European colonisation of Southeast Asia tightening Turkish control and eventual shut down of the Eastern Mediterranean gateways into Asia first prompted Portuguese, and later Spanish and Dutch sea voyagers to ship around Africa in search of new trading routes and business opportunities. Niccolò de' Conti arrived in Southeast Asia as the earliest documented European in the early 15th century. By 1498 Vasco da Gama, who had sailed round the Cape of Good Hope, established the first direct sea route from Europe to India. Central among the various plannings was to establish direct and permanent trade of the highly priced spices, that were native to Southeast
Plymouth Sound, Shores and Cliffs Plymouth Sound, Shores and Cliffs Plymouth Sound, Shores and Cliffs is a Site of Special Scientific Interest (SSSI) around the Plymouth Sound, a large area of water where the River Plym and Tamar meet. It stretches across the two ceremonial counties of Devon and Cornwall and the unitary authority area of Plymouth. It contains fossils of plants and sea creatures and its cliffs show a timeline of the Middle to Early Devonian period hundreds of millions of years ago. Lower to early Middle Devonian units of rock are visible from sections through the coastal cliffs and intertidal zones, which were