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Period: 10,000 BCE to 4500 BCE
Late Neolithic
With the "discovery" of agriculture and technological advances, such as the use of animal power, the first episodes of barter began to occur with excess harvests and other basic products. -
Period: 100 to 200
The silk trade takes off
Although the silk trade began more than a century before the birth of Jesus Christ, it was not until the establishment of the Kushan empire that it witnessed a major boom. The latter became the most important center of the silk trade -
Period: 400 to 1400
Middle Age
Throughout the Middle Ages, transcontinental trade routes began to emerge that tried to supply the high European demand for goods and merchandise, especially luxury. Among the most famous routes, the Silk Road stands out, but there were also other important routes such as the import routes for pepper, salt or dyes. -
Period: 900 to 1000
Carolingian Empire
Europeans began to trade their imports of spices for exotic medicines and drugs from Arab pharmacology. These imports were paid for with European products or slaves -
Period: 1096 to 1291
The Crusades
The route that was created as a result of the movement of troops, supplies, weapons, specialized artisans, spoils of war, etc. it reactivated the economy of many European regions. Among the benefits we find the reactivation of the silk route and the recovery of the pepper routes -
Period: 1254 to 1324
Marco Polo
The influence of his travels to Asia and mainly China, and the subsequent stories about his adventures managed to open the minds of central and western Europe about the possibilities that were in Asia in terms of trade -
Period: 1300 to 1400
Influence of the portuguese
During this 100-year period, Prince Henry the Navigator conquered a small city called "Sata" and established a place where important technological developments were generated for long-distance sea voyages, with the main result being caravels, the largest ships. rapids of the time -
Period: 1400 to 1500
Discovery of new lands
The discovery of America and the discovery
of the passage to the East Indies via the Cape of Good Hope represented notable advances in long-distance trade, representing important commercial opportunities for European countries with access to the Atlantic Ocean. -
East India Company
It was a privileged company formed by a group of English businessmen with the purpose of engaging in trade with the East Indies, mainly trading with cotton, silk, indigo dye, salt, saltpeter, tea and opium. -
New York as the most important port
From the seventeenth century on, almost all transatlantic crossings bound for North America, the port of arrival was New York. Soon the transatlantic trade made New York the first port of North America, and as a consequence, it attracted most of the future transatlantic merchandise and all the passenger traffic -
Period: to
Industrial Revolution
Along with the Industrial Revolution, a series of transportation innovations took place that revitalized commerce. Now goods could be manufactured anywhere and transported very cheaply to all points of consumption. -
Transatlantic trade
With steamboats, crossings between America and Europe became faster and safer. Then large oceanic companies began to emerge with very frequent crossings. -
Beginning of the oil era
With the discovery of marketable oil wells, new ships began to be developed that used fossil fuels to travel long distances and further facilitate international trade. -
Containerization
Since the 1950s, the use of containers for the transport of goods allowed exporters to no longer have to move their loose goods to the port, since they could ship the goods in containers that travel through different intermodal means.
