Welcome to Civilizations in Contact

Civilizations in Contact is a Research Project funded by the Golden Web Foundation, which for the past three years has been based within the Faculty of Asian and Middle Eastern Studies.

This is an interdisciplinary project, involving history, archaeology, geography, economics, language and literature. It is devoted to researching and mapping trade and wider cultural exchanges across political and cultural boundaries during the pre-modern era (primarily before 1800 CE). During this period, exchanges took place via networks of overland and sea routes, which linked communities as trading partners, often through major embedded or independent emporia. These exchanges were not purely mercantile: they also saw the transfer of plants, animals, people (and diseases), as well as ideas, religious beliefs and technological innovations. The routes and networks shifted over time in response to political, economic, technological and ecological changes.

These processes of exchange and communication underlie the development of the world that we know today, so their understanding plays a vital part in making sense of and coping with the modern world.

An article about Civilizations in Contact was published in Research Horizons magazine (Issue 7, September 2008).

Research Topics: The First Civilizations in Contact: Mesopotamia and the Indus; Trade and Pilgrimage to South Asia before 1000 CE; Indian Ocean and East Mediterranean Trading Networks, 1250-1550 CE; Diplomacy, Travel, and Trade in Pre-Modern China; Emporia: Major Links in the Eurasian Trade Network, 1400-1650 CE
Quick links: University of Cambridge; Faculty of Asian and Middle Eastern Studies
External links: The Golden Web Foundation; The MARES Project - University of Exeter