Background Essay Q’s, Doc B, Box 1, it mentions Hinduism. Doc A box 3 mentions confucianism. Rome worships christianity. Hinduism is technically Buddhism. These reasons explain that trade was never JUST physical items, but ideas and beliefs as well. The Silk Road made sure if you didn’t trade items you can hold, then you can trade items you can cherish. Finally, in the western civilizations (Rome), was accessed by boat. Boats could carry a ton more items and it was less of a walk for the merchants/traders. However, the Silk Road did lead a small backup path up north of Parthia. Around 27 B.C.E., the Roman Empire had only begun, but the silk road had been a thing for a very long time before that. About 3,073 years to be close to proximity. This took trade across seas! This was also how the Silk Road was Forgotten...boat travel became popular, less expensive, and easier to carry bigger loads.On Doc A, the map shows a series of dashes across the Mediterranean Sea. This represents the route to Rome by boat. Also on Doc A, the dashes on the backup path lead from east of India, to the north of the Caspian Sea, then south to Rome. Also, the timeline says 27 B.C.E.- Roman Empire begins. This time subtracted from 4000 B.C.E- Silk Cultivation in China, is about 3,073
As new ideas traveled main trade routes, such as the Silk Road and the Mediterranean, the effects of such were felt through an influx of contact between countries due to increased desire for new information and countries gaining a larger presence on the world stage. This phenomenon can also be seen through the lens of cultural exchange that took place during this same time period in Eurasia. A major component of the Eurasian trade networks, such as the Silk Road and Indian Ocean, was that they fostered interregional contacts that had ceased to previously exist. When a country had a desire for study or technology, they earned more respect on the global stage. This can be further examined by looking at Marco Polo’s voyage into Asia.
The Major religions spread across Eurasia and Africa through trade routes and conquest. Along with the religions came ideas and practices to new and distance places, changing local populations and create new traditional beliefs and customs.
As the world of trade developed over time, goods were not the only things that were traded throughout these routes. With the merchants that traveled the world, were the ideals and religions that had learned from foreign lands, and the major religions of Christianity, Islam, and Buddhism, spread like wildfire throughout the regions of Eurasia and Africa because of this. The spread of Islam throughout the continent of Africa acted as a major influence both politically and socially. After 1600, Islam began to make its mark on the newly centralized states in Africa and was spread through western land trade, and through merchants on the Swahili coast. The major gold trading center of the Kingdom of Ghana, attracted merchants, and was a center for the Muslim community . By the 10th century, the kings of Ghana had converted to Islam in order to improve the relation between the kings and merchants. The early converts of Central and West Africa did not e...
During the classical era, there were shifts worldwide with regards to economic imports and exports. As many societies transformed from hunting-gathering societies into specialization societies, global trade networks expanded. This led to the founding and growth of many complex trade networks, both on land and by sea. Two notable trade networks were the Mediterranean Sea network and the Silk Road. The Mediterranean Sea is in Europe, and the trade network lined the shores of Turkey and North Africa. The Silk Road was trans-Asian. It reached from China to the Eastern Mediterranean. While these networks had multiple similarities in their expansion and spread of religion and ideas, there were many differences. These included the type of materials
In 400 B.C.E., Africa originally consisted of only about 3.5 million people; however, it grew up to 22 million people by 1000 C.E. As a result, this strong presence of the Bantu led to many near forest peoples engaging in the agricultural production or trade with their Bantu neighbors, and the Bantu community to become more urbanized. The merchants in the thriving overland and maritime trade of the sub-Saharan Africa influenced the spread of Islam in these states. Although Islam was a new foreign religion to the African society, the Africans gradually adapted this cultural belief to fit their own needs and interests. For example, they continued to maintain the almost equal relations between genders in the African society even though the traditional Muslims believed in male dominance. Islam was able to attract many converts in sub-Saharan Africa especially with merchants and members of the upper class because it led to an enhanced commercial relationship with Muslim merchants. The population pressure due to the rise in population of the Bantu society led to them further expanding and settling down in the coasts of east
“At around 300 B.C the Silk Road came into existence.” (silk-road.com) The trade in the routes went from the modern day China and modern day Europe, and on the way it passed through other countries like India, Afghanistan, and Kazakhstan. There were many different kinds of trade routes, but one of the most important items traded along the Silk Road was Silk. Silk was very
The Silk Road got its name from the amount of silk used for trade during the Han dynasty. This route was used to travel from West to East on land they traveled to India, Persia, Arabia, and Europe, while traveling by sea they traveled through Sri Lanka, Indonesia, Vietnam, and the Philippines. These paths were used by merchants, pilgrims, monks, soldiers, nomads, and urban dwellers.... ... middle of paper ...
As the Eastern religions grew and expanded throughout history, their beliefs and cultures began to mix and blend with others. This created tolerance and acceptance between religions. A great example of this is Hinduism because, it accepts any belief that has a different philosophy on how to reach salvation, as long as it does not divert from the core beliefs. In addition...
The Mongols influenced the world in many great ways, one of them was their vast trade system. They relied quite heavily on trade, not only to gain resources, but also to get their inventions and objects to the Europeans and then hopefully spread from there. The Mongols enhanced the trading system by composing the “Silk Road”. The Silk Road was a path/road that the Mongols had control of and it was a trade route that many travelers and traders took. Along the Silk Road, the main resource that was traded was silk, hence the name “Silk Road.” The
This “Golden Age of Capitalism” did not enable everyone to take equal part in as divisions along race were created as a result. The white suburban middle class had the ability to choose and compare prices, buy clothes on credit, finance cars, mortgage a house whereas the black ghetto’s retailors still had a ledger, collected money from door to door, access to credit cards was blocked, and mortgages to the suburbs were not granted. Whites were extended large amounts of credit to finance their movement to the suburbs and purchase homes. Also to durable goods like cars, radios, and televisions.
It is not possible to think clearly about the Silk Road without taking into consideration the whole of Eurasia as its geographical context. Trade along the Silk Road flourished or diminished according to the conditions in China, Byzantium, Persia, and other countries along the way. There was also competition for alternative routes, by land and sea, to absorb long-distance
The Silk Road is trade route that connected east and west. Inaccurately named by Ferdinand von Richthofen in the 19th century, it is actually a collection of roads. Traders didn’t usually traverse the whole length of the route, however. Goods were usually traded multiple times before they reached the final destination. Items leaving from Asia and China were goods such as: silk, spices, textiles, ivory, jade, bronze objects, ceramics, lacquarware, flowers, furs, paper, jewelry, minerals, horses, and exotic plants and animals. Goods from the west were: wool, linen, coins, bullion, ambergris, gold, ivory, amber, coral, other precious stones, beads, and glass (a commodity that China has not been able to produce at this point). Goods originating from India were:...
The spread of Islam throughout the African continent was predominantly influenced by the trading routes in North and East Africa. While Islam was very influential in the political and economic sphere of these areas, many of the original practices and traditions of Africa remained. The dominant people who facilitated the spread of Islam throughout the continent were the elite of Africa, such as the kings, and the traders themselves. While the spread of religion is typically looked at as a spreading of faith or a way to exclude yourself from warring nations, Africa’s conversion to Islam was incredibly economical and political. Primary sources from the time period, like Meadows of Gold, serve to further highlight how the effects of trade and commerce were able to have so much impact on the spread of Islam throughout the continent.
Buddhism was a cultural exchange along the asian silk road. The transmission of Buddhism from India to China (and from there to Korea and Japan) was probably the most momentous of the cultural exchanges that took place along the Silk Road. And that brought India by many