Okay, so there’s an ongoing myth that our ancestors only traded very locally. And it’s true that a lot of people never traveled more than a day’s walk from their homes.

But the fact is that complex trade networks existed all over the world. The Silk Road is the most famous, but we’re also pretty sure Cahokia was a center of long distance trade.

If you’re writing in history or history-flavored fantasy, consider some of these incidents of trade over surprisingly long distances (modern technology only increases what we can trade, not how far).