Major Themes, TRADE AND CULTURAL INTERACTIONS

TRADE AND CULTURAL INTERACTIONS
 

From 600  to 1450,  many old patterns of trade  continued, others  were disrupted, while new ones developed  among  Europe,  Asia, and Africa. The Western  Hemisphere continued isolated  from the rest of the world.  The fall of the Western  Roman  Empire in the fifth century and subsequent centuries of barbarian invasions severely disrupted trade in western Europe and between western Europe and the rest of the world, although the Byzantine Empire continued to serve as go-between  for European  and Asian goods.  Eastern  Christian missionaries  from the Byzantine Empire converted  most Slavic peoples of eastern Europe from the Balkans to Ukraine and Russia to Orthodox Christianity and Greek cultural  traditions. In western  Europe,  Catholic  missionaries  converted  the Anglo-Saxons, Lombards, and  others  to the Catholic  Church  and  Latin  culture.  By the late eighth  century, there had been sufficient recovery in western  European lands controlled by Emperor  Charlemagne to warrant calling the period the Carolingian Renaissance. However,  subsequent widespread Viking invasions  would  bring back a “Dark Age” for much of Europe.
 

Asia. These centuries  were highly active ones along  the Silk Road  that  connected  China  with India,  Central  Asia, the Indian  subcontinent, Afghanistan, Persia,  the Byzantine  Empire,  and  the Umayyad  and  later  Abbasid  Caliphates. Traders,  missionaries,  and  conquering armies  linked cultures and spread innovations across continents. European lands became linked to the international trading  network as a result  of the Crusades  that  brought large numbers  of English, French,  Germans, and Italians  to western  Asia and introduced them to goods from Asia. The taste for Eastern luxuries  led to increased  trade  overland  and via sea routes.  In the 12th  and 13th  centuries  Marco Polo became world  famous  for traveling  vast distances  and writing  colorful  accounts  about  other peoples and ways of life. Polo traveled  from Italy to China.  Arab seafarers  also traveled  along the east coast  of Africa and  in Southeast  Asia. Other  Europeans had  traveled  via land  to the Persian Gulf and then by sea to India and China.  Political and other  obstacles  encountered on these traditional routes would motivate  Spanish and Portuguese  navigators to seek alternate routes to the East in the latter  part of the 15th century.
 

In East Asia at the beginning  of this era, the emerging Japanese  state  made a concerted  effort to learn  all it could  from  the higher  civilization  of China  by sending  many  embassies,  each with around 500 students,  to spend years studying  in China  and then spread  what  they had learned  in Japan. Japan adopted China’s written script, system of government, philosophy, art and architectural styles, legal codes, and Chinese schools of Buddhism. During the early centuries,  Japan exported raw materials  such as pearls and shells to China  in return  for books,  textiles, art works,  ceramics, and even Chinese metal coins that became currency in Japan. In time, as Japanese culture advanced, it began to export  its manufactures to China; these included steel swords,  folding fans, and painted screens that  the Chinese prized.
 

The Silk Road  that  connected  India and China  through Afghanistan  brought goods between the countries—mainly silks from China  for cottons,  optic lenses, and precious  stones from India. It also

brought Buddhist missionaries from India and Central  Asia to China and Chinese pilgrims to study in India. Buddhist  missionaries  first entered China  at the beginning of the Common  Era and continued to come until cut off by Muslim forces in the eighth century. Buddhism was the single most influential foreign ideology that affected the Chinese civilization until modern  times. Buddhism, then flourishing in Central  Asia, acted as a melting pot of Greco-Roman, Persian,  and Indian  cultures.  It brought to China  the art and architectural styles of all the lands that  had influenced it, enriching  Chinese intellectual and artistic life. Chinese Buddhists then synthesized the foreign with native Chinese traditions and passed on Sinicized Buddhism to its cultural  satellites—Vietnam, Korea, and Japan.
 

The Silk Road was so called because China’s most prized export  was silk. By the seventh century, India and other  lands had acquired  the art of raising silkworms  and the technology  of silk weaving. However,  Chinese silks continued to be prized. China  imported cotton  from India. Later, China  also began to cultivate the cotton plant and manufacture cotton cloth and passed the skill to Japan. Cotton cloth became widespread for clothing  because it was cheaper  than  silk. The Silk Road  was also the conduit  of innumerable food items from different lands that enriched all people’s diets and introduced items that changed people’s lifestyles. For example the ancient Chinese sat on futons placed on raised floors. Buddhist monks introduced the chair to China. Initially only Buddhist monks sat on chairs, but by the 10th  century,  chairs had become universal  in Chinese households. The Tang (T’ang) Chinese garments,  like many other Chinese artifacts, were adopted by contemporary Japanese,  who modified them and continued to wear them as the kimono,  even after the Chinese had changed clothing styles.
 

The Silk Road also brought peoples of many ethnic groups to new lands throughout Eurasia and created  cosmopolitan cultures.  This was especially true  during  the seventh  century  when  a vibrant Tang dynasty  in China  exchanged  ambassadors, merchants, and religious pilgrims with a flourishing India  under  Emperor  Harsha, the Sassanid  Empire  in Persia, and  the Byzantine  Empire.  Although early Muslim  conquests  disrupted trading  and  political  relations,  they would  be resumed  between China  and the Muslim  caliphate  in Damascus  and Baghdad.  The Muslims  who conquered the eastern Mediterranean lands  became  heirs of the Hellenistic  and  Byzantine  cultures  of the region.  The early caliphate continued many Byzantine institutions, especially in taxation and the bureaucracy, and employed  Greek architects  to design mosques  that  incorporated the architectural style of Byzantine churches. Muslim scholars became the best mathematicians and astronomers; for centuries they would be employed  by the Chinese  governments as official astronomers and  put  in charge  of issuing the calendar.  Muslim  scholars  held primacy  in these fields until the Renaissance. The Crusades  brought major  disruptions in the eastern  Mediterranean region during  the 11th  and 12th  centuries,  but they also accelerated  cultural  contacts  and created new tastes for luxuries. They in turn led to land and sea voyages of exploration to create new trade routes, leading to vast discoveries in subsequent centuries.
 

Asia, the  Middle  East,  and  eastern  Europe  suffered  major  disruptions in the  12th  and  13th centuries  as a result  of Mongol  imperialism  under  Genghis  Khan  and  his successors.  Huge  areas across Eurasia were devastated and depopulated as a result. However,  once established,  the Mongol Empire, largest in the world,  would encourage  trade and provide security in a Pax Tatarica, similar to the Pax Romana and Pax Sinica of earlier centuries.  Examples of cultural  interactions that  took place under the Mongols  would  be the adoption of Tibetan  Buddhism by the eastern  Mongols  and Islam by those Mongols who had migrated westward. Another example is the import of cobalt from Persia to China  for creating  a blue color for decorating porcelains  that  became prized from Japan, India, and the Middle East to Africa. Cobalt  blue underglaze  porcelains  from China  would  be imitated from Iznik in Turkey to Delft in Holland.
 

The collapse of the Western Roman  Empire in the fifth century and subsequent power changes in western  Asia disrupted the flourishing  sea trade  with India of previous  centuries.  However,  Indian merchants, settlers,  and  missionaries  remained  active in Southeast  Asia, sailing from  ports  along the Bay of Bengal to Burma (modern  Myanmar), Malaya,  Cambodia, and Java, Sumatra,  and other islands  of the  East  Indies.  They  brought Hinduism and  Buddhism,  Indian  art  and  architectural styles, Sanskrit-based written  scripts,  and  many  other  elements  of India’s great  civilization  to the entire  region,  which  entered  the  historic  era  due  mainly  to  the  influence of India.  Outside  their home regions, Chinese and Indian cultures  met at the southern tip of mainland Southeast  Asia—in a region called Indochina, named for that reason.  Chinese culture and political  control  prevailed in Vietnam,  whereas Indian culture predominated in Laos and Cambodia.
 

Africa. Just as the Silk Road spread goods and ideas across Eurasia, trading  routes spread Islam from North Africa across the Sahara to sub-Saharan West Africa. In a reverse pattern, export  of salt and gold northward via camel caravans  made West African kingdoms  of salt and gold fabled lands of wealth.  West African Muslims also traveled  through North and East Africa and Arabia  to make a hajj, or pilgrimage,  to Mecca and Medina.  The hajj was a major  factor  in the exchange  of goods and  ideas among  Muslims  from  Africa to Asia. Ivory from  African  elephant  tusks  was valued  as material  for art and ritual objects from medieval Christian Europe to China.  East Africa developed a cosmopolitan culture as a result of trade with Arab Muslims. Many Arabs and Persians settled in coastal  regions in East Africa, and Islam spread  there through intermarriage and conversion.  Swahili, an African  language  infused  with  many  Arabic  and  Persian  words,  became  the international language of trade in East Africa.
 

War  also created  opportunities for cultural  exchanges.  Chinese  prisoners  of war  captured by armies of the Muslim  caliphs in the mid-eighth  century  taught  their captors  paper  making,  which spread from the Middle East to Europe.  Likewise, gunpowder, cannons,  and guns spread from their Chinese  inventors  to their  Mongol  enemies, westward across  Eurasia,  and  changed  the nature  of warfare  throughout Eurasia.  Wars  also  resulted  in relocations of populations, either  forcibly  as refugees or deportees,  or willingly by conquering powers.  In either case, the transfers  of peoples to new lands resulted in cultural  interactions.
 

The Americas. In the Americas,  there  was a continuation of regional  exchange  networks and cultural  interactions that had developed before 600. The people of the Mississippi River valley area in North America made significant advances after about 700; that culture reached its zenith between
1200 and 1400 and disappeared about  1700.  Archaeologists  have excavated  large settlements  with earthen  temple mounds shaped like truncated pyramids,  on top of which the people had built major community buildings. The Mississippian Culture  extended  its influence throughout northern America east of the Rocky Mountains, probably through trade and travel along the various river systems. In Central  America, long-distance trade  depended  on the strength  of states that  could protect  it. In central Mexico,  the fall of Teotihuacán around 650 splintered  both political  and trading  structures of previous centuries. To the south,  the city-state of Monte  Albán dominated regional exchange for several centuries  after 650. In Central  America after 900, powerful  city-states,  most notably  Tikal, conducted trade  throughout the region.  Two  main  state  systems,  the Tiwanaku and  Wari,  dominated the Andes region of South America, with textiles as major trading  items.
 

Despite  major  disruptions caused  by the rise and  fall of empires  and  the introduction of new religions,  international trade  continued along  long-established routes  in Europe  and  Asia. While Islam was spread by military conquest in much of western and southern Asia, its gradual  acceptance by many peoples in eastern  and sub-Saharan Africa was the result of trade.  Christian and Buddhist missionaries  mostly  worked  to convert  through peaceful  means.  Chinese  culture  spread  to Korea and Vietnam aided by Chinese political  control, while Japan’s acceptance  of all things Chinese was entirely voluntary. Except for the Mongol  conquest  of Eurasia,  which only benefited the Mongols, and  some Turko-Afghan raids  on northern India,  other  cultural  contacts,  even those  imposed  by war, had some beneficial results.