The image to the right shows a basic map of Silk Road land and sea trade routes that were commonly used in the ancient world. As far back as Egyptian, Greek and Roman times, these trade routes carried goods from China in the east to Rome or Alexandria in the west and back. These trade routes connected East Asia, South Asia, Central Asia, The Middle East, North Africa, East Africa and Southern Europe in cultural and economic ways. Who is conspicuously left out of this vast trade network? What do you think caused the trade to stop where it did and not continue on?Let's take a look at the map below and try to figure out what about the climate/vegetation of Africa might have prevented the interior part of Africa and by extension the western part of Africa from participating in this vast trade network.
8 comments:
So we determined that most of Africa (besides the northeastern part) was "left out."
Some ideas that we thought of of why it was left out that I thought was right were:
- It was hard to travel across the Sahara or other large deserty places.
- They did not have a surplus to to
trade with.
- (maybe) religious beliefs
- They didn't have a common language.
Other ideas I thought of:
- It wasn't safe to travel across Africa (because of lack of resources like water or because of dangerous animals or something).
- The speed of trading would slow down if you went through Africa and back.
- The resources of Africa could be found in another place or in the northeastern coast.
The silk road traveled through many of the powerful civilizations of the ancient world. The people probably had no idea that civilization existed on the other side of the sahara. There really werent any major civilizations in the western part of Africa at the time when the routes were established.
The trade probably stopped and did not continue because of language barriers. All the groups of people probably didn't speak the same language. This would lead to problems because then The groups wouldn't have been able to negotiate properly, and would have made unfair deals with eachother.
Also (maybe) trade stopped because the groups that were not part of the trade network did not trust the other groups that were part of the trade network.
I think that it was most of Africa that is left out of the vast trade network. I believe the trade had to stop because of the Sahara Desert seperating Africa and the other regions. Two different languages were spread on seperate sides of the Sahara, which made it even more difficult to trade. I believe this whole thing relates to what we did in class on Tuesday. There were two groups with two different languages and two different things they were willing to trade. They had no system of trading because it was so hard to travel over mountains and deserts. Also, because they didnt speak the same language so they couldnt communicate. There was no Monarch then to help them trade either.
a correction to my last comment : There was a Monarch to help them communicate.
I don't really know where to post this....
#8 on the questions sheet about the African Geography packet....
According to the author, why might farming cultures develop matriarchal societies while herding cultures develop patriarchal societies?
think about it this way, in traditional hunting and gathering cultures who did the hunting (men) and who did the gathering(women)? Of agriculture and herding, which one is more similar to gathering and which is more similar to hunting?
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