I've seen some of those studies and they are difficult to date very precisely. However, we have found lapis lazuli in Old Kingdom Egyptian tombs and we know that lapis lazuli comes from Afghanistan. For the time, Early Bronze Age, that certainly qualifies as a long-distance trade route with Mesopotamia probably serving as one of the middlemen along with the Harappa in India.
If you ever get the chance read Eric Cline's 1177 BC. He is fascinated by the Late Bronze Age trade networks - and we have textual evidence for much of what he talks about - and of course those include many of the same areas which made up the EBA trade networks.
But you don't need a full-blown kingdom to conduct trade. I think it is a natural human trait to want to trade a familiar item for an exotic item. So whenever two groups come together an exchange of goods via bartering seems quite natural. The importance of even this low-level form of commerce in the spread of human civilization is crucial.
If you ever get the chance read Eric Cline's 1177 BC. He is fascinated by the Late Bronze Age trade networks - and we have textual evidence for much of what he talks about - and of course those include many of the same areas which made up the EBA trade networks.
But you don't need a full-blown kingdom to conduct trade. I think it is a natural human trait to want to trade a familiar item for an exotic item. So whenever two groups come together an exchange of goods via bartering seems quite natural. The importance of even this low-level form of commerce in the spread of human civilization is crucial.
