Environmental Factors Shaped Human Societies, and as Populations Grew and Changed

Environmental factors shaped human societies, and as populations grew and changed, these populations in turn shaped their environments.
Develop an argument that evaluates the extent to which networks of exchange impacted the spread of the Black Death in the fourteenth century.
In your response you should do the following:
$\bullet$ Respond to the prompt with a historically defensible thesis or claim that establishes a line of reasoning.
$\bullet$ Describe a broader historical context relevant to the prompt.
$\bullet$ Support an argument in response to the prompt using specific and relevant examples of evidence.
$\bullet$ Use historical reasoning (e.g., comparison, causation, continuity or change) to frame or structure an argument that addresses the prompt.
$\bullet$ Use evidence to corroborate, qualify, or modify an argument that addresses the prompt
Good answers will:
$\bullet$ Contain a thesis statement that directly answers the question by evaluating one or more ways that networks of exchange impacted the spread of the Black Death in the fourteenth century.
$\bullet$ Establish the correct historical context in which the question is based. That may include but is not necessarily limited to a discussion of one or more of the following:
o Rise of the Mongol Empire
o Development of networks of exchange (i.e., Silk Roads, Indian Ocean, trans-Saharan, Mediterranean, Hanseatic networks)
o Little Ice Age
$\bullet$ Use historical evidence to address the topic of the prompt. That may include but is not necessarily limited to a discussion of one or more of the following:
o Routes of transmission
o Comparison of:
$\bullet$ Religious ideas
$\bullet$ Monumental architecture
$\bullet$ Art
$\bullet$ Tribute collection
$\bullet$ Tax farming
$\bullet$ Innovative tax collections systems
$\bullet$ Use historical reasoning (comparison, causation, and/or continuity and change) to directly answer the question.
$\bullet$ Demonstrate a complex understanding of the historical development that is the focus of the question and displays sound argumentation and writing.