Analyze the Development of Long-Distance Trade Routes in Afro-Eurasia

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The Answer is Trade existed before the first farming villages were settled: primarily for exotic materials such as obsidian. By the mid-third millennium BCE, trade communities grew up in oases in borderlands such as the Iranian plateau. Trade was often carried by donkeys and asses across the steppes and over mountains and deserts. These caravans also carried ideas across Afro-Eurasia. Later, as more complex urban areas developed, trade expanded. For example, in Mesopotamia, cedar wood, stone, copper and tin, gemstones, and other materials to create cities were exchanged with surrounding regions Lebanon, Turkey, Iran, Oman, and Afghanistan) for textiles, food, and oils. Mesopotamia became a crossroads for long-distance trade. The Harappans also traded, both along the Indus River and through mountain passes to the Iranian Plateau, as well as by sea along the coasts of the Arabia Sea. They traded copper, flint, shells, ivory, pottery flint tools, and jewelry in exchange for gold, silver, gemstones, and textiles. These trade routes spread the institutions of Harappan society to surrounding cultures. The Harappans also built fortified towns to protect strategic trade points, especially to control the extraction and trade of gemstones such as lapis lazuli, which was highly prized in Mesopotamia. In China, pastoralist nomads of the steppes introduced new technologies such as bronze.

Analyze the Development of Long-Distance Trade Routes in Afro-Eurasia

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