3.1 Expansion and Intensification of Communication and Exchange Networks

Period III (600CE – 1450CE)

3.1 Expansion and Intensification of Communication and Exchange Networks

I can evaluate how transportation technologies and commercial practices increased amounts of trade.

I can evaluate how these technologies also expanded the geographic areas in which trade linked the globe.

I can explain how old trade routes (Silk Roads, Mediterranean, Trans-Saharan, and IOMS) caused the rise of powerful new trading cities like Baghdad in the Abbasid caliphate, Novgorod in Kievan Russia, and the Swahili city-states of southern East Africa.

I can describe the development of new trade routes in both Mesoamerica and the Andes.

I can identify specific luxury goods carried by each trade route, including Meso and Andean America.
I can recognize how interregional trade increased because of new caravan organization like camel saddles and the use of technology like the compass, astrolabe, and larger ship designs, as well as new forms of monetization like credit (flying money) and banks.

I can describe how commercial growth was helped by the development of new government practices.
I can specifically discuss the following new government practices:
The printing of paper money as in Song Dynasty China
Trading organization like the Hanseatic League
State-sponsored commercial infrastructures like the Grand Canal in Sui Dynasty China

I can analyze how the expansion of Sui, Tang, and Song Dynasty China, the Byzantine Empire, the Caliphates, and the Mongols facilitated Trans-Eurasian trade (Silk Roads and IOMS) and communication as new peoples were drawn into their conqueror’s economies and trade networks.

II.

I can analyze the environmental and linguistic effects of the movement of peoples.

I can identify how the expansion and intensification of long-distance trade was dependent on creating technology to adapt to different environments.
I can specifically discuss the following technological adaptations:
longships used by Vikings for shallow rivers and open waters
tiny furry ponies used by Central Asians on the Eurasian steppe.

I can describe the environmental impacts of the human migrations and discuss specifically the impacts of the following examples
Bantu-speakers who spread iron metallurgy and agriculture in Sub-Saharan Africa
Polynesian peoples who transplanted both foods and domesticated animals as they moved to new island

I can describe how migration and trade led to the diffusion of current of creation of new languages like the spread of Bantu and the creation of Swahili.

III.

I can evaluate the ways in which cultural diffusion and syncretism were helped by the old and new networks of trade and communication.

I can identify the location and founder of Islam and describe the circumstances of the Arabian Peninsula at that time.
I can explain the ways Islam reflected the Jewish, Christian, and Zoroastrian religions that were already present in Arabia.
I can explain how Islam spread to Afro-Eurasia by military conquest, trade, and Sufi missionaries and can define and describe the creation of the Dar-al-Islam.

I can analyze ways in which the Jewish diasporic communities operated in the Indian Ocean and influenced the indigenous cultures there.

I can describe the travels and writings of Ibn Battuta and explain how his travels show the extent and limitations of intercultural knowledge and understanding in this period as well as the presence of the Dar-al-Islam.

I can explain how cross-cultural interactions caused the diffusion of literary, artistic, and cultural traditions, specifically the influence of Neoconfucianism and Buddhism in East Asia.

I can describe how cross-cultural interactions also resulted in the diffusion of scientific and technological traditions. I can specifically discuss the spread of printing and gunpowder from East Asia into the Islamic empires and from there into Western Europe.

IV.

I can evaluate the continued diffusion of crops and pathogens (diseases) through the Eastern Hemisphere along the trade routes.

I can identify new foods and agricultural techniques that were adopted in populated areas, specifically the adoption of champa rice and paddies in East Asia and the spread of cotton, sugar, and citrus throughout the Dar-al-Islam.

I can analyze how established paths of trade and military conquest allowed th spread of epidemic diseases like the Black Death.

3.2 Continuity and Innovation of State Forms and Their Interactions

I can assess the ways empires collapsed and were reconstituted in old areas of civilization and how in some regions new state forms emerged.

I can explain how, after collapses of empires, most reconstituted new governments that built on the traditions of the older ones.
I can identify the reconstituted governments of the Byzantine Empires and the Sui, Tang, and Song Dynasties. I can tell how these reconstituted empires combined traditional sources of power and legitimacy like patriarchy and religion with innovations like the use of caesaropapism in Byzantium and the tributary system of diplomacy in China.

I can describe how new forms of governance emerged including those developed by the Abbasid Caliphate, the Mongol Khanates, the city-states of the Italian peninsula and East Africa, and decentralized (feudal) governments in Western Europe and Japan.

I can explain the way some states synthesized local and borrowed traditions,specifically the influence of Chinese traditions on Japan.

I can explain how, just as in Afro-Eurasia, the government systems of the Americas expanded in scope and reach.
I can identify and explain the networks of city-states in the Maya region, and the imperial systems created by the Mexica (Aztecs) and Inca

II.

I can assess the ways in which interregional contacts and conflicts between states and empires encouraged significant technological and cultural transfers.

I can identify specific technological and cultural transfers, as well as the reasons for these transfers, between Tang China and the Abbasids, across Mongol empires, and between Western Europe and the Islamic caliphates during the Crusades.

3.3 Increased Economic Productive Capacity and its Consequences

I can evaluate the ways in which innovations stimulated agricultural and industrial production in many parts of the world

I can identify specific technological innovations related to agriculture, including the development of champa rice in Asia, the chinampa field system in the Americas, and the horse collar in Europe, and explain how they allowed production to increase.
I can identify specific foreign luxury crops like citrus, cotton, spices, and sugar, and explain how they were transferred from their indigenous homelands to equivalent climates in new regions.
I can recognize that Asian artisans and merchants from China, Persia, and India all expanded their production of textiles and porcelains for export markets.
I can discuss the huge expansion of iron and steel production, especially in Song Dynasty China.

II.

I can assess the ways in which cities across the globe experienced both declines as well as periods of increased urbanization caused by rising productivity and the expansion of trade networks.

I can identify and elaborate on the following contributing factors of decline in urban areas:
Invasions
Disease
Declining agricultural productivity
The Little Ice Age

I can identify and elaborate on the following contributing factors of revival in urban areas:
The end of invasions
The availability of safe and reliable transport
The rise of commerce related to warmer temperatures between 800 and 1300 CE
Increased agricultural productivity and the rise of population caused by that increase
Greater availability of labor

I can explain the ways cities continued to play the same role that they had in the past of government, religious, and commercial centers.
I can recognize that many older cities declined while new cities emerged.

III.

I can evaluate the continuities in social structures and methods of economic production.

I can also evaluate important changes that religious conversion had on gender relations and family life as well as the changes in society caused by new methods of labor management.

I can identify and define the following older forms of labor organization:
Free peasant agriculture
Nomadic pastoralism
Craft production and guild organization
Various forms of coerced and unfree labor (for example slaves and Untouchables)
Government-imposed labor taxes
Military obligations

I can explain how, just as in the past, social structures were mostly shaped by class or caste hierarchies as well as patriarchy.
I can also explain how, among the Mongols and in West Africa, Japan, and Southeast Asia, women exercised a greater amount of power and influence than in other areas.

I can identify and describe the following new forms of coerced and unfree labor:
Serfs in Europe and Japan
Mit’a in the Inca Empire
I can explain how free peasants resisted becoming more downtrodden by staging revolts against their government’s attempts to raise dues and taxes, using the Red Turban Revolt in Yuan Dynasty China as example evidence.

I can explain how the cultural diffusion of Buddhism, Christianity, Islam, and NeoConfucianism often led to significant changes in gender relations and family structure and discuss the impact of monasticism, shari’a law, and foot binding in particular.