Trade Routes

[Orald]

For some reason I keep thinking about dwarves and dwarf trade when I am in chat(if you haven't noticed). Anyway, we have discussed what they would have traded and how they would have gotten it into Moria. But now a few of us are discussing who they would have traded with. Well, before the First Age, would Moria have traded with other dwarf cities in touch with Beleriand? There wouldn't have been anyone else to trade with in the imediate area like in the second and third age. And in the First Age would they have traded less with Elves and more with Men?

[Narya]

Didn´t the dwarves trade with the Elves of Beleriand befor the War of the Jewels??
Later the dwarves of Moria surley traded with the Noldor of Hollin.

[Bruce MacCulloch]

But during the First Age, there weren't any Noldor in Hollin, if I remember right.

[Mhoram]

But in far distant days the Dwarves were secretive [struck
out: - and none more so than the Longbeards -] and had few
dealings with the Elves. In the West at the end of the First
Age the dealings of the Dwarves of the Ered Lindon with King
Thingol ended in disaster and the ruin of Doriath, the memory
of which still poisoned the relations of Elves and Dwarves in
after ages. At that time the migrations of Men from the East and
South had brought advance-guards into Beleriand; but they
were not in great numbers, though further east in Eriador and
Rhovanion (especially in the northern parts) their kindred must
already have occupied much of the land. There dealings
between Men and the Longbeards must soon have begun. For
the Longbeards, though the proudest of the seven kindreds,
were also the wisest and the most farseeing. Men held them in
awe and were eager to learn from them; and the Longbeards
were very willing to use Men for their own purposes. Thus there
grew up in those regions the economy, later characteristic of the
dealings of Dwarves and Men (including Hobbits): Men became
the chief providers of food, as herdsmen, shepherds, and land-
tillers, which the Dwarves exchanged for work as builders,
roadmakers, miners, and the makers of things of craft, from
useful tools to weapons and arms and many other things of
great cost and skill. To the great profit of the Dwarves.

-from HoME XII, Part II

[Aralaithiel]

OK...why am I all of a sudden comparing the Ferengi from Star Trek to the Dwarves of ME???
ACK!!! [img]smilies/rolleyes.gif[/img]

[Kuruharan]

Actually, that comparison is fairly good, not entirely bang on, but fairly good. [img]smilies/smile.gif[/img]