Eurasian Land Bridge - History

History

Commercial traffic between Europe and Asia took place along the Silk Road from at least the 2nd millennium BCE. The Silk Road was not a specific thoroughfare, but a general route used by traders to travel, much of it by land, between the two continents along the Eurasian Steppes through Central Asia. The 5,000 miles (8,000 km) long route was used to exchange goods, ideas and people primarily between China and India and the Mediterranean and helped create a single-world system of trade between the civilisations of Europe and Asia.

Exports from Asia transported along the Silk Road included fabrics, carpets, furs, weapons, utensils, metals, farm produce, livestock and slaves. Civilisations active in trading during the road's history included Scythia, Ancient and Byzantine Greece, the Han and Tang dynasties, Parthia, Rouran, Sogdiana, Göktürks, Xiongnu, Yuezhi and the Mongol Empire.

Beginning in the 5th century CE, new land routes between Asia and Europe developed further to the north, in the Rus'. Many of these routes passed through Yugra and extended to the Baltic region. The Khazars, Volga Bulgaria, and the Rus' Khaganate were active in trading along the northern trade routes.

Traffic along the southern Silk Road routes greatly diminished with the Fall of Constantinople in the 15th century and development of the sea route around the Cape of Good Hope in the 16th century. By the 18th century, European influence on trade and new national boundaries severely restricted the movement of traders along all land routes between Europe and China, and overland trade between East Asia and Europe virtually disappeared.