Trade

Silk Roads

The most extensive of the land-based trade routes in the world during c. 600 BCE - c. 600 CE. It was named after its highly valued silk, which China could only make for centuries. The exchange of grains and fabrics acrossed Eurasia due to this trading route changed farming techniques and allowed crops to grow in new regions (ex.qanat system: form of irrigation that developed). Merchants and missionaries from S. Asia introduced Buddhism along these trade routes which had lasting effects on E. and Southeast Asia. The Black Death was able to reach widely because of these trading routes as it crossed Afro-Eurasia along these routes. These routes ran roughly east to west.

Indian Ocean Trading Network Was the largest sea trading area in the world until Europeans began crossing the Atlantic in the late 1400s. It connected Southeast Asia and China to Africa, the Middle East, and South Asia. It was a major conveyor of Buddhism from S. Asia into East and Southeast Asia, and in the next era c. 600-c. 1450, Muslim merchants and missionaries spread their faith across the Indian Ocean into the same regions. Its trade depended on ocean currents and wind. People interacted via the Indian Ocean trade routes: E. Asians, S. Asians, E. African Swahilis, Arabs from Southwest Asia, Malays from Southeast Asia, Turks, Greeks, and Russians participated. It traded the same items traded in the Silk Roads and other Eurasian land routes.

Popular trade items in the Indian subcontinent were: rice, wheat, barley, corn, iron, salt, pepper, and other spices

The Bay of Bengal, Arabian Sea, and the Indian Ocean, ere the main waters used for trade. The coasts of countries and continents were used as well as monsoon rhythm patterns.

Cotton textiles, sugar refining, leather tanning, stone carving, and carpet weaving were some of the commodities in the commercial market.