Download Chapter 7 Commerce and Culture 500-1500 CE

Oct 26th
UNIT 3
Get with a REALLY good partner
One reads 307-309
Other reads 309-311
5 min to read for big picture, syncretism,
diffusion, comparison, common
phenomena
Chapter 7
Commerce and Culture
500-1500 C.E.
SILK ROADS:
Exchange Across Eurasia
Introduction to the SILK ROAD
“The Impact of Long Distance Trade”
 In groups:
 List the ways in which people and regions can be affected (directly
or indirectly) by commerce.
 Identify which regions of the earth weren’t affected in a significant
way by long distance trade during this time period.
 Modern trade includes astonishingly large and heavy commodities
(ranging from oil to food). Has this always been the norm?
 What difficulties would you consider in transporting the following
items:
 Wine, Beer, Wheat, Horses or cattle, spices, silk
 What method of transportation would you recommend for the above
items?
Trade in Human History
 Exchange of goods between people of different ecological
zones is a major feature of human history.
 Societies create Monopolies on goods (silk)
 Long Distance (indirect) trade was booming from 500-1500 C.E.
 Why was trade significant?
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Altered consumption
Encouraged specialization
Diminished economic “self sufficiency” of local societies
Traders became social group (not always good)
 Could create social mobility
 Prestigious goods for elites
 Many “things” spread along trade routes
 The network of long-distance commerce is a common feature
of third-wave civilizations
Silk Roads: Exchange across Eurasia
 Relay trade
 Provided a unity and coherence to Eurasian history
 The Growth of the Silk Roads
 Eurasia = Inner and Outer Zones:
 Outer – relatively warm, well watered (China, India, Mid East, Med)
 Inner – harsher, drier climate, much is pastoral (E. Russia, Central Asia)
 Not conducive to agriculture
 Traded and raided their agricultural neighbors
 Silk Road trading networks prospered most when large states
provided security
 Rome and Chinese empires (second wave era)
 Byzantine – Abbasid – Tang Dynasty (7th and 8th)
 Mongle Empire (13th and 14th century)
Goods in Transit
 Vast array of goods traveled along the Silk Roads, often by camel.
 Mostly luxury goods for elite
 Too expensive to transport staple goods
 Silk symbolized the Eurasian exchange system
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China had monopoly (until 6th century)
Silk = currency in Central Asia
Silk = high status
Silk industry did not develop in Western Europe until the 12th century
 Volume of trade was small, but of economic and social importance
 Peasants in Yangzi River delta produced market goods instead of crops
 Well placed individuals could make large profits
Cultures in Transit
 Cultural transmission was more important than exchange of goods
 Buddhism:
 Spread along Silk Roads through Central and East Asia
 Always appealed to Merchants (universal message unlike Hinduism)
 Conversion was voluntary, but popular among cities of Central Asia
 Many cities became centers of learning and commerce
 Buddhist texts and cave temples of Dunhuang
 Spread more slowly among Central Asian pastoralists
 No written language among pastoralists and nomadic ways limited
monasteries
 In China, it was the religion of foreign merchants/rulers but slow to
take hold amongst Chinese people
 Buddhism transformed during its spread along Silk Roads (Mahayana)
Disease in Transit
 The major population centers of the Afro-Eurasian world
developed characteristic disease patterns and ways to deal with
them
 Long-distance trade meant exposure to unfamiliar diseases
 Athens 430-429 B.C.E.
 Roman and Han Empires – smallpox and measles
 Bubonic Plague 534-750 C.E. – ravaged Mediterranean world
 The Black Death spread thanks to the Mongol Empire’s
unification of much of Eurasia (13th and 14th Centuries)
 Killed ½ of European population between 1346-1350, similar death
toll in China and parts of the Islamic world.
 Disease exchange gave Europeans an advantage when they
reached the western Hemisphere after 1500.