The article says "...the shipwreck tells us that there were huge trade networks in the 12th and 13th centuries,” says Field Museum MacArthur Curator of Anthropology and study co-author Gary Feinman. “We’re taught to associate vast trade networks with Europeans like Magellan and Marco Polo, but Europeans weren’t a big part of this network that went from Asia to Africa. Globalization isn’t just a recent phenomenon—it’s not just Eurocentric, not just tied to modern capitalism. The ancient world was more interconnected than a lot of people thought.”
Mr. Feinman makes an interesting point about how we were taught about Marco Polo and the Silk Road, but not about the wider trade network run by Eastern peoples. The following map shows the trade routes that existed in the first century AD.
The network was used regularly from 130 BC, when the Han officially opened trade with the west, to 1453 AD, when the Ottoman Empire boycotted trade with the west and closed the routes. That happened to coincide with the explosion of western explorers and seafarers.
There's more information about this shipwreck at 12th-Century Shipwreck Came with Handy 'Made in China' Tag. It says the ruling dynasty of southern China was expanding sea trade routes and focused on sea trade. The wreck contained ceramics, some 200 tons of cast-iron objects, aromatic resin and elephant tusks.
Here's an interesting photo of the ceramics as found on the sea floor before restoration. Just imagine the painstaking work to restore those ceramics!
