Cross-cultural experiences began altering the cultural traditions of mankind well before the period covered by this tutorial. However, widespread availability of material sources to substantiate these contacts is often missing and cross-cultural communication cannot be thoroughly examined until these communications are systematised and documented. In the period for which adequate documentation survives, four periods of cross-cultural contact may be defined. During these periods, military, commercial, and political developments created and maintained these periods of intense cross-cultural contact, indicating that these encounters depended on the ability of major political empires to impose the stability and order that enabled the exploitation of transregional routes of commerce and travel.

First Period - c. 350 BCE - c. 400 CE

Although not technically a period of intense cross-cultural contact, numerous kingdoms were established during this time and the foundations for strong, centrally-administered civilisations were developed that proved essential to the establishment of continued contact and exchange.

The first period of sustained cross-cultural encounters occurred when two major powers achieved sufficient stability to anchor the opposite ends of the network of trade routes, known collectively as the silk roads, that crossed Eurasia. In the west, the Roman Empire secured the network in the Mediterranean while the Han Empire was the eastern terminus. Nomadic peoples acted as intermediaries, carrying goods along the silk roads as well as consuming the finished products of more settled societies. The first period of heightened cross-cultural contact and exchange ended with the collapse of the Han and Roman empires. With the loss of the major suppliers and consumers, traffic along the silk routes fell off and the outbreak of epidemic diseases across Eurasia further disrupted societies and interrupted cross-cultural contacts.

Further detail on the First Period - c. 350 BCE - c. 400 CE

Second Period - c. 400 - c. 1000 CE

Second Interval: c. 400 - c. 600 CE - Disruption and Isolation

The second interval saw an abatement of active pursuance of cross-cultural contact as societies looked inwards to recover from the devastation of disease and warfare that closed the first era of intense contact. As Eurasia recouped its losses and reorganised its societies, a new set of stable empires and kingdoms arose that allowed a resurgence of cross-cultural encounters.

Second Era: c. 600 - c. 1000 CE - The Re-establishment of Contact

Beginning in approximately the seventh century, the Tang, Abbasid, and Carolingian empires imposed order over vast areas of the Old World and, because the nomadic peoples were never subdued, most were prepared to resume their roles as middle-men for long-distance commercial enterprises. Land routes were re-opened and heavily travelled, and they were increasingly complemented by sea routes crossing the Indian Ocean. The taste for foreign luxury goods led many merchants to take full advantage of both the old and new routes. Commercial and diplomatic relations were extremely important to the major cultures of the time and ambassadors became regular members of most imperial courts. Missionaries and pilgrims also regularly travelled by land and sea as the growth of proselytising religions, chiefly Christianity and Islam, sent missionaries and pilgrims across the Old World.

Further detail on the Second Period - c. 400 - c. 1000 CE

Third Period - c. 1000 CE - 1350 CE

Third Era -The Era of Military Empires

There is not a sharp boundary between the second and third periods of cross-cultural contact, the one period merging into the other without an interval of disruption. The intensive long-distance contacts that characterised the second period continued throughout the third period and long-distance trade experienced dramatic increases. However, the encounters began to operate under a different set of dynamics, and societies developed systematic approaches to cross-cultural encounters. Examples of this systematisation include the formalisation of commercial agreements, diplomatic policies, and international banking procedures. Another major characteristic of the third period is the rise of transregional empires formed through military and political expansion by nomadic peoples, especially the Mongols and the Turks. The networks that linked the extreme ends of these vast empires facilitated not only commerce and exchange but also the spread of the very diseases that would again disrupt the societies of the Old World and close the third period of intensive cross-cultural encounters.

Further detail on the Third Period - c. 1000 - c. 1350 CE

Fourth Period - c. 1350 - c. 1500 CE

Fourth Era - The Commercial Empires

This fourth period of cross-cultural encounter is defined less by the intensity of cross-cultural contact than by the rebuilding of Eurasian societies and the re-establishment of existing routes and, as such, is more aptly defined as an interval between intense periods of contact. Plague, famine, and natural disasters had disrupted the economies of the Old World in the fourteenth century. While these same ordeals crumbled earlier empires, social and cultural traditions were more firmly established in the fourteenth century and Eurasia had the resources and technology to rebound quickly from misfortune. By the fifteenth century, the first travellers again began to venture forth. The use of printing and other new technologies rapidly transmitted the experiences of these returning voyagers, sparking a flood of new travellers. Many cultures discovered the ability to impose their cultural traditions on other peoples and, especially for Europeans, the developments of this period set the stage for the expansion of cross-cultural contacts to the New World. The influence of these dominant empires eventually, for better or for worse, spread across the globe.

Further detail on the Fourth Period - c. 1350 - c. 1500 CE