Author proposes that it was the Xiongnu that laruched a new phase for silk roads

Modun, Maodun, Modu was the son of Touman and the founder of the empire of the Xiongnu. He came to power by ordering his men to kill his father in 209 BCE. Modu ruled from 209 BCE to 174 BCE. He was a military leader under his father Touman, and later Chanyu of the Xiongnu Empire, situated in modern-day Mongolia

the xiongnus often raided their rich Han neighbors

The Xiongnu were a tribal confederation of nomadic peoples who, according to ancient Chinese sources, inhabited the eastern Eurasian Steppe from the 3rd century BC to the late 1st century AD. Chinese sources report that Modu Chanyu, the supreme leader after 209 BC, founded the Xiongnu Empire.

Altai is a Russian republic in southern Siberia whose terrain encompasses the Altai Mountains and surrounding tundra, alpine meadows and thousands of lakes. Most of the republic is protected as biodiverse reserves, which shelter diverse wildlife like snow leopards and argali mountain sheep. Among its natural landmarks are twin-peaked, 4,506m Mt. Belukha and expansive Lake Teletskoye.

carried by Humans, not by horses

Scythian cultures, also referred to as Scythic cultures, Scytho-Siberian cultures, Early Nomadic cultures, Scythian civilization, Scythian horizon, Scythian world or Scythian continuum, were a group of similar archaeological cultures which flourished across the entire Eurasian Steppe during the Iron Age from approximately the 9th century BC to the 2nd century AD. Among Greco-Roman writers, this region was known as Scythia.

Haoma is a divine plant in Zoroastrianism and in later Persian culture and mythology. Haoma has its origins in Indo-Iranian religion and is the cognate of Vedic soma.

Soma is a drink used in ancient India, in the (Vedic) culture. It is written of in the Vedas, in which there are many hymns praising it. It was probably a juice made from a hallucinogenic mountain plant or the haoma plant. In the Vedas, Soma is both the sacred drink and also a god (deva).

I did not know people mined Jade in 2n billienium

The Sintashta culture, also known as the Sintashta-Petrovka culture or Sintashta-Arkaim culture, is a Middle Bronze Age archaeological culture of the northern Eurasian steppe on the borders of Eastern Europe and Central Asia, dated to the period 2200–1800 BC

What language

The Yenisei Kyrgyz, were an ancient Turkic people who dwelled along the upper Yenisei River in the southern portion of the Minusinsk Depression from the 3rd century BCE to the 13th century CE. The heart of their homeland was the forested Tannu-Ola mountain range, in modern-day Tuva, just north of Mongolia.

The Pontic–Caspian steppe is the steppeland stretching from the northern shores of the Black Sea to the northern area around the Caspian Sea.

The Cucuteni–Trypillia culture (Romanian: Cultura Cucuteni and Ukrainian: Трипільська культура), also known as the Tripolye culture (Russian: Трипольская культура), is a Neolithic–Eneolithic archaeological culture ( c. 5500 to 2750 BCE) of Eastern Europe.

That is interesting

The Sredny Stog culture is a pre-Kurgan archaeological culture from the 5th millennium BC. It is named after the Russian term for the Dnieper river islet of today's Seredny Stih, Ukraine, where it was first located

Sarai (also transcribed as Saraj or Saray, from Persian sarāi, "palace" or "court"[1]) was the name of two cities, which were successively capital cities of the Golden Horde, Turco-Mongol[2] kingdom which ruled much of Central Asia and Eastern Europe, in the 13th and 14th centuries.

Kerch is a city of regional significance on the Kerch Peninsula in the east of the Crimea. Population: 147,033. Founded 2,600 years ago as an ancient Greek colony, Kerch is considered to be one of the most ancient cities in Crimea

Zhangjiakou also known as Kalgan and several other names, is a prefecture-level city in northwestern Hebei province in Northern China, bordering Beijing to the southeast, Inner Mongolia to the north and west, and Shanxi to the southwest.

The Syr Darya, historically known as the Jaxartes, is a river in Central Asia. The name, a borrowing from the Persian language, literally means Syr Sea or Syr River, and sometimes it is referred to in this way

Tashkent is the capital city of Uzbekistan. It’s known for its many museums and its mix of modern and Soviet-era architecture. The Amir Timur Museum houses manuscripts, weapons and other relics from the Timurid dynasty. Nearby, the huge State Museum of History of Uzbekistan has centuries-old Buddhist artifacts. The city’s skyline is distinguished by Tashkent Tower, which offers city views from its observation deck.

Konye-Urgench – Old Gurgānj also known as Old Urgench or Urganj, is a city of about 30,000 inhabitants in north Turkmenistan, just south from its border with Uzbekistan. It is the site of the ancient town of Ürgenç, which contains the ruins of the capital of Khwarazm, a part of the Achaemenid Empire.

Bukhara is an ancient city in the central Asian country of Uzbekistan. It was a prominent stop on the Silk Road trade route between the East and the West, and a major medieval center for Islamic theology and culture

Kashgar is a city in the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region, in China’s far west. It was a stop on the Silk Road, with its history stretching over 2,000 years.

Capital city of Han Dynasty

Another list of items traded along silk road

Ghurid Dynasty. Mongol Empire. The Khwarazmian dynasty

Volga Bulgaria or Volga–Kama Bulghar, was a historic Bulgar state that existed between the 7th and 13th centuries around the confluence of the Volga and Kama River, in what is now European Russia.

List of items traded from central Asia

Why these parts of land? isnt it easier to travel by rivers and plains

Why did they decline?

In a prior note it said 200 AD. this is confusing

The Battle of Carrhae was one of the first major battles between the Romans and Parthians. It was the victory that led Parthia to invade Syria and Armenia several times, with varying successes. Rome also realised that its legionaries could not effectively fight against Parthian cavalry.

This is interesting

Did Zhang qian meet with the Sakas and other nomadic tribes that conquered Bactria?

Sima Qian was a Chinese historian of the early Han dynasty. He is considered the father of Chinese historiography for his Records of the Grand Historian

Zhang Qian was a Chinese official and diplomat who served as an imperial envoy to the world outside of China in the late 2nd century BC during the Han dynasty.

Emperor Wu of Han, formally enshrined as Emperor Wu the Filial, born Liu Che and courtesy name Tong, was the seventh emperor of the Han dynasty of ancient China, ruling from 141 to 87 BC

The Kushan Empire was a syncretic empire, formed by the Yuezhi, in the Bactrian territories in the early 1st century

These are all times when chinese dynasty was in prosperity

Were there many records left behind?

an unfilled space or interval; a gap.

Janet Lippman Abu-Lughod was an American sociologist who made major contributions to world-systems theory and urban sociology.

Why did'nt they trade prior to that?

Philip Dearmond Curtin was a Professor Emeritus of Johns Hopkins University and historian on Africa and the Atlantic slave trade.

Sven Anders Hedin, KNO1kl RVO, was a Swedish geographer, topographer, explorer, photographer, travel writer and illustrator of his own works. During four expeditions to Central Asia, he made the Transhimalaya known in the West and located sources of the Brahmaputra, Indus and Sutlej Rivers

Sir Marc Aurel Stein, KCIE, FRAS, FBA was a Hungarian-born British archaeologist, primarily known for his explorations and archaeological discoveries in Central Asia. He was also a professor at Indian universities. Stein was also an ethnographer, geographer, linguist and surveyor.

Xinjiang, an autonomous territory in northwest China, is a vast region of deserts and mountains. It's home to many ethnic minority groups, including the Turkic Uyghur people. The ancient Silk Road trade route linking China and the Middle East passed through Xinjiang, a legacy that can be seen in the traditional open-air bazaars of its oasis cities, Hotan and Kashgar

a struggle between the British Empire and the Russian Empire for control of Central Asia in the 19th century.

This paragraph shows the author's use of regions and exchanges

Authors definition of silk road

Interesting that they exchanged livestocks. I wonder why they chose these material goods to exchange

Hence Silk Road

Baron Ferdinand Freiherr von Richthofen, better known in English as Baron von Richthofen, was a German traveller, geographer, and scientist. He is noted for coining the terms "Seidenstraße" and "Seidenstraßen" = "Silk Road" or "Silk Route" in 1877. He also standardized the practices of chorography and chorology.

German word for Silk Road

Main point of the paper

Marshall Goodwin Simms Hodgson, was an Islamic studies academic and a world historian at the University of Chicago. He was chairman of the interdisciplinary Committee on Social Thought in Chicago.

Jerry Harrell Bentley was an American academic and professor of world history. He was a founding editor of the Journal of World History since 1990. He wrote on the cultural history of early modern Europe and on cross-cultural interactions in world history

William Hardy McNeill was a historian and author, noted for his argument that contact and exchange among civilizations is what drives human history forward, first postulated in The Rise of the West.

I am not sure what the author meant here

Barry K. Gills is Professor of Global Politics at Newcastle University, Newcastle-upon-Tyne, UK. He is the founding Editor of Globalizations journal and the "Rethinking Globalizations" book series from Routledge.

A German sociologist

This is interesting, I did not know indigenous native americans shared similar culture and religion. I always thought they were very wildly diverse

This is true, as islamic culture is still seen throughout the region today

Nomadic tribes in the steppes

Trans-ecological exchanges mean the exchanges among the multi-ecological and geographic setting which include the switch between the different natural zones of Inner Asia encompassing climatic factors, soils, vegetation as well as aspects of water and animal resources

This meant civilizations that relied on agriculture. Which is interesting because I know the silk roads passes through many nomadic civilization as well.