Though Afro-Eurasia and the Americas remained separate from each other, this era witnessed a deepening and widening of old and new networks of human interaction within and across regions. The results were unprecedented concentrations of wealth and the intensification of cross-cultural exchanges. Innovations in transportation state policies and mercantile practices contributed to the expansion and development of commercial networks, which in turn served as conduits for cultural, technological, and biological diffusion within and between various societies. Pastoral or nomadic groups played a key role in creating and sustaining these networks. Expanding networks fostered greater inter-regional borrowing while at the same time sustaining regional diversity. Significantly, Islam, a major religion, emerged at the start of this period and spread quickly through practices of trade, warfare, and diffusion characteristic of this period

 

     I.         Improved transportation technologies and commercial practices led to an increased volume of trade, and expanded the geographical range of existing and newly-active trade networks.

a)   Existing trade routes including the Silk Roads, the Mediterranean Sea, the trans-Saharan and the Indian Ocean basins flourished and promoted the growth of powerful new trading cities. (such as—to mention just a few—Novgorod, Timbuktu, the Swahili city-states, Hangzhou, Calicut, Baghdad, Melaka, Venice, and, in the Americas, Tenochtitlan or Cahokia)

 

b)   Communication and exchange networks developed in the Americas.(such as Mississippi River Valley, Mesoamerica, and the Andes)

 

c)   The growth of inter-regional trade in luxury goods (such as silk and cotton textiles, porcelain, spices, precious metals and gems, slaves or exotic animals) was encouraged by significant innovations in previously-existing transportation and commercial technologies, including the caravanserai, use of the compass, astrolabe, and larger ship designs in sea travel, and new forms of credit and monetization. (such as bills of exchange, credit, checks or banking houses)

 

d)   Commercial growth was also facilitated by state practices (such as the minting of coins or use of paper money), including the Inca road system, trading organizations, including the Hanseatic League, and state-spon-sored commercial infrastructures including the Grand Canal in China. 

 

e)   The expansion of existing empires—including China, the Byzantine Empire, and the Caliphates—as well as new empires—like the Mongols—facilitated trans-Eurasian trade and communication as new peoples were drawn into their conquerors’ economies and trade networks. Required Examples

   II.         The movement of peoples caused environmental and linguistic effects.

 

a)   The expansion and intensification of long-distance trade routes often depended on peoples’ understanding of a particular regional environment and their subsequent technological adaptations to them. (such as the way Scandinavian Vikings used their longboats to travel in coastal and open water as well as rivers and estuaries, the Arabs and Berbers adapted camels to travel across and around the Sahara, or central Asian pastoral groups used horses to travel in the steppes)

 

b)   Some migrations had significant environmental impact, including the migration of the agricultural Bantu-speaking peoples who facilitated transmission of iron technologies in Sub-Saharan Africa, and the maritime migrations of the Polynesian peoples who cultivated transplanted foods and domesticated animals as they moved to new islands.

 

c)   Some migrationsand commercial contacts led to the diffusion of languages throughout a new region or the emergence of new languages. (such as the spread of Bantu languages, including Swahili, or the spread of Turkic and Arabic languages)

 

III.         Cross-cultural exchanges were fostered by the intensification of existing or the creation of new networks of trade and communication.

 

a)   Islam developed in the Arabian peninsula from the interactions among Jews, Christians, and

b)   Zoroastrians with the local peoples and expanded to many parts of Afro-Eurasia due to military expansion and the activities of merchants and missionaries.

 

c)   In key places along important trade routes, merchants set up diaspora communities where they introduced their own cultural traditions into the indigenous culture. (such as Muslim merchant communities in the Indian Ocean region, Chinese merchant communities in Southeast Asia, Sogdian merchant communities throughout Central Asia or Jewish communities in the Mediterranean, Indian Ocean basin, or along the Silk Roads)

 

d)   The writings of certain inter-regional travelers (such as Ibn Battauta, Marco Polo or Xuangzang) illustrate both the extent and the limitations of inter-cultural knowledge and understanding.            

 

e)   Increased cross-cultural interactions resulted in the diffusion of literary, artistic, and cultural traditions, (such as the influence of Neo-Confucian-ism and Buddhism in East Asia, Hinduism and Buddhism in Southeast Asia, the influence of Islam in sub-Saharan Africa and Southeast Asia or the influence of Toltec/Mexica and Inca traditions in Meso- and Andean America) as well as scientific and technological traditions (such as the influence of Greek and Indian mathematics on Muslim scholars, the return of Greek science and philosophy to western Europe via Muslim al-Andalus in Iberia, or the spread of printing and gunpowder technologies from East Asia into the Islamic empires and into Western Europe)

 

 IV.         There was continued diffusion of crops and pathogens, including epidemic diseases like the bubonic plague, throughout the Eastern Hemisphere along the trade routes.(such as bananas in Africa, new rice varieties in East Asia, or the spread of cotton, sugar and citrus throughout Dar-al Islam and the Mediterranean basin)