Toddw35

Look at 740A.D on the Shipwrecks graph, I wonder what happened there?

Louise C

Technological innovations continued to be made during the medieval era, it was not a time of technological stagnation as is sometimes claimed. See Cathedral, Forge and Waterwheel, Technology and Invention in the Middle Ages by Frances and Joseoh Gies.

Even during the so called 'dark ages', the early medieval period, technology did not stagnate. Techniques of farming were improved, the widespread use of the heavy plow, and the horsecollar, for instance, and the great increase in the number of watermills being used. The designs of ships improved. A lot more bridges were built.

Frances and Joseph Gies write:

By the beginning of the tenth century, notwithstanding the fall of Rome, Vikings, Saracens, and the loss of Greek science, the new Europe had in its technology clearly surpassed the ancient Mediterranean world. in agriculture, metallurgy and sources of power it had introduced significant improvements, inherited, borrowed from Asia, or invented independently. It continuing demographic surge was beginning to be reflected qualatatively, in the growth of cities.

Guaporense

The Arab invasions:



They happened between 630 AD and 740 AD and they effectively destroyed the Mediterranean trade economy. The real dark ages began there.

The Western Roman Empire collapsed in the early 5th century, but in the Eastern Mediterranean the Eastern Roman Empire continued to exist and even prosper in the Early Middle Ages: from 300 AD to 500 AD, actually, archaeology shows, that Greece and Asia Minor became more populated. Constantinople reached 500,000 inhabitants in the middle 6th century, the largest Western Eurasian city until Paris in the late 17th century. However, with the plague of Justinian, the disastrous wars with the Sassanids and the invasion of the Arabs by the early 7th century to top it off, the mediterranean civilization collapsed completely by the early 8th century.

Civilization hit the bottom in the early to mid 8th century, in fact, civilization ceased to exist in Europe. From there on there was no other direction other than to go up.

Guaporense

Here we have several errors. The Romans had the heavy plow and the horse collar. The alleged "improvement in farming techniques" however failed to actually decrease the price of wheat in relation to wages: In Athens in 350 BC the Athenian could purchase more wheat than the British in the early 19th century. They also failed to raise the rate of urbanization: Europe in the early middle ages was nothing in terms of urbanization, there weren't any real cities in Early Medieval Europe and few ones in the Middle East. Nothing compared to the cities of Graeco-Roman antiquity: 1st century Rome alone was larger than any city in the history of the world until the 19th century. While the rates of urbanization in Classical Greece were higher than any other society until the late 19th century Britain.

Overall, Roman farming was not surpassed until the 19th century in terms of productivity, organization and actual effectiveness in the employment of factors of production. Roman farms were highly organized efficient productive units while medieval farming was done by serfs on a hand to mouth effort.

These are notorios medievalists, promoters of the ideology that impregnated the minds of many people. Though reality doesn't appear to have anything to do with their writing.

Technology declined from 100 AD to 800 AD. Technology started to advance again in the 9th century.

Saying that technology in the 10th century Europe surpassed the Roman levels is ludicrous nonsense. Just compare the buildings of the 10th century with the Roman buildings:

Early Medieval:


Roman:


Also, more bridges build in the early middle ages than in Roman times? WTF???

Roman bridges were bigger and better than 18th century bridges. And we don't have statistics on the actual number of Roman bridges build. Nothing whatsoever, indicates that more bridges were build than in the Roman Empire in any century before the 19th century.

BrowniesRule

While we're at the state of senseless comparison, I have something interesting to show.



This is a third century Roman sarcophagus. Note the details in the face of the soldiers, murdering the enemy.
Now, interestingly enough, civilization really DID reach the bottom of the barrel in the 8th century. Just look at how artistic production had changed in the span of just a few centuries.



THIS IS CLEARLY UGLIER THAN THE ROMAN SARCOPHAGUS! Look at his eyes, I drew better than that at 7 years old! His hand is clearly WAY too long!

This is to say that one can measure historical impact of a society just by looking at how much wheat they produced, how urbanized they were, and how they happened to build their shrines.


Come on Guaporense, go read some more books about the mediterranean society that you talk about. Basically, everything that doesn't have the word ''Roman'', ''Western civilization'' and ''Western Europe'' in it.

ZazenZach

just to point out, though europe was in the dark ages, the muslims (middle east and north africa) were in a golden age.

they rediscovered Plato and were translating ancient greek texts. advancing mathematics, the sciences and astronomy. one chap even was the first to develop a vague notion of natural selection.

fatmid egypt had the most liberal government on earth until that point (the politicians were appointed by merit not by aristocratic ties or through wealth etc). jews were migrating into muslim lands for better lives (as opposed to w. europe where they were persecuted). even compare adalucia spain to christian spain and you see a marked difference.

so to say Mediterranean civilization collapsed by the 8th century is simply not true.

ClearlyInvisible

People need to stop thinking Mediterranean culture is the northern part only. Greece, Italy and France are more European that Mediterranean by a long shot.

Europe fell, not the southern parts. People always seem to think if Europeis doing bad so is the rest of the world.

Guaporense

North Africa and Western Asia also suffered greatly from the collapse of classical civilization. Population densities in Jerba, an island in North Africa, according to field surveys, declined by a similar factor to the population densities in central Italy.

Egypt and Syria, though, declined by a smaller extent than the rest of the Roman Empire. This smaller decline gave then an edge in the Early Middle Ages, which explains why all the advanced math and science occurred in the Middle East during the early middle ages.

However, the decline occurred. For example, in 100 AD the largest city in the mediterranean had 1 million inhabitants, by 700 AD, the largest city had 100,000 inhabitants, it was Damascus, Syria. Constantinople was the largest city in Europe, it had 40,000 inhabitants. During the early middle ages the main centres of civilization in Western Eurasia were in Egypt, Syria, Palestine and Asia Minor. Later, Mesopotamia and Iberia also became major centers of civilization.

Guaporense

No, they were not. They declined by a smaller factor than Europe, but they declined.

That's because each region's economy depends on the other: Egypt's main export was grain to the northern mediterranean, the collapse of Europe meant the collapse of Egypt's exports market, thus their own collapse. They could decline by a smaller degree, but the idea that they could completely avoid decline is fanciful.

The archaeological data does not discriminate between Europe and the Middle East. Shipwreck data refers to the whole mediterranean sea. In fact, Lead and Copper pollution data refers to the whole PLANET EARTH. And the civilizations in the PLANET EARTH produced much less lead and copper in the 8th century than in the 1st century, as pollution levels of these metals declined by 95% and 85%, respectively:

Lead production declined from 80,000 - 100,000 tons in the 1st century to 4,000 - 5,000 tons in the 8th century, while emissions of copper declined from 2,300 tons in the 1st century to 300 tons in the 8th century. These were GLOBAL indicators.

If aliens visited earth in the 2nd century and came later in the 8th century, they would be impressed by the decline in activity by the humans species on the planet.

Summing up: to say that the 8th century was a golden age for any part of Western Eurasia is not true.

Well, even in Western Europe civilization did not collapse fully. Population densities didn't fall to zero, they fell to 10-20% of their previous levels in central Italy. Same in North Africa.

Also, Islamic science really flourished in the 10th-12th centuries, several centuries later than the fall of Rome. There was a 1,000 year disconnect between the achievements of Greek science and Islamic science.

jehosafats

How did they effectively destroy Mediterranean trade? Specifically, whose trading capacity suffered as a result of - not the fall of Rome - but Arab expansion?

Arabs weren't that numerous to shut down trade. They were just imposing enough to accelerate long distance trade from the 8th century onward. Why else establish relationships from China to Ghana? Trade always converged on the Mediterranean, and nothing changed with the Arabs. But you state loudly and frequently somehow trade, even civilization, came to a screeching halt. Anything to back these assertions?