Reading up on various ancient trade networks it appears that on balance the networks were "many small hops to cover large distances" for much of world history until approximately the renaissance (approx 1200-1400 in China and Europe)
So the small finds of Alpine stone in Stone Age Britain, or the Roman coins found in China would have passed through several different caravans or traders before finding their resting place
How accurate is that assessment?
Would traders really make it all the way from say Egypt to China? Would Vikings manage to move a cargo all the way from Sweden to Byzantium? Or would they stock up or exchange goods along the way?
I'm aware the Roman empire was something of an aberration in this regard, giving the security, tools and administration to move large quantities of goods long distances around Europe for a couple of centuries.
Just about to do an exam on this so this is good revision.
The Periplus maris erythriae, c. 1st century AD, describes two trade routes taken by merchants of the time from Alexandria: 1 to India, and the other to Zanzibar. Both of these journeys would have been roughly 3000 nautical miles to get to the respective ports, and these long distance journeys were enabled by the seasonal winds that come with the monsoons. Other than this, the routes were quite dissimilar; the route to Zanzibar was a round trip of 2 years or so, relatively cheap and easy to traverse, and as Lionel Casson states, 'a sailor's dream'; to get to India required a sturdier ship, a larger crew (to protect vs. pirates), and a decent knowledge of Indian geography, all of these factors making it a dangerous journey. However, this route was taken annually as the monsoon winds allowed this (see Lionel Casson's work for details of the seasonal winds).
On these routes, there would have been several stops, but this was mainly for different trade opportunities. For example, ports on the Arabian coast like Mokha would be perfect places to trade goods for spices and incenses like frankincense. On the East African coast as well, ivory and tortoise-shell would be traded for Mediterranean goods. At this time, traders would have made several stops on one route, but they still completed the route in order to get to the areas with the best goods (i.e. the port of Barygaza in India, where various metals and precious stones, slaves, and silk from China, could all be traded for goods from the Roman merchants).
I hope that helps in some way! For further reading definitely look at Lionel Casson and the descriptions of the route and geography in both Pliny and Strabo.