Steppe Route

The Bronze Age corridor across the Eurasian steppe that preceded and enabled the later Silk Road.

Overview

From roughly the 2nd millennium BCE, herders and traders moved metals, horses, wool and grain along the grass belt from the Altai to the Carpathians, a corridor with enough water and pasture to sustain long-distance transport. Chariot and bronze technology spread along it, and steppe intermediaries connected the river civilizations at either end. The route was less a single path than a wide belt of seasonal crossings. Its great legacy is positional: when silk began moving east to west in earnest, the northern branches of the Silk Road followed the same corridor that railways still use today.