At https://dailygalaxy.com/2026/01/a-student-finds-fossilized-fragment-and-accidentally-unlocks-a-lost-european-trade-routes-from-5400-years-ago/ … a grave near a remote Russian lake was with amber ornaments and stone tools from foreign lands – dated around 5400 year ago. It is assumed his represents evidence of a trade route between NW Russia, presumably Karelia, and the outside world. In this instance, Baltic amber has a known provenance . It is actually, from a cultural angle, an Eneolithic grave – containing amber and flint. The burial pit was lined with red ochre, a practise with a long stone age tradition, in various parts of the world. The amber was mostly ornaments and discs with prforation and signs of rotary drilling. Mineral analysis identifies it as amber from the southern Baltic region – western Latvia. This is 900 km from the grave. Not a great distance but meaningful. There are no flint deposits in Karelia but they do resemble microblades and tools known to have been extent in the southern Baltic too. This can be widened to include Poland and Belarus.
At https://phys.org/news/2026-01-great-mongolian-road-japanese-imperial.html … the Great Mongolian Road, once a major trade route east to west at the top of Manchuria, was mapped by the Japanese imperial army between 1873 and 1945. I passed through Korea to Manchuria and on to Mongolia. Other extension of the route made their way into central Asia, and even SE Asia. The maps were completed from Chinese records in 1890 – and and had a link with Russian surveys in 1884. They appear to earmark structures, landmarks, and natural features that can still be picked out in the modern world. A lot of actual fieldwork was done to collaborate the features, and local people supplied infomation on their whereabouts. It seems Chinese tea was once of the commodities traded along this route.
At https://phys.org/news/2026-01-collapse-tang-dynasty-climate-played.html … this too is about trade – in a roundabout way. The Tang dynasty was very successful for a period, contemporary the Islamic apex in the Middle and Near East. No mention of an active sky in this report. Written with the intention of saying climate change can be rapid. There were of course several decadal episodes of cool weather in northern Europe – which seem to have let loose the Viking raids. SIS has an extensive article on this period, written by Trevor and James Palmer. One can imagine the Tang emperoros lost the mandate of heaven as a result of the downturns – but not necessarily because of cold weather.
Finally, at https://phys.org/news/2025-12-genomic-reveals-people-pigs-pacific.html … trade routes around the South Pacific, island and atolls, included the spread of domestic pigs. This study researched pig dna from an archaeological perspective. It seems even prior to the Polynesians travails and journeys peoplel were moving pigs around the region – wild pigs.