In world history, post-classical history refers to the period from about 500 AD to 1500, roughly corresponding to the European

Middle Ages In the history of Europe, the Middle Ages or medieval period lasted approximately from the late 5th to the late 15th centuries, similar to the post-classical period of global history. It began with the fall of the Western Roman Empire ...

. The period is characterized by the expansion of civilizations geographically and development of trade networks between civilizations. This period is also called the medieval era, post-antiquity era, post-ancient era, pre-modernity era or pre-modern era. In

Asia Asia (, ) is one of the world's most notable geographical regions, which is either considered a continent in its own right or a subcontinent of Eurasia, which shares the continental landmass of Afro-Eurasia with Africa. Asia covers an ...

, the spread of Islam created a series of caliphates and inaugurated the

Islamic Golden Age The Islamic Golden Age was a period of cultural, economic, and scientific flourishing in the history of Islam, traditionally dated from the 8th century to the 14th century. This period is traditionally understood to have begun during the reign ...

, leading to advances in science in the medieval Islamic world and trade among the Asian,

Africa Africa is the world's second-largest and second-most populous continent, after Asia in both cases. At about 30.3 million km2 (11.7 million square miles) including adjacent islands, it covers 6% of Earth's total surface area ...

n and

Europe Europe is a large peninsula conventionally considered a continent in its own right because of its great physical size and the weight of its history and traditions. Europe is also considered a subcontinent of Eurasia and it is located enti ...

an continents.

East Asia East Asia is the eastern region of Asia, which is defined in both geographical and ethno-cultural terms. The modern states of East Asia include China, Japan, Mongolia, North Korea, South Korea, and Taiwan. China, North Korea, South Korea ...

experienced the full establishment of power of Imperial China, which established several prosperous dynasties influencing Korea, Vietnam, and Japan. Religions such as

Buddhism Buddhism ( , ), also known as Buddha Dharma and Dharmavinaya (), is an Indian religion or philosophical tradition based on teachings attributed to the Buddha. It originated in northern India as a -movement in the 5th century BCE, and ...

and Neo-Confucianism spread in the region. Gunpowder was developed in China during the post-classical era. The Mongol Empire connected Europe and Asia, creating safe trade and stability between the two regions. In total the population of the world doubled in the time period from approximately 210 million in 500 AD to 461 million in 1500 AD. Population generally grew steadily throughout the period but endured some incidental declines in events including the Plague of Justinian, the Mongol invasions, and the Black Death.Haub (1995): "The average annual rate of growth was actually lower from 1 A.D. to 1650 than the rate suggested above for the 8000 B.C. to 1 A.D. period. One reason for this abnormally slow growth was the Black Plague. This dreaded scourge was not limited to 14th century Europe. The epidemic may have begun about 542 A.D. in Western Asia, spreading from there. It is believed that half the Byzantine Empire was destroyed in the 6th century, a total of 100 million deaths."

Historiography

Terminology and periodization

Post-classical history is a periodization used by historians employing a world history approach to history, specifically the school developed during the late 20th and early 21st centuries. Outside of world history, the term is also sometimes used to avoid erroneous pre-conceptions around the terms ''Middle Ages'', ''Medieval'' and the '' Dark Ages'' (see Medievalism), though the application of the term ''post-classical'' on a global scale is also problematic, and may likewise be Eurocentric.Catherine Holmes and Naomi Standen, 'Introduction: Towards a Global Middle Ages', ''Past & Present'', 238 (November 2018), 1-44 (p. 16). Academic publications sometimes use the terms post-classical and late antiquity synomously to describe the history of Western Eurasia between 250 and 800 The post-classical period corresponds roughly to the period from 500 AD to 1450 AD. Beginning and ending dates might vary depending on the region, with the period beginning at the end of the previous classical period: Han China (ending in 220 AD), the

Western Roman Empire The Western Roman Empire comprised the western provinces of the Roman Empire at any time during which they were administered by a separate independent Imperial court; in particular, this term is used in historiography to describe the period fr ...

(in 476 AD), the Gupta Empire (in 543 AD), and the Sasanian Empire (in 651 AD). The post-classical period is one of the five or six major periods world historians use: # early civilization, # classical societies, # post-classical # early modern, # long nineteenth century, and # contemporary or modern era. (Sometimes the nineteenth century and modern are combined.) Although ''post-classical'' is synonymous with the

of Western Europe, the term ''post-classical'' is not necessarily a member of the traditional tripartite periodisation of Western European history into ''classical'', ''middle'' and ''modern''.

Approaches

The historical field of world history, which looks at common themes occurring across multiple cultures and regions, has enjoyed extensive development since the 1980s. However, World History research has tended to focus on early modern globalization (beginning around 1500) and subsequent developments, and views post-classical history as mainly pertaining to Afro-Eurasia. Historians recognize the difficulties of creating a periodization and identifying common themes that include not only this region but also, for example, the Americas, since they had little contact with Afro-Eurasia before the Columbian Exchange. Thus recent research has emphasised that "a global history of the period between 500 and 1500 is still wanting" and that "historians have only just begun to embark on a global history of the Middle Ages".Borgolte in For many regions of the world, there are well established histories. Although Medieval Studies in Europe tended in the nineteenth century to focus on creating histories for individual nation-states, much twentieth-century research focused, successfully, on creating an integrated history of medieval Europe. The Islamic World likewise has a rich regional historiography, ranging from the fourteenth-century

Ibn Khaldun Ibn Khaldun (; ar, أبو زيد عبد الرحمن بن محمد بن خلدون الحضرمي, ; 27 May 1332 – 17 March 1406, 732-808 AH) was an Arab The Historical Muhammad', Irving M. Zeitlin, (Polity Press, 2007), p. 21; "It is, o ...

to the twentieth-century Marshall Hodgson and beyond. Correspondingly, research into the network of commercial hubs which enabled goods and ideas to move between China in the East and the Atlantic islands in the West—which can be called the early history of globalization—is fairly advanced; one key historian in this field is

Janet Abu-Lughod Janet Lippman Abu-Lughod (August 3, 1928 – December 14, 2013) was an American sociologist who made major contributions to world-systems theory and urban sociology. Early life Raised in Newark, New Jersey, she attended Weequahic High School, ...

. Understanding of communication within Sub-Saharan Africa or the Americas is, by contrast, far more limited. Recent history-writing, therefore, has begun to explore the possibilities of writing history covering the Old World, where Human activities were fairly interconnected, and establish its relationship with other cultural spheres, such as the Americas and Oceania. In the assessment of James Belich, John Darwin,

Margret Frenz Margret may refer to - *1410 Margret, an asteroid *, a Norwegian steamship in service 1994-06/18 *Margret Holmes Bates (1844-1927), American author *Margret Grebowicz, Polish philosopher, author, and professor *Ann-Margret Ann-Margret Olsson (b ...

, and Chris Wickham,

Global history may be boundless, but global historians are not. Global history cannot usefully mean the history of everything, everywhere, all the time. ..Three approaches ..seem to us to have real promise. One is global history as the pursuit of significant historical problems across time, space, and specialism. This can sometimes be characterized as ‘comparative’ history. ..Another is connectedness, including transnational relationships. ..The third approach is the study of globalization .. Globalization is a term that needs to be rescued from the present, and salvaged for the past. To define it as always encompassing the whole planet is to mistake the current outcome for a very ancient process.

A number of commentators have pointed to the history of the earth's

climate Climate is the long-term weather pattern in an area, typically averaged over 30 years. More rigorously, it is the mean and variability of meteorological variables over a time spanning from months to millions of years. Some of the meteorologica ...

as a useful approach to World History in the Middle Ages, noting that certain climate events had effects on all human populations.

Global trends

The Post-classical era saw several common developments or themes. There was the expansion and growth of civilization into new geographic areas; the rise and/or spread of the three major world, or missionary, religions; and a period of rapidly expanding trade and trade networks. While scholastic emphasis has remained on Eurasia there is a growing effort to examine the effects of these global trends on other places. In describing geographic zones historians have identified three large self contained world regions, Afro-Eurasia, the Americas and Oceania.

Growth of civilization

Piquillacta Archaeological site - street

First was the expansion and growth of civilization into new geographic areas across

Mesoamerica Mesoamerica is a historical region and cultural area in southern North America and most of Central America. It extends from approximately central Mexico through Belize, Guatemala, El Salvador, Honduras, Nicaragua, and northern Costa Rica. W ...

, and western

South America South America is a continent entirely in the Western Hemisphere and mostly in the Southern Hemisphere, with a relatively small portion in the Northern Hemisphere at the northern tip of the continent. It can also be described as the souther ...

. However, as noted by world historian

Peter N. Stearns Peter Nathaniel Stearns (born March 3, 1936) is a professor at George Mason University, where he was provost from January 1, 2000 to July 2014. Stearns was chair of the Department of History at Carnegie Mellon University and also served as the ...

, there were no common global political trends during the post-classical period, rather it was a period of loosely organized states and other developments, but no common political patterns emerged. In Asia, China continued its historic dynastic cycle and became more complex, improving its bureaucracy. The creation of the Islamic Empires established a new power in the Middle East, North Africa, and

Central Asia Central Asia, also known as Middle Asia, is a region of Asia that stretches from the Caspian Sea in the west to western China and Mongolia in the east, and from Afghanistan and Iran in the south to Russia in the north. It includes the former ...

. Africa created the Songhai and

Mali Mali (; ), officially the Republic of Mali,, , ff, 𞤈𞤫𞤲𞥆𞤣𞤢𞥄𞤲𞤣𞤭 𞤃𞤢𞥄𞤤𞤭, Renndaandi Maali, italics=no, ar, جمهورية مالي, Jumhūriyyāt Mālī is a landlocked country in West Africa. Ma ...

kingdoms in the West. The fall of Roman civilization not only left a power vacuum for the Mediterranean and Europe, but forced certain areas to build what some historians might call new civilizations entirely. An entirely different political system was applied in Western Europe (i.e.

feudalism Feudalism, also known as the feudal system, was the combination of the legal, economic, military, cultural and political customs that flourished in medieval Europe between the 9th and 15th centuries. Broadly defined, it was a way of structu ...

), as well as a different society (i.e.

manorialism Manorialism, also known as the manor system or manorial system, was the method of land ownership (or " tenure") in parts of Europe, notably France and later England, during the Middle Ages. Its defining features included a large, sometimes fort ...

). But the once East Roman Empire, Byzantium, retained many features of old Rome, as well as Greek and Persian similarities. Kiev Rus' and subsequently Russia began development in Eastern Europe as well. In the isolated Americas, Mesoamerica saw the building of the

Aztec The Aztecs () were a Mesoamerican culture that flourished in central Mexico in the post-classic period from 1300 to 1521. The Aztec people included different ethnic groups of central Mexico, particularly those groups who spoke the Nahuatl ...

Empire, while the Andean region of South America saw the establishment of the Wari Empire first and the Inca Empire later. In Oceania ancestors of modern Polyonesians were established in vllage communities by the 6th century, a gradual intensification of complexity took place. In the 13th century complex states were established, most notably the Tuʻi Tonga Empire which collected tribute from many island chains in the greater region.

Spread of universal religions

Religion that envisaged the possibility that all humans could be included in a universal order had emerged already in the first millennium BC, particularly with Buddhism. In the following millennium, Buddhism was joined by two other major, universalising, missionary religions, both developing from

Judaism Judaism ( he, ''Yahăḏūṯ'') is an Abrahamic, monotheistic, and ethnic religion comprising the collective religious, cultural, and legal tradition and civilization of the Jewish people. It has its roots as an organized religion in the ...

: Christianity and Islam. By the end of the period, these three religions were between them widespread, and often politically dominant, across the Old World.Yuval Noah Harari, '' Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind'', trans. by Yuval Noah Harari, John Purcell and Haim Watzman (London: Harvill Secker, 2014), , chapter 12. *

spread from India into China and flourished there briefly before using it as a hub to spread to Japan, Korea, and Vietnam; a similar effect occurred with Confucian revivalism in the later centuries. *

Christianity Christianity is an Abrahamic monotheistic religion based on the life and teachings of Jesus of Nazareth Jesus, likely from he, יֵשׁוּעַ, translit=Yēšūaʿ, label=Hebrew/Aramaic ( AD 30 or 33), also referred to as Jesu ...

had become the State church of the Roman Empire in 380, and continued spreading into northern and eastern Europe during the post-classical period at the expense of belief systems that Christians labelled pagan. An attempt was even made to incur upon the Middle East during the

Crusades The Crusades were a series of religious wars initiated, supported, and sometimes directed by the Latin Church in the medieval period. The best known of these Crusades are those to the Holy Land in the period between 1095 and 1291 that were ...

. The split of the

Catholic Church The Catholic Church, also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the largest Christian church, with 1.3 billion baptized Catholics worldwide . It is among the world's oldest and largest international institutions, and has played a ...

in Western Europe and the

Eastern Orthodox Church The Eastern Orthodox Church, also called the Orthodox Church, is the second-largest Christian church, with approximately 220 million baptized members. It operates as a communion of autocephalous churches, each governed by its bishops vi ...

in Eastern Europe encouraged religious and cultural diversity in Eurasia. * Islam began between 610 and 632, with a series of revelations to

Muhammad Muhammad ( ar, مُحَمَّد; 570 – 8 June 632 CE) was an Arab religious, social, and political leader and the founder of Islam. According to Islamic doctrine, he was a prophet divinely inspired to preach and confirm the monot ...

. It helped unify the warring Bedouin clans of the Arabian peninsula and, through a rapid series of Muslim conquests, became established to the west across

North Africa North Africa, or Northern Africa is a region encompassing the northern portion of the African continent. There is no singularly accepted scope for the region, and it is sometimes defined as stretching from the Atlantic shores of Mauritania in t ...

, the

Iberian Peninsula The Iberian Peninsula (), ** * Aragonese and Occitan: ''Peninsula Iberica'' ** ** * french: Péninsule Ibérique * mwl, Península Eibérica * eu, Iberiar penintsula also known as Iberia, is a peninsula in southwestern Europe, defi ...

, and parts of

West Africa West Africa or Western Africa is the westernmost region of Africa. The United Nations defines Western Africa as the 16 countries of Benin, Burkina Faso, Cape Verde, The Gambia, Ghana, Guinea, Guinea-Bissau, Ivory Coast, Liberia, Mali, Mau ...

, and to the east across

Persia Iran, officially the Islamic Republic of Iran, and also called Persia, is a country located in Western Asia. It is bordered by Iraq and Turkey to the west, by Azerbaijan and Armenia to the northwest, by the Caspian Sea and Turkme ...

India India, officially the Republic of India ( Hindi: ), is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by area, the second-most populous country, and the most populous democracy in the world. Bounded by the Indian Ocean on the ...

, and

Indonesia Indonesia, officially the Republic of Indonesia, is a country in Southeast Asia and Oceania between the Indian and Pacific oceans. It consists of over 17,000 islands, including Sumatra, Java, Sulawesi, and parts of Borneo and New Guine ...

. Outside of Eurasia, religion or otherwise a veneration of the supernatural was also used to reinforce power structures, articulate world views and create foundatonal myths for society. Measoamerican cosmological narratives being an example.

Trade and communication

Finally, communication and trade across Afro-Eurasia increased rapidly. The Silk Road continued to spread cultures and ideas through trade. Communication spread throughout Europe, Asia, and Africa. Trade networks were established between western Europe, Byzantium, early Russia, the Islamic Empires, and the

Far East The ''Far East'' was a European term to refer to the geographical regions that includes East and Southeast Asia as well as the Russian Far East to a lesser extent. South Asia is sometimes also included for economic and cultural reasons. The te ...

ern civilizations. In Africa the earlier introduction of the camel allowed for a new and eventually large trans-Saharan trade, which connected Sub-Saharan West Africa to Eurasia. The Islamic Empires adopted many Greek, Roman, and Indian advances and spread them through the Islamic sphere of influence, allowing these developments to reach Europe, North and West Africa, and Central Asia. Islamic sea trade helped connect these areas, including those in the

Indian Ocean The Indian Ocean is the third-largest of the world's five oceanic divisions, covering or ~19.8% of the water on Earth's surface. It is bounded by Asia to the north, Africa to the west and Australia to the east. To the south it is bounded by ...

and in the

Mediterranean The Mediterranean Sea is a sea connected to the Atlantic Ocean, surrounded by the Mediterranean Basin and almost completely enclosed by land: on the north by Western and Southern Europe and Anatolia, on the south by North Africa, and on th ...

, replacing Byzantium in the latter region. The Christian Crusades into the Middle East (as well as Muslim Spain and

Sicily (man) it, Siciliana (woman) , population_note = , population_blank1_title = , population_blank1 = , demographics_type1 = Ethnicity , demographics1_footnotes = , demographi ...

) brought Islamic science, technology, and goods to Western Europe. Western trade into East Asia was pioneered by Marco Polo. Importantly, China began to influence regions like Japan, Korea and Vietnam through trade and conquest. Finally, the growth of the Mongol Empire in Central Asia established safe trade which allowed goods, cultures, ideas, and disease to spread between Asia, Europe, and Africa. The Americas had their own trade network, but here trade was restricted by range and scope. The Mayan network spread across Mesoamerica but lacked direct connections to the complex societies of South and North America, and these zones remained separate from one another. In

Oceania Oceania (, , ) is a region, geographical region that includes Australasia, Melanesia, Micronesia, and Polynesia. Spanning the Eastern Hemisphere, Eastern and Western Hemisphere, Western hemispheres, Oceania is estimated to have a land area of ...

some of the island chains of

Polynesia Polynesia () "many" and νῆσος () "island"), to, Polinisia; mi, Porinihia; haw, Polenekia; fj, Polinisia; sm, Polenisia; rar, Porinetia; ty, Pōrīnetia; tvl, Polenisia; tkl, Polenihia (, ) is a subregion of Oceania, made up of ...

engaged in trade with one another. For instance, with outrigger canoes long-distance communication of over 2,300 miles between

Hawaii Hawaii ( ; haw, Hawaii or ) is a state in the Western United States, located in the Pacific Ocean about from the U.S. mainland. It is the only U.S. state outside North America, the only state that is an archipelago, and the only ...

and

Tahiti Tahiti (; Tahitian ; ; previously also known as Otaheite) is the largest island of the Windward group of the Society Islands in French Polynesia. It is located in the central part of the Pacific Ocean and the nearest major landmass is Aust ...

was maintained for centuries before its disruption and separation. Meanwhile, in

Melanesia Melanesia (, ) is a subregion of Oceania in the southwestern Pacific Ocean. It extends from Indonesia's New Guinea in the west to Fiji in the east, and includes the Arafura Sea. The region includes the four independent countries of Fiji, ...

there is evidence of exchanges between mainland

Papua New Guinea Papua New Guinea (abbreviated PNG; , ; tpi, Papua Niugini; ho, Papua Niu Gini), officially the Independent State of Papua New Guinea ( tpi, Independen Stet bilong Papua Niugini; ho, Independen Stet bilong Papua Niu Gini), is a country i ...

and the

Trobriand Islands The Trobriand Islands are a archipelago of coral atolls off the east coast of New Guinea. They are part of the nation of Papua New Guinea and are in Milne Bay Province. Most of the population of 12,000 indigenous inhabitants live on the main isl ...

off its coast, most likely for obsidian. Populations moved westward until 1200, after which the network dissolved into much smaller economies.

Climate

During Post-classical times, there is evidence that many regions of the world were affected similarly by global climate conditions; however, direct effects in temperature and precipitation varied by region. According to the

Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) is an intergovernmental body of the United Nations. Its job is to advance scientific knowledge about climate change caused by human activities. The World Meteorological Organization (WMO) a ...

, changes did not all occur at once. Generally however, studies found that temperatures were relatively warmer in the 11th century, but colder by the early 17th century. The degree of climate change which occurred in all regions across the world is uncertain, as is whether such changes were all part of a global trend. Climate trends seemed to be more recognizable in the Northern than in the Southern Hemisphere. 2000 Year Temperature Comparison

There are shorter climate periods that could be said roughly to account for large scale climate trends in the Post-classical Period. These include the

Late Antique Little Ice Age The Late Antique Little Ice Age (LALIA) was a long-lasting Northern Hemispheric cooling period in the 6th and 7th centuries AD, during the period known as Late Antiquity. The period coincides with three large volcanic eruptions in 535/536, 539/5 ...

, the

Medieval Warm Period The Medieval Warm Period (MWP), also known as the Medieval Climate Optimum or the Medieval Climatic Anomaly, was a time of warm climate in the North Atlantic region that lasted from to . Climate proxy records show peak warmth occurred at diffe ...

and the

Little Ice Age The Little Ice Age (LIA) was a period of regional cooling, particularly pronounced in the North Atlantic region. It was not a true ice age of global extent. The term was introduced into scientific literature by François E. Matthes in 1939. Ma ...

. The extreme weather events of 536–537 were likely initiated by the eruption of the Lake llopango caldera in

El Salvador El Salvador (; , meaning " The Saviour"), officially the Republic of El Salvador ( es, República de El Salvador), is a country in Central America. It is bordered on the northeast by Honduras, on the northwest by Guatemala, and on the south by ...

. Sulfate emitted into the air initiated global cooling, migrations and crop failures worldwide, possibly intensifying an already cooler time period. Records show that the world's average temperature remained colder for at least a century afterwards. The

from 950 to 1250 occurred mostly in the Northern Hemisphere, causing warmer summers in many areas; the high temperatures would only be surpassed by the global warming of the 20th/21st centuries. It has been hypothesized that the warmer temperatures allowed the Norse to colonize Greenland, due to ice-free waters. Outside of Europe there is evidence of warming conditions, including higher temperatures in China and major North American droughts which adversely affected numerous cultures. After 1250, glaciers began to expand in Greenland, affecting its

thermohaline circulation Thermohaline circulation (THC) is a part of the large-scale ocean circulation that is driven by global density gradients created by surface heat and freshwater fluxes. The adjective ''thermohaline'' derives from '' thermo-'' referring to temp ...

, and cooling the entire North Atlantic. In the 14th century, the growing season in Europe became unreliable; meanwhile in China the cultivation of oranges was driven southward by colder temperatures. Especially in Europe, the Little Ice Age had great cultural ramifications. It persisted until the

Industrial Revolution The Industrial Revolution was the transition to new manufacturing processes in Great Britain, continental Europe, and the United States, that occurred during the period from around 1760 to about 1820–1840. This transition included going f ...

, long after the Post-classical Period. Its causes are unclear: possible explanations include

sunspots Sunspots are phenomena on the Sun's photosphere that appear as temporary spots that are darker than the surrounding areas. They are regions of reduced surface temperature caused by concentrations of magnetic flux that inhibit convection. S ...

, orbital cycles of the Earth,

volcanic activity Volcanism, vulcanism or volcanicity is the phenomenon of eruption of molten rock (magma) onto the surface of the Earth or a solid-surface planet or moon, where lava, pyroclastics, and volcanic gases erupt through a break in the surface called a ...

ocean circulation An ocean current is a continuous, directed movement of sea water generated by a number of forces acting upon the water, including wind, the Coriolis effect, breaking waves, cabbeling, and temperature and salinity differences. Depth contours, s ...

, and man-made

population decline A population decline (also sometimes called underpopulation, depopulation, or population collapse) in humans is a reduction in a human population size. Over the long term, stretching from prehistory to the present, Earth's total human population ...

Timeline

This timetable gives a basic overview of states, cultures and events which transpired roughly between the years 200 and 1500. Sections are broken by political and geographic location.

ImageSize = width:1600 height:435 PlotArea = width:1510 height:385 left:65 bottom:20 AlignBars = justify Colors = id:time value:rgb(0.17,0.81,1) # id:period value:rgb(1,0.7,0.5) # id:span value:rgb(0.9,0.8,0.5) # id:age value:rgb(0.95,0.85,0.5) # id:era value:rgb(1,0.85,0.15) # id:eon value:rgb(1,0.85,0.7) # id:filler value:gray(0.8) # background bar id:black value:black Period = from:200 till:1500 TimeAxis = orientation:horizontal ScaleMajor = unit:year increment:100 start:200 ScaleMinor = unit:year increment:10 start:200 PlotData = align:center textcolor:black fontsize:8 mark:(line, black) width:15 shift:(0,-3) bar:Timeframe color:era from: 476 till: 1000 text: Early period from: 1000 till: 1300 text: High period from: 1300 till: 1450 text: Late period bar:Timeframe color:filler from: 200 till:476 shift:(0,-7) text:(

Iron Age The Iron Age is the final epoch of the three-age division of the prehistory and protohistory of humanity. It was preceded by the Stone Age (Paleolithic, Mesolithic, Neolithic) and the Bronze Age (Chalcolithic). The concept has been mostly appl ...

) from: 200 till:476 shift:(0,4) text:

Ancient Ancient history is a time period from the beginning of writing and recorded human history to as far as late antiquity. The span of recorded history is roughly 5,000 years, beginning with the Sumerian cuneiform script. Ancient history cove ...

from: 1450 till: 1500 shift:(2,4) text: Modern from: 1450 till: 1500 shift:(2,-7) text: (Early) bar:Europe color:filler from: 200 till:476 text: Antiquity from: 1400 till: 1500 text:

Renaissance The Renaissance ( , ) , from , with the same meanings. is a period in European history marking the transition from the Middle Ages to modernity and covering the 15th and 16th centuries, characterized by an effort to revive and surpass id ...

bar:Europe color:age from: 476 till: 700 text:

Migration Migration, migratory, or migrate may refer to: Human migration * Human migration, physical movement by humans from one region to another ** International migration, when peoples cross state boundaries and stay in the host state for some minimum l ...

from: 700 till:950 shift:(0,4) text:

Feudalism Feudalism, also known as the feudal system, was the combination of the legal, economic, military, cultural and political customs that flourished in medieval Europe between the 9th and 15th centuries. Broadly defined, it was a way of structu ...

from: 700 till:950 shift:(0,-7) text:(

Manorialism Manorialism, also known as the manor system or manorial system, was the method of land ownership (or " tenure") in parts of Europe, notably France and later England, during the Middle Ages. Its defining features included a large, sometimes fort ...

) from: 950 till: 1100 text:

Urbanization Urbanization (or urbanisation) refers to the population shift from rural to urban areas, the corresponding decrease in the proportion of people living in rural areas, and the ways in which societies adapt to this change. It is predominantly t ...

from: 1100 till: 1240 text:

from: 1240 till: 1250 text:

Mongols The Mongols ( mn, Монголчууд, , , ; ; russian: Монголы) are an East Asian ethnic group native to Mongolia, Inner Mongolia in China and the Buryatia Republic of the Russian Federation. The Mongols are the principal member ...

from: 1250 till: 1400 text:

Crisis A crisis ( : crises; : critical) is either any event or period that will (or might) lead to an unstable and dangerous situation affecting an individual, group, or all of society. Crises are negative changes in the human or environmental affair ...

bar:Scandinavia color:filler from: 200 till: 400 text: Roman Iron bar:Scandinavia color:age from: 400 till: 700 text: Germanic Iron from: 700 till: 1100 shift:(0,4) text:

Vikings Vikings ; non, víkingr is the modern name given to seafaring people originally from Scandinavia (present-day Denmark, Norway and Sweden), who from the late 8th to the late 11th centuries raided, pirated, traded and se ...

from: 700 till: 1100 shift:(0,-7) text:(

Norsemen The Norsemen (or Norse people) were a North Germanic ethnolinguistic group of the Early Middle Ages, during which they spoke the Old Norse language. The language belongs to the North Germanic branch of the Indo-European languages and is the ...

) from: 1100 till: 1400 shift:(0,4) text:

Christianization Christianization ( or Christianisation) is to make Christian; to imbue with Christian principles; to become Christian. It can apply to the conversion of an individual, a practice, a place or a whole society. It began in the Roman Empire, cont ...

from: 1100 till: 1400 shift:(4,-7) text:(

Northern Crusades The Northern Crusades or Baltic Crusades were Christianity and colonialism, Christian colonization and Christianization campaigns undertaken by Catholic Church, Catholic Christian Military order (society), military orders and kingdoms, primarily ...

) from: 1400 till: 1500 text: Kalmar Union bar:E.Europe color:filler from: 370 till: 500 shift:(15,4) text:

Hunnic Empire The Huns were a nomadic people who lived in Central Asia, the Caucasus, and Eastern Europe between the 4th and 6th century AD. According to European tradition, they were first reported living east of the Volga River, in an area that was par ...

from: 200 till: 500 shift:(0,-7) text:

Sarmatians The Sarmatians (; grc, Σαρμαται, Sarmatai; Latin: ) were a large confederation of ancient Eastern Iranian equestrian nomadic peoples of classical antiquity who dominated the Pontic steppe from about the 3rd century BC to the 4th ...

bar:E.Europe color:age from: 500 till: 700 text:

from: 700 till: 864 text:

Rus' Khaganate The Rusʹ Khaganate ( be, Рускі каганат, ''Ruski kahanat'', russian: Русский каганат, ''Russkiy kaganat'', uk, Руський каганат, ''Ruśkyj kahanat''), is the name applied by some modern historians to a ...

from: 864 till: 1237 text:

Kievan Rus' Kievan Rusʹ, also known as Kyivan Rusʹ ( orv, , Rusĭ, or , , ; Old Norse: ''Garðaríki''), was a state in Eastern and Northern Europe from the late 9th to the mid-13th century.John Channon & Robert Hudson, ''Penguin Historical Atlas of ...

from: 1237 till: 1240 shift:(0,4) text:

from: 1240 till: 1283 shift:(0,-7) text: G H from: 1283 till: 1400 text: Lithuania from: 1400 till: 1500 text:

Moscow Moscow ( , US chiefly ; rus, links=no, Москва, r=Moskva, p=mɐskˈva, a=Москва.ogg) is the capital and largest city of Russia. The city stands on the Moskva River in Central Russia, with a population estimated at 13.0 million ...

bar:Germany color:filler from: 200 till: 481 shift:(15,0) text:

Germanic Wars This is a chronology of warfare between the Romans and various Germanic peoples between 113 BC and 476. The nature of these wars varied through time between Roman conquest, Germanic uprisings and later Germanic invasions of the Western Roman ...

bar:Germany color:age from: 481 till: 751 text:

Francia Francia, also called the Kingdom of the Franks ( la, Regnum Francorum), Frankish Kingdom, Frankland or Frankish Empire ( la, Imperium Francorum), was the largest post-Roman barbarian kingdom in Western Europe. It was ruled by the Franks du ...

from: 751 till: 843 text:

Carolingians The Carolingian dynasty (; known variously as the Carlovingians, Carolingus, Carolings, Karolinger or Karlings) was a Frankish noble family named after Charlemagne, grandson of mayor Charles Martel and a descendant of the Arnulfing and Pippi ...

from: 843 till: 987 text: E. Francia from: 987 till: 1495 text:

Holy Roman Empire The Holy Roman Empire was a political entity in Western, Central, and Southern Europe that developed during the Early Middle Ages and continued until its dissolution in 1806 during the Napoleonic Wars. From the accession of Otto I in 962 ...

bar:Germany color:filler from: 1495 till: 1500 text: I.R bar:France color:filler from: 200 till: 455 text:

Roman Gaul Roman Gaul refers to GaulThe territory of Gaul roughly corresponds to modern-day France, Belgium and Luxembourg, and adjacient parts of the Netherlands, Switzerland and Germany. under provincial rule in the Roman Empire from the 1st century ...

from: 455 till: 481 text:

bar:France color:age from: 481 till: 751 text:

from: 751 till: 843 text:

from: 843 till: 987 text: W. Francia from: 987 till: 1453 text:

Medieval France The Kingdom of France in the Middle Ages (roughly, from the 10th century to the middle of the 15th century) was marked by the fragmentation of the Carolingian Empire and West Francia (843–987); the expansion of royal control by the House of C ...

from: 1337 till: 1453 text:

100 Years' War The Hundred Years' War (; 1337–1453) was a series of armed conflicts between the kingdoms of Kingdom of England, England and Kingdom of France, France during the Late Middle Ages. It originated from disputed claims to the French Crown, ...

bar:France color:filler from: 1453 till: 1500 text: E.M.F bar:Italy color:filler from: 200 till: 476 text:

Roman Empire The Roman Empire ( la, Imperium Romanum ; grc-gre, Βασιλεία τῶν Ῥωμαίων, Basileía tôn Rhōmaíōn) was the post- Republican period of ancient Rome. As a polity, it included large territorial holdings around the Medite ...

from: 476 till: 493 text: OdKI from: 493 till: 553 text: OKI from: 553 till: 568 text: B.E bar:Italy color:age from: 568 till: 774 text:

Lombards The Lombards () or Langobards ( la, Langobardi) were a Germanic people who ruled most of the Italian Peninsula from 568 to 774. The medieval Lombard historian Paul the Deacon wrote in the '' History of the Lombards'' (written between 787 an ...

from: 774 till: 855 text:

from: 855 till: 1494 text:

Medieval Italy The history of Italy in the Middle Ages can be roughly defined as the time between the collapse of the Western Roman Empire and the Italian Renaissance. The term "Middle Ages" itself ultimately derives from the description of the period of "obsc ...

bar:Italy color:filler from: 1494 till: 1500 text: I.W bar:England color:filler from: 200 till: 407 text:

Roman Britain Roman Britain was the period in classical antiquity when large parts of the island of Great Britain were under occupation by the Roman Empire. The occupation lasted from AD 43 to AD 410. During that time, the territory conquered wa ...

from: 407 till: 500 text:

Sub-Roman Sub-Roman Britain is the period of late antiquity in Great Britain between the end of Roman rule and the Anglo-Saxon settlement. The term was originally used to describe archaeological remains found in 5th- and 6th-century AD sites that hint ...

bar:England color:age from: 500 till: 927 shift:(0,4) text: Anglo-Saxon England from: 500 till: 927 shift:(0,-7) text:(

Heptarchy The Heptarchy were the seven petty kingdoms of Anglo-Saxon England that flourished from the Anglo-Saxon settlement of Britain in the 5th century until they were consolidated in the 8th century into the four kingdoms of Mercia, Northumbria, Wes ...

) from: 927 till: 1485 text:

Medieval England England in the Middle Ages concerns the history of England during the medieval period, from the end of the 5th century through to the start of the Early Modern period in 1485. When England emerged from the collapse of the Roman Empire, the econ ...

bar:England color:filler from: 1485 till: 1500 text: E.M.B bar:Iberia color:filler from: 200 till: 418 text:

bar:Iberia color:age from: 418 till: 711 text:

Visigothic Kingdom The Visigothic Kingdom, officially the Kingdom of the Goths ( la, Regnum Gothorum), was a kingdom that occupied what is now southwestern France and the Iberian Peninsula from the 5th to the 8th centuries. One of the Germanic successor states to ...

from: 711 till: 1500 shift:(0,4) text:

Al-Andalus Al-Andalus translit. ; an, al-Andalus; ast, al-Ándalus; eu, al-Andalus; ber, ⴰⵏⴷⴰⵍⵓⵙ, label= Berber, translit=Andalus; ca, al-Àndalus; gl, al-Andalus; oc, Al Andalús; pt, al-Ândalus; es, al-Ándalus () was the Mus ...

from: 711 till: 756 shift:(0,-7) text: Muslim conquests from: 756 till: 1031 shift:(0,-7) text: Córdoba Caliphate from: 1031 till: 1492 shift:(0,-7) text:

Reconquista The ' ( Spanish, Portuguese and Galician for "reconquest") is a historiographical construction describing the 781-year period in the history of the Iberian Peninsula between the Umayyad conquest of Hispania in 711 and the fall of the Na ...

from: 1414 till: 1492 shift:(0,-7) text: Early discoveries bar:Iberia color:filler from: 1492 till: 1500 shift:(0,7) text: D.A bar:Balkans color:filler from: 200 till: 476 text:

bar:Balkans color:age from: 476 till: 850 text:

Byzantine Empire The Byzantine Empire, also referred to as the Eastern Roman Empire or Byzantium, was the continuation of the Roman Empire primarily in its eastern provinces during Late Antiquity and the Middle Ages, when its capital city was Constantin ...

from: 850 till: 950 text: 1st Bulgarian Empire from: 950 till: 1185 text:

from: 1185 till: 1389 text: 2nd Bulgarian Empire from: 1389 till: 1453 text: O.R bar:Balkans color:filler from: 1453 till: 1500 text: O.E bar:Anatolia color:filler from: 200 till: 476 text:

bar:Anatolia color:age from: 476 till: 1453 text:

from: 1007 till: 1308 text:

Sultanate of Rum fa, سلجوقیان روم () , status = , government_type = Hereditary monarchy Triarchy (1249–1254)Diarchy (1257–1262) , year_start = 1077 , year_end = 1308 , p1 = B ...

from: 1299 till: 1453 text: Ottoman Rising bar:Anatolia color:filler from: 1453 till: 1500 text: O.E bar:Iran color:filler from: 200 till: 224 text: P.E from: 224 till: 651 text: Sasanian Empire bar:Iran color:age from: 651 till: 821 text: Arab Caliphates from: 821 till: 1061 text:

Intermezzo In music, an intermezzo (, , plural form: intermezzi), in the most general sense, is a composition which fits between other musical or dramatic entities, such as acts of a play or movements of a larger musical work. In music history, the term ha ...

from: 1037 till: 1194 text:

Seljuk Empire The Great Seljuk Empire, or the Seljuk Empire was a high medieval, culturally Turko-Persian, Sunni Muslim empire, founded and ruled by the Qïnïq branch of Oghuz Turks. It spanned a total area of from Anatolia and the Levant in the west to ...

from: 1194 till: 1231 text: from: 1231 till: 1335 text:

Ilkhanate The Ilkhanate, also spelled Il-khanate ( fa, ایل خانان, ''Ilxānān''), known to the Mongols as ''Hülegü Ulus'' (, ''Qulug-un Ulus''), was a khanate established from the southwestern sector of the Mongol Empire. The Ilkhanid realm, ...

from: 1335 till: 1380 text: from: 1380 till: 1468 text:

Timurid Timurid refers to those descended from Timur (Tamerlane), a 14th-century conqueror: * Timurid dynasty, a dynasty of Turco-Mongol lineage descended from Timur who established empires in Central Asia and the Indian subcontinent ** Timurid Empire o ...

from: 1468 till: 1500 text: A.Q bar:India color:filler from: 200 till: 590 shift:(0,4) text: Indian Middle kingdoms from: 240 till: 590 text: Gupta Empire bar:India color:age from: 590 till: 1200 shift:(0,4) text: Indian Middle kingdoms from: 848 till: 1279 text:

Chola Empire The Chola dynasty was a Tamils, Tamil thalassocratic Tamil Dynasties, empire of southern India and one of the longest-ruling dynasties in the history of the world. The earliest datable references to the Chola are from inscriptions dated ...

from: 1200 till: 1500 shift:(0,5) text: Delhi Sultanate from: 1336 till: 1500 text: Vijaynagara Empire bar:C.Asia color:filler from: 200 till: 632 shift:(0,4) text:

Scythians The Scythians or Scyths, and sometimes also referred to as the Classical Scythians and the Pontic Scythians, were an ancient Eastern * : "In modern scholarship the name 'Sakas' is reserved for the ancient tribes of northern and eastern Cent ...

from: 400 till: 632 shift:(0,-7) text:

Hephthalites The Hephthalites ( xbc, ηβοδαλο, translit= Ebodalo), sometimes called the White Huns (also known as the White Hunas, in Iranian as the ''Spet Xyon'' and in Sanskrit as the ''Sveta-huna''), were a people who lived in Central Asia during t ...

bar:C.Asia color:age from: 632 till: 800 text: Muslim conquests from: 800 till: 1000 text:

Samanids People Samanid Samanid Samanid The Samanid Empire ( fa, سامانیان, Sāmāniyān) also known as the Samanian Empire, Samanid dynasty, Samanid amirate, or simply as the Samanids) was a Persianate Sunni Muslim empire, of Iranian dehqan origin. ...

from: 1000 till: 1200 text: Khwārazm-Shāh from: 1200 till: 1250 text:

from: 1250 till: 1500 shift:(0,-7) text:

Chagatai Khanate The Chagatai Khanate, or Chagatai Ulus ( xng, , translit=Čaɣatay-yin Ulus; mn, Цагаадайн улс, translit=Tsagaadain Uls; chg, , translit=Čağatāy Ulusi; fa, , translit=Xânât-e Joghatây) was a Mongol and later Turkicized kh ...

from: 1250 till: 1500 shift:(0,4) text:

Golden Horde The Golden Horde, self-designated as Ulug Ulus, 'Great State' in Turkic, was originally a Mongol and later Turkicized khanate established in the 13th century and originating as the northwestern sector of the Mongol Empire. With the fragment ...

bar:China color:filler from: 200 till: 220 text: H D bar:China color:age from: 220 till: 280 text: 3 K from: 280 till: 420 text: Jin Dynasty from: 400 till: 585 shift:(0,4) text:

Six Dynasties Six Dynasties (; 220–589 or 222–589) is a collective term for six Han-ruled Chinese dynasties that existed from the early 3rd century AD to the late 6th century AD. The Six Dynasties period overlapped with the era of the Sixteen Kingdoms ...

from: 585 till: 618 text: Sui from: 618 till: 907 text: Tang from: 907 till: 960 text: 5 Dynasties, 10 Kingdoms from: 960 till: 1275 text: Liao, Song, Jin from: 1275 till: 1368 text: Great Yuan bar:China color:filler from: 1368 till: 1500 text: Great Ming bar:Japan color:filler from: 200 till: 250 shift:(0,4) text:

Yayoi The started at the beginning of the Neolithic in Japan, continued through the Bronze Age, and towards its end crossed into the Iron Age. Since the 1980s, scholars have argued that a period previously classified as a transition from the Jōmon p ...

from: 250 till: 538 shift:(0,4) text: Yamato from: 250 till: 538 shift:(0,-4) text: Kofun bar:Japan color:age from: 538 till: 710 shift:(0,4) text: Yamato from: 538 till: 710 shift:(0,-4) text: Asuka from: 710 till: 794 text:

Nara The National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) is an " independent federal agency of the United States government within the executive branch", charged with the preservation and documentation of government and historical records. It ...

from: 794 till: 1185 text:

Heian The Japanese word Heian (平安, lit. "peace") may refer to: * Heian period, an era of Japanese history * Heian-kyō Heian-kyō was one of several former names for the city now known as Kyoto. It was the official capital of Japan for over one ...

from: 1185 till: 1333 text:

Kamakura is a city in Kanagawa Prefecture, Japan. Kamakura has an estimated population of 172,929 (1 September 2020) and a population density of 4,359 persons per km² over the total area of . Kamakura was designated as a city on 3 November 1939. Kama ...

from: 1333 till: 1336 text:

Kenmu was a Japanese era name of the Northern Court during the Era of Northern and Southern Courts after '' Shōkei'' and before '' Ryakuō.'' Although Kemmu is understood by the Southern Court as having begun at the same time, the era was construed t ...

from: 1336 till: 1500 text:

Muromachi The is a division of Japanese history running from approximately 1336 to 1573. The period marks the governance of the Muromachi or Ashikaga shogunate (''Muromachi bakufu'' or ''Ashikaga bakufu''), which was officially established in 1338 by t ...

bar:Korea color:filler from: 200 till: 300 text:

Samhan Samhan, or Three Han, is the collective name of the Byeonhan, Jinhan, and Mahan confederacies that emerged in the first century BC during the Proto–Three Kingdoms of Korea, or Samhan, period. Located in the central and southern regions of th ...

bar:Korea color:age from: 300 till: 668 shift:(0,-4) text:

Three Kingdoms of Korea Samhan or the Three Kingdoms of Korea () refers to the three kingdoms of Goguryeo (고구려, 高句麗), Baekje (백제, 百濟), and Silla (신라, 新羅). Goguryeo was later known as Goryeo (고려, 高麗), from which the modern name ''Kor ...

from: 400 till: 935 shift:(0,4) text:

Silla Silla or Shilla (57 BCE – 935 CE) ( , Old Korean: Syera, Old Japanese: Siraki2) was a Korean kingdom located on the southern and central parts of the Korean Peninsula. Silla, along with Baekje and Goguryeo, formed the Three Kingdoms of ...

from: 698 till: 926 shift:(0,-4) text: North South States Period from: 918 till: 1392 shift:(0,-4) text:

Goryeo Goryeo (; ) was a Korean kingdom founded in 918, during a time of national division called the Later Three Kingdoms period, that unified and ruled the Korean Peninsula until 1392. Goryeo achieved what has been called a "true national unifica ...

bar:Korea color:filler from: 1392 till: 1500 shift:(0,-4) text:

Joseon Joseon (; ; Middle Korean: 됴ᇢ〯션〮 Dyǒw syéon or 됴ᇢ〯션〯 Dyǒw syěon), officially the Great Joseon (; ), was the last dynastic kingdom of Korea, lasting just over 500 years. It was founded by Yi Seong-gye in July 1392 and ...

bar:Egypt color:filler from: 200 till: 476 text:

bar:Egypt color:age from: 476 till: 641 text:

from: 641 till: 750 text: Muslim conquests from: 750 till: 969 text:

Abbasids The Abbasid Caliphate ( or ; ar, الْخِلَافَةُ الْعَبَّاسِيَّة, ') was the third caliphate to succeed the Islamic prophet Muhammad. It was founded by a dynasty descended from Muhammad's uncle, Abbas ibn Abdul-Muttalib ...

from: 969 till: 1171 text:

Fatimids The Fatimid Caliphate was an Ismaili Shi'a caliphate extant from the tenth to the twelfth centuries AD. Spanning a large area of North Africa, it ranged from the Atlantic Ocean in the west to the Red Sea in the east. The Fatimids, a dyna ...

from: 1171 till: 1250 text:

Ayyubids The Ayyubid dynasty ( ar, الأيوبيون '; ) was the founding dynasty of the medieval Sultanate of Egypt established by Saladin in 1171, following his abolition of the Fatimid Caliphate of Egypt. A Sunni Muslim of Kurdish origin, Saladin ...

from: 1250 till: 1500 text:

Mamluks Mamluk ( ar, مملوك, mamlūk (singular), , ''mamālīk'' (plural), translated as "one who is owned", meaning "slave", also transliterated as ''Mameluke'', ''mamluq'', ''mamluke'', ''mameluk'', ''mameluke'', ''mamaluke'', or ''marmeluke'') i ...

bar:W.Africa color:filler from: 200 till: 300 text: Iron Age bar:W.Africa color:age from: 300 till: 1200 text:

Ghana Empire The Ghana Empire, also known as Wagadou ( ar, غانا) or Awkar, was a West African empire based in the modern-day southeast of Mauritania and western Mali that existed from c. 300 until 1100. The Empire was founded by the Soninke people, ...

from: 1200 till: 1500 text:

Mali Empire The Mali Empire (Manding: ''Mandé''Ki-Zerbo, Joseph: ''UNESCO General History of Africa, Vol. IV, Abridged Edition: Africa from the Twelfth to the Sixteenth Century'', p. 57. University of California Press, 1997. or Manden; ar, مالي, Māl� ...

bar:W.Africa color:filler from: 1464 till: 1500 text:

Songhai Empire The Songhai Empire (also transliterated as Songhay) was a state that dominated the western Sahel/Sudan in the 15th and 16th century. At its peak, it was one of the largest states in African history. The state is known by its historiographical ...

bar:Ethiopia color:filler from: 200 till: 600 text: Kingdom of Aksum bar:Ethiopia color:age from: 600 till: 960 text:Post-Aksumite Period from: 960 till: 1270 text:

Zagwe dynasty The Zagwe dynasty ( Ge'ez: ዛጔ ሥርወ መንግሥት) was an Agaw medieval dynasty that ruled the northern parts of Ethiopia and Eritrea, after the historical name of the Lasta province. Centered at Lalibela, it ruled large parts of the ...

from: 1270 till: 1500 text:

Ethiopian Empire The Ethiopian Empire (), also formerly known by the exonym Abyssinia, or just simply known as Ethiopia (; Amharic and Tigrinya: ኢትዮጵያ , , Oromo: Itoophiyaa, Somali: Itoobiya, Afar: ''Itiyoophiyaa''), was an empire that historical ...

bar:USA color:filler from: 200 till: 500 text: Hopewell bar:USA color:age from: 500 till: 650 text:Classic from: 500 till: 1500 shift:(0,4) text: Precolombian from: 800 till: 1500 shift:(0,-4) text:

Mississippian culture The Mississippian culture was a Native American civilization that flourished in what is now the Midwestern, Eastern, and Southeastern United States from approximately 800 CE to 1600 CE, varying regionally. It was known for building large, ear ...

bar:Mexico color:filler from: 200 till: 250 text:Preclassic bar:Mexico color:age from: 250 till: 1500 shift:(-28,3) text:

from: 250 till: 900 shift:(0,5) text:

Classic A classic is an outstanding example of a particular style; something of lasting worth or with a timeless quality; of the first or highest quality, class, or rank – something that exemplifies its class. The word can be an adjective (a '' ...

from: 250 till: 746 text:

Teotihuacan Teotihuacan (Spanish: ''Teotihuacán'') (; ) is an ancient Mesoamerican city located in a sub-valley of the Valley of Mexico, which is located in the State of Mexico, northeast of modern-day Mexico City. Teotihuacan is known today as the ...

from: 900 till: 1500 shift:(0,-4) text:Postclassic from: 950 till: 1150 text:

Toltecs The Toltec culture () was a pre-Columbian Mesoamerican culture that ruled a state centered in Tula, Hidalgo, Mexico, during the Epiclassic and the early Post-Classic period of Mesoamerican chronology, reaching prominence from 950 to 1150 C ...

from: 1430 till: 1500 text:

Aztec Empire The Aztec Empire or the Triple Alliance ( nci, Ēxcān Tlahtōlōyān, �jéːʃkaːn̥ t͡ɬaʔtoːˈlóːjaːn̥ was an alliance of three Nahua city-states: , , and . These three city-states ruled that area in and around the Valley of Mexic ...

bar:Peru color:age from: 200 till: 1500 shift:(-28,3) text:

Andean civilization The Andean civilizations were complex societies of many cultures and peoples mainly developed in the river valleys of the coastal deserts of Peru. They stretched from the Andes of southern Colombia southward down the Andes to Chile and northwes ...

from: 200 till: 600 shift:(0,-4) text:

Early Intermediate This is a chart of cultural periods of Peru and the Andean Region developed by John Rowe and Edward Lanning and used by some archaeologists studying the area. An alternative dating system was developed by Luis Lumbreras and provides different dat ...

from: 600 till: 1000 shift:(0,-4) text: Wari Empire from: 1000 till: 1438 shift:(0,-4) text: Late Intermediate from: 1438 till: 1500 shift:(0,-4) text: Inca Empire

:::''Dates are approximate range (based upon influence), consult particular article for details'' ::: Middle Ages Divisions, Middle Ages Themes Other themes

Eurasian trends

This section explains events and trends which affected the geographic area of

Eurasia Eurasia (, ) is the largest continental area on Earth, comprising all of Europe and Asia. Primarily in the Northern and Eastern Hemispheres, it spans from the British Isles and the Iberian Peninsula in the west to the Japanese archipelag ...

. The civilizations within this area were distinct from one another but still endured shared experiences and some development patterns.Catherine Holmes and Naomi Standen, 'Introduction: Towards a Global Middle Ages', ''Past & Present'', 238 (November 2018), 1-44 .

Feudalism

In the context of global history, the label of

has been used to describe any agricultural society where central authority broke down to be replaced by a warrior aristocracy. Feudal societies are characterized by reliance on personal relationships with military elites, rather than a bureaucracy with a state-supported professional standing army. The label of feudalism has thus been used to describe many areas of Eurasia including

Medieval Europe In the history of Europe, the Middle Ages or medieval period lasted approximately from the late 5th to the late 15th centuries, similar to the post-classical period of global history. It began with the fall of the Western Roman Empire a ...

, the Islamic

iqta' An iqta ( ar, اقطاع, iqṭāʿ) and occasionally iqtaʿa ( ar, اقطاعة) was an Islamic practice of tax farming that became common in Muslim Asia during the Buyid dynasty. Iqta has been defined in Nizam-al-Mulk's Siyasatnama. Administrat ...

system, Indian feudalism, and Heian Japan. Some world historians generalize that societies can be called feudal if authority was fragmented, with a set of obligations between vassal and lord. After the 8th century, feudalism became more common across Europe. Even Byzantium, which had inherited the government of the

, chose to devolve its military obligations into themes to increase the number of soldiers and ships available for military service during times of crisis. There were similarities between European feudalism and the Islamic

, as both featured landed classes of mounted warriors whose titles were granted by a monarch or sultan. Because of these similarities, it was common for societal structures to be preserved in the face of religious upheaval; for instance, after the Islamic Delhi Sultanate conquered large portions of India, it imposed higher taxes but otherwise left local feudal structures in place. Though most of Eurasia adopted feudalism and similar systems during this era, China employed a centralized bureaucracy throughout much of the post classical period, particularly after 1000. A major factor that distinguished China from other regions was that local leaders were reluctant to self-identify by their current location; instead, they typically displayed an ambition to unite the country in times of disunity. Beyond a broad generalization, the usefulness of the term 'feudalism' is debated by contemporary historians, as the daily functions of feudalism sometimes differed greatly between world regions. Comparisons between feudal Europe and post-classical Japan have been particularly controversial. Throughout the 20th century, historians often compared medieval Europe to post-classical Japan. More recently, it has been argued that, until roughly 1400, Japan balanced its decentralized military power with more centralized forms of imperial (governmental) and monastic (religious) authority. Only in the

Sengoku period The was a period in Japanese history of near-constant civil war and social upheaval from 1467 to 1615. The Sengoku period was initiated by the Ōnin War in 1467 which collapsed the feudal system of Japan under the Ashikaga shogunate. Variou ...

did there come to be fully decentralized power dominated by private military leaders. Still other historians reject the term feudalism outright, challenging its ability to usefully describe societies either within or outside of medieval Europe.

Mongol Empire

The Mongol Empire which existed during the 13th and 14th centuries, was the largest continuous land empire in history. Originating in the

steppe In physical geography, a steppe () is an ecoregion characterized by grassland plains without trees apart from those near rivers and lakes. Steppe biomes may include: * the montane grasslands and shrublands biome * the temperate grasslan ...

s of

, the Mongol Empire eventually stretched from

Central Europe Central Europe is an area of Europe between Western Europe and Eastern Europe, based on a common historical, social and cultural identity. The Thirty Years' War (1618–1648) between Catholicism and Protestantism significantly shaped the ...

to the

Sea of Japan The Sea of Japan is the marginal sea between the Japanese archipelago, Sakhalin, the Korean Peninsula, and the mainland of the Russian Far East. The Japanese archipelago separates the sea from the Pacific Ocean. Like the Mediterranean Sea, it h ...

, extending northwards into

Siberia Siberia ( ; rus, Сибирь, r=Sibir', p=sʲɪˈbʲirʲ, a=Ru-Сибирь.ogg) is an extensive geographical region, constituting all of North Asia, from the Ural Mountains in the west to the Pacific Ocean in the east. It has been a part o ...

, eastwards and southwards into the

Indian subcontinent The Indian subcontinent is a physiographical region in Southern Asia. It is situated on the Indian Plate, projecting southwards into the Indian Ocean from the Himalayas. Geopolitically, it includes the countries of Bangladesh, Bhutan, India ...

Indochina Mainland Southeast Asia, also known as the Indochinese Peninsula or Indochina, is the continental portion of Southeast Asia. It lies east of the Indian subcontinent and south of Mainland China and is bordered by the Indian Ocean to the west an ...

, and the

Iranian plateau The Iranian plateau or Persian plateau is a geological feature in Western Asia, Central Asia, and South Asia. It comprises part of the Eurasian Plate and is wedged between the Arabian Plate and the Indian Plate; situated between the Zagros ...

, and westwards as far as the

Levant The Levant () is an approximation, approximate historical geography, historical geographical term referring to a large area in the Eastern Mediterranean region of Western Asia. In its narrowest sense, which is in use today in archaeology an ...

and

Arabia The Arabian Peninsula, (; ar, شِبْهُ الْجَزِيرَةِ الْعَرَبِيَّة, , "Arabian Peninsula" or , , "Island of the Arabs") or Arabia, is a peninsula of Western Asia, situated northeast of Africa on the Arabian Plate. ...

. The Mongol Empire emerged from the unification of nomadic tribes in the

Mongolia Mongolia; Mongolian script: , , ; lit. "Mongol Nation" or "State of Mongolia" () is a landlocked country in East Asia, bordered by Russia to the north and China to the south. It covers an area of , with a population of just 3.3 millio ...

homeland under the leadership of

Genghis Khan ''Chinggis Khaan'' ͡ʃʰiŋɡɪs xaːŋbr /> Mongol script: ''Chinggis Qa(gh)an/ Chinggis Khagan'' , birth_name = Temüjin , successor = Tolui (as regent) Ögedei Khan , spouse = , issue = , house = Borjigin ...

, who was proclaimed ruler of all Mongols in 1206. The empire grew rapidly under his rule and then under his descendants, who sent

invasions An invasion is a military offensive in which large numbers of combatants of one geopolitical entity aggressively enter territory owned by another such entity, generally with the objective of either: conquering; liberating or re-establishing co ...

in every direction. The vast transcontinental empire connected the

east East or Orient is one of the four cardinal directions or points of the compass. It is the opposite direction from west and is the direction from which the Sun rises on the Earth. Etymology As in other languages, the word is formed from the fa ...

with the

west West or Occident is one of the four cardinal directions or points of the compass. It is the opposite direction from east and is the direction in which the Sun sets on the Earth. Etymology The word "west" is a Germanic word passed into some ...

with an enforced ''

Pax Mongolica The ''Pax Mongolica'' (Latin for "Mongol Peace"), less often known as ''Pax Tatarica'' ("Tatar Peace"), is a historiographical term modelled after the original phrase ''Pax Romana'' which describes the stabilizing effects of the conquests of the ...

'' allowing trade, technologies, commodities, and ideologies to be disseminated and exchanged across

. The empire began to split due to wars over succession, as the grandchildren of Genghis Khan disputed whether the royal line should follow from his son and initial heir Ögedei, or one of his other sons such as

Tolui Tolui (also Toluy, Tului; , meaning: "the mirror"; – 1232) was a Mongol khan, the fourth son of Genghis Khan by his chief khatun, Börte. At his father's death in 1227, his '' ulus'', or territorial inheritance, was the Mongol homelands on ...

, Chagatai, or

Jochi Jochi Khan ( Mongolian: mn, Зүчи, ; kk, Жошы, Joşy جوشى; ; crh, Cuçi, Джучи, جوچى; also spelled Juchi; Djochi, and Jöchi c. 1182– February 1227) was a Mongol army commander who was the eldest son of Temüjin (aka G ...

. After

Möngke Khan Möngke ( mn, ' / Мөнх '; ; 11 January 1209 – 11 August 1259) was the fourth khagan-emperor of the Mongol Empire, ruling from 1 July 1251, to 11 August 1259. He was the first Khagan from the Toluid line, and made significant reforms ...

died, rival ''

kurultai Kurultai ( Mongolian: , Хуралдай, ''Khuraldai'') or ; Kazakh: Құрылтай, ''Qūryltai''; tt-Cyrl, Корылтай, ; ba, Ҡоролтай, ; az, Qurultay; tk, Gurultaý was a political and military council of ancient Mongol an ...

'' councils simultaneously elected different successors, the brothers

Ariq Böke Ariq Böke (after 1219–1266), the components of his name also spelled Arigh, Arik and Bukha, Buka ( mn, Аригбөх, Arigböh, ; ), was the seventh and youngest son of Tolui and a grandson of Genghis Khan. After the death of his brother the ...

and

Kublai Khan Kublai ; Mongolian script: ; (23 September 1215 – 18 February 1294), also known by his temple name as the Emperor Shizu of Yuan and his regnal name Setsen Khan, was the founder of the Yuan dynasty of China and the fifth khagan-emperor of the ...

, who then not only fought each other in the

Toluid Civil War The Toluid Civil War was a war of succession fought between Kublai Khan and his younger brother, Ariq Böke, from 1260 to 1264. Möngke Khan died in 1259 with no declared successor, precipitating infighting between members of the Tolui family ...

, but also dealt with challenges from descendants of other sons of Genghis. Kublai successfully took power, but civil war ensued as Kublai sought unsuccessfully to regain control of the

Chagatayid The Chagatai Khanate, or Chagatai Ulus ( xng, , translit=Čaɣatay-yin Ulus; mn, Цагаадайн улс, translit=Tsagaadain Uls; chg, , translit=Čağatāy Ulusi; fa, , translit=Xânât-e Joghatây) was a Mongol and later Turkicized kha ...

and Ögedeid families. LetterOljeituToPhilipLeBel

The

Battle of Ain Jalut The Battle of Ain Jalut (), also spelled Ayn Jalut, was fought between the Bahri Mamluks of Egypt and the Mongol Empire on 3 September 1260 (25 Ramadan 658 AH) in southeastern Galilee in the Jezreel Valley near what is known today as the Sp ...

in 1260 marked the high-water point of the

Mongol conquests The Mongol invasions and conquests took place during the 13th and 14th centuries, creating history's largest contiguous empire: the Mongol Empire (1206-1368), which by 1300 covered large parts of Eurasia. Historians regard the Mongol devastation ...

and was the first time a Mongol advance had ever been beaten back in direct combat on the battlefield. Though the Mongols launched many more invasions into the Levant, briefly occupying it and raiding as far as Gaza after a decisive victory at the

Battle of Wadi al-Khazandar The Battle of Wadi al-Khaznadar, also known as the Third Battle of Homs, was a Mongol victory over the Mamluks in 1299.''Wadi 'L-Khaznadar'', R. Amitai, The Encyclopaedia of Islam, Vol XI, ed. P.J.Bearman, T.Bianquis, C.E.Bosworth, E. van Donzel ...

in 1299, they withdrew due to various geopolitical factors. By the time of Kublai's death in 1294, the Mongol Empire had fractured into four separate khanates or empires, each pursuing its own separate interests and objectives: the

khanate in the northwest; the

in the west; the

in the southwest; and the

Yuan dynasty The Yuan dynasty (), officially the Great Yuan (; xng, , , literally "Great Yuan State"), was a Mongols, Mongol-led Dynasties in Chinese history, imperial dynasty of China and a successor state to the Mongol Empire after Division of the M ...

based in modern-day

Beijing } Beijing ( ; ; ), alternatively romanized as Peking ( ), is the capital of the People's Republic of China. It is the center of power and development of the country. Beijing is the world's most populous national capital city, with over 21 ...

.''The Cambridge History of China: Alien Regimes and Border States''. p. 413. In 1304, the three western khanates briefly accepted the nominal suzerainty of the Yuan dynasty, but it was later overthrown by the

Han Chinese The Han Chinese () or Han people (), are an East Asian ethnic group native to China. They constitute the world's largest ethnic group, making up about 18% of the global population and consisting of various subgroups speaking distinctive v ...

Ming dynasty The Ming dynasty (), officially the Great Ming, was an Dynasties in Chinese history, imperial dynasty of China, ruling from 1368 to 1644 following the collapse of the Mongol Empire, Mongol-led Yuan dynasty. The Ming dynasty was the last ort ...

in 1368. The Genghisid rulers returned to Mongolia homeland and continued rule in the

Northern Yuan dynasty The Northern Yuan () was a dynastic regime ruled by the Mongol Borjigin clan based in the Mongolian Plateau. It existed as a rump state after the collapse of the Yuan dynasty in 1368 and lasted until its conquest by the Jurchen-led Later ...

. All of the original Mongol Khanates collapsed by 1500, but smaller successor states remained independent until the 1700s. Descendants of

Chagatai Khan Chagatai Khan ( Mongolian: ''; Čaɣatay''; mn, Цагадай, translit=Tsagadai; chg, , ''Čaġatāy''; ug, چاغاتاي خان, ''Chaghatay-Xan''; zh, 察合台, ''Chágětái''; fa, , ''Joghatây''; 22 December 1183 – 1 July 1242) ...

created the

Mughal Empire The Mughal Empire was an early-modern empire that controlled much of South Asia between the 16th and 19th centuries. Quote: "Although the first two Timurid emperors and many of their noblemen were recent migrants to the subcontinent, the ...

that ruled much of India in early modern times. The conquests and the interactions the Mongol Empire had with western Eurasia are one of the more comprehensively researched areas for historians looking to define a globalized Middle Ages.

The Silk Road

The Silk Road was a Eurasian trade route that played a large role in global communication and interaction. It stimulated cultural exchange; encouraged the learning of new languages; resulted in the trade of many goods, such as silk, gold, and spices; and also spread religion and disease. It is even claimed by some historians – such as

Andre Gunder Frank Andre Gunder Frank (February 24, 1929 – April 25, 2005) was a German- American sociologist and economic historian who promoted dependency theory after 1970 and world-systems theory after 1984. He employed some Marxian concepts on politi ...

William Hardy McNeill William Hardy McNeill (October 31, 1917 – July 8, 2016) was an American historian and author, noted for his argument that contact and exchange among civilizations is what drives human history forward, first postulated in ''The Rise of the West ...

Jerry H. Bentley Jerry Harrell Bentley (December 12, 1949 – July 15, 2012) was an American academic and professor of world history. He was a founding editor of the ''Journal of World History'' since 1990. He wrote on the cultural history of early modern Europe an ...

, and Marshall Hodgson – that the Afro-Eurasian world was loosely united culturally, and that the Silk Road was fundamental to this unity. This major trade route began with the

Han dynasty The Han dynasty (, ; ) was an Dynasties in Chinese history, imperial dynasty of China (202 BC – 9 AD, 25–220 AD), established by Emperor Gaozu of Han, Liu Bang (Emperor Gao) and ruled by the House of Liu. The dynasty was preceded by th ...

of China, connecting it to the Roman Empire and any regions in between or nearby. At this time, Central Asia exported horses,

wool Wool is the textile fibre obtained from sheep and other mammals, especially goats, rabbits, and camelids. The term may also refer to inorganic materials, such as mineral wool and glass wool, that have properties similar to animal wool. ...

, and

jade Jade is a mineral used as jewellery or for ornaments. It is typically green, although may be yellow or white. Jade can refer to either of two different silicate minerals: nephrite (a silicate of calcium and magnesium in the amphibole gro ...

into China for the latter's silk; the Romans would trade for the Chinese commodity as well, offering wine in return. The Silk Road would often decline and rise again in trade from the Iron Age to the Postclassical Era. Following one such decline, it was reopened in Central Asia by

Han Dynasty The Han dynasty (, ; ) was an Dynasties in Chinese history, imperial dynasty of China (202 BC – 9 AD, 25–220 AD), established by Emperor Gaozu of Han, Liu Bang (Emperor Gao) and ruled by the House of Liu. The dynasty was preceded by th ...

General

Ban Chao Ban Chao (; 32–102 CE), courtesy name Zhongsheng, was a Chinese diplomat, explorer, and military general of the Eastern Han Dynasty. He was born in Fufeng, now Xianyang, Shaanxi. Three of his family members—father Ban Biao, elder brother ...

during the 1st century. The Silk Road was also a major factor in spreading religion across Afro-Eurasia. Muslim teachings from Arabia and

reached East Asia. Buddhism spread from India, to China, to Central Asia. One significant development in the spread of Buddhism was the carving of the

Gandhara Gandhāra is the name of an ancient region located in the northwestern region of the Indian subcontinent, more precisely in present-day north-west Pakistan and parts of south-east Afghanistan. The region centered around the Peshawar Val ...

School in the cities of ancient Taxila and the Peshwar, allegedly in the mid 1st century. There were vulnerabilities as well to changing political situations. The rise of Islam changed the Silk Road, because Muslim rulers generally closed the Silk Road to

Christian Europe Christendom historically refers to the Christian states, Christian-majority countries and the countries in which Christianity dominates, prevails,SeMerriam-Webster.com : dictionary, "Christendom"/ref> or is culturally or historically intertwine ...

to an extent Europe would be cut off from Asia for centuries. Specifically, the political developments that affected the Silk Road included the emergence of the Turks, the political movements of the Sasanian and Byzantine empires, and the rise of the Arabs, among others. Song Tapestry

The Silk Road flourished again in the 13th century during the reign of the Mongol Empire, which through conquest had brought stability in Central Asia comparable to the

Pax Romana The Pax Romana (Latin for 'Roman peace') is a roughly 200-year-long timespan of Roman history which is identified as a period and as a golden age of increased as well as sustained Roman imperialism, relative peace and order, prosperous stability ...

. It was claimed by a Muslim historian that Central Asia was peaceful and safe to transverse

"(Central Asia) enjoyed such a peace that a man might have journeyed from the land of sunrise to the land of sunset with a golden platter upon his head without suffering the least violence from anyone."

As such, trade and communication between Europe, East Asia, South Asia, and the Middle East required little effort. Handicraft production, art, and scholarship prospered, and wealthy merchants enjoyed cosmopolitan cities. Notable Travelers including

Ibn Battuta Abu Abdullah Muhammad ibn Battutah (, ; 24 February 13041368/1369),; fully: ; Arabic: commonly known as Ibn Battuta, was a Berber Maghrebi scholar and explorer who travelled extensively in the lands of Afro-Eurasia, largely in the Muslim ...

Rabban Bar Sauma Rabban Bar Ṣawma ( Syriac language: , ; 1220January 1294), also known as Rabban Ṣawma or Rabban ÇaumaMantran, p. 298 (), was a Turkic Chinese ( Uyghur or possibly Ongud) monk turned diplomat of the "Nestorian" Church of the East in China. ...

and Marco Polo travelled across North Africa and Eurasia freely, those that left accounts of their experiences inspired future adventurers. In addition to commercial travel was the esteem of

Pilgrimage A pilgrimage is a journey, often into an unknown or foreign place, where a person goes in search of new or expanded meaning about their self, others, nature, or a higher good, through the experience. It can lead to a personal transformation, aft ...

that existed across all of Afro-Eurrasia, in the words of world historian

R. I. Moore Robert Ian "Bob" Moore (born 1941), most commonly known as R. I. Moore, is a British historian who is Professor Emeritus of History at Newcastle University. He specialises in medieval history and has written several influential works on ...

"if any single institution ‘made’ the Eurasian Middle Ages it was pilgrimage" Nevertheless, after the 15th century, the Silk Road disappeared from regular use. This was primarily a result from the growing sea travel pioneered by Europeans, which allowed the trade of goods by sailing around the southern tip of Africa and into the Indian Ocean. The route was vulnerable to spreading plague. The Plague of Justinian originated in East Asia and had a major outbreak in Europe in 542 causing the deaths of a quarter of the Mediterranean's population. Trade between Europe, Africa and Asia along the route was at least partially responsible for spreading the plague. Eight centuries later, the Silk Road trade played a role in spreading the infamous Black Death. The disease, spread by rats, was carried by merchant ships sailing across the Mediterranean that brought the plague back to Sicily, causing an

epidemic An epidemic (from Greek ἐπί ''epi'' "upon or above" and δῆμος ''demos'' "people") is the rapid spread of disease to a large number of patients among a given population within an area in a short period of time. Epidemics of infectious d ...

in 1347.

Plague and disease

In the Eurasian world, disease was an inescapable part of daily life. Europe in particular suffered minor outbreaks of disease every decade during the period. Using both land and sea routes, devastating pandemics could spread far beyond their initial focal point. Tracking the origin of massive

bubonic plague Bubonic plague is one of three types of plague caused by the plague bacterium ('' Yersinia pestis''). One to seven days after exposure to the bacteria, flu-like symptoms develop. These symptoms include fever, headaches, and vomiting, as ...

s and their potential spread between Eastern and Western Eurasia has been academically contentious. Besides bubonic plague, other diseases including

smallpox Smallpox was an infectious disease caused by variola virus (often called smallpox virus) which belongs to the genus Orthopoxvirus. The last naturally occurring case was diagnosed in October 1977, and the World Health Organization (WHO) ce ...

also spread across cultural regions.

The First Plague

The

First plague pandemic The first plague pandemic was the first historically recorded Old World pandemic of plague, the contagious disease caused by the bacterium ''Yersinia pestis''. Also called the early medieval pandemic, it began with the Plague of Justinian in 541 ...

caused by

Yersinia pestis ''Yersinia pestis'' (''Y. pestis''; formerly '' Pasteurella pestis'') is a gram-negative, non-motile, coccobacillus bacterium without spores that is related to both '' Yersinia pseudotuberculosis'' and '' Yersinia enterocolitica''. It is a facu ...

began with the 541-549 Plague of Justinian. The origin of the plague appears to have been the

Tian Shan The Tian Shan,, , otk, 𐰴𐰣 𐱅𐰭𐰼𐰃, , tr, Tanrı Dağı, mn, Тэнгэр уул, , ug, تەڭرىتاغ, , , kk, Тәңіртауы / Алатау, , , ky, Теңир-Тоо / Ала-Тоо, , , uz, Tyan-Shan / Tangritog‘ ...

mountains in

Kyrgyzstan Kyrgyzstan,, pronounced or the Kyrgyz Republic, is a landlocked country in Central Asia. Kyrgyzstan is bordered by Kazakhstan to the north, Uzbekistan to the west, Tajikistan to the south, and the People's Republic of China to the ea ...

. But the origin of the 541–549 epidemic remains uncertain: some historians postulate East Africa as a possible geographical origin. There is no record of a disease with the characteristics of Yersinia pestis breaking out in China before its appearance in

Pelusium Pelusium ( Ancient Egyptian: ; cop, /, romanized: , or , romanized: ; grc, Πηλουσιον, Pēlousion; la, Pēlūsium; Arabic: ; Egyptian Arabic: ) was an important city in the eastern extremes of Egypt's Nile Delta, 30 km to ...

Egypt Egypt ( ar, مصر , ), officially the Arab Republic of Egypt, is a transcontinental country spanning the northeast corner of Africa and southwest corner of Asia via a land bridge formed by the Sinai Peninsula. It is bordered by the Med ...

. The plague spread to Europe and Western Asia, with a possible spread into East Asia. Established urban civilizations were massively depopulated; the economies and social fabric of established empires were severely destabilized. Rural societies, while still facing horrific death tolls, saw fewer socio-economic effects. In addition, no evidence has been found of bubonic plague in India before 1600. Nevertheless, it is likely that the trauma of disease (and other natural disasters) was a major cause of profound religious and political changes in Eurasia. Different authorities reacted to disease outbreaks with strategies that they believed would best protect their power. The Catholic Church in France spoke of healing miracles; Confucian bureaucrats asserted that sudden deaths of Chinese emperors represented the loss of a dynasty's

Mandate of Heaven The Mandate of Heaven () is a Chinese political philosophy that was used in ancient and imperial China to legitimize the rule of the King or Emperor of China. According to this doctrine, heaven (天, '' Tian'') – which embodies the natur ...

, shifting blame away from themselves. The severe loss of manpower in Byzantium and the Sasanian Empire contributed to

Early Muslim conquests The early Muslim conquests or early Islamic conquests ( ar, الْفُتُوحَاتُ الإسْلَامِيَّة, ), also referred to as the Arab conquests, were initiated in the 7th century by Muhammad, the main Islamic prophet. He estab ...

in the region. In the long term, overland trade in Eurasia diminshed, as coastal Indian Ocean trade became more frequent. There were recurrent aftershocks of the Plague of Justinian until around 750, after which many nations saw an economic recovery.

Second plague pandemic until 1500

Six centuries later, a relative (but not a direct descendant) of Yersinia Pestis rose to afflict Eurasia:

The Black Death The Black Death (also known as the Pestilence, the Great Mortality or the Plague) was a bubonic plague pandemic occurring in Western Eurasia and North Africa from 1346 to 1353. It is the most fatal pandemic recorded in human history, causin ...

. The first instance of the

Second plague pandemic The second plague pandemic was a major series of epidemics of plague that started with the Black Death, which reached Europe in 1348 and killed up to half of the population of Eurasia in the next four years. Although the plague died out in most pla ...

was between 1347 and 1351. It killed variously between 25% and 50% of populations. Traditionally many historians believed the Black Death started in China and was then spread westward by invading Mongols who inadvertently carried infected fleas and rats with them. Although there is no concrete historical evidence for this theory, the plague is considered endemic on the steppe. Currently there is extensive historiography of the Black Death's effects in Europe and the Islamic world, but beyond Western Eurasia direct evidence for Black Death's presence is lacking. The Bulletin of the History of Medicine explored the potential linking of known 14th century epidemics in Asia with the plague. One example is the

Deccan Plateau The large Deccan Plateau in southern India is located between the Western Ghats and the Eastern Ghats, and is loosely defined as the peninsular region between these ranges that is south of the Narmada river. To the north, it is bounded by t ...

, where much of the Delhi Sultanate's army suddenly died of a sickness in 1334. As this was 15 years before Europe's Black Death but little detail about the symptoms, it is unlikely that this was an instance of bubonic plague. Meanwhile,

(China) suffered from major epidemics in the mid-14th century, including a recorded 90% death rate in Hebei Province. As with the Deccan event, surviving accounts do not describe symptoms; so historians are left to speculate. Perhaps these outbreaks were not the Black Death but instead some other disease already common to East Asia at the time, such as

typhus Typhus, also known as typhus fever, is a group of infectious diseases that include epidemic typhus, scrub typhus, and murine typhus. Common symptoms include fever, headache, and a rash. Typically these begin one to two weeks after exposure. ...

, or

dysentery Dysentery (UK pronunciation: , US: ), historically known as the bloody flux, is a type of gastroenteritis that results in bloody diarrhea. Other symptoms may include fever, abdominal pain, and a feeling of incomplete defecation. Complication ...

. Compared to Western reactions to the Black Death, Chinese records that do mention the epidemics are relatively muted, indicating that epidemics were a routine occurrence. Historians consider the hypothesis of a Chinese origin of a westward-moving plague unlikely given the fragmentation of the Mongol Empire and the 5,000-mile journey between

China proper China proper, Inner China, or the Eighteen Provinces is a term used by some Western writers in reference to the "core" regions of the Manchu-led Qing dynasty of China. This term is used to express a distinction between the "core" regions pop ...

and

Crimea Crimea, crh, Къырым, Qırım, grc, Κιμμερία / Ταυρική, translit=Kimmería / Taurikḗ ( ) is a peninsula in Ukraine, on the northern coast of the Black Sea, that has been occupied by Russia since 2014. It has a p ...

through sparsely populated Central Asia. The aftershocks of the plague continued to affect populations well into the Early modern period. In Western Europe, the devastating loss of people created lasting changes. Wage labor began to rise in Western Europe and there was more emphasis on labor-saving machines and mechanisms. Slavery, which had almost vanished from Medieval Europe, returned and was one of the reasons for early Portuguese exploration after 1400. The adoption of

Arabic numerals Arabic numerals are the ten numerical digits: , , , , , , , , and . They are the most commonly used symbols to write decimal numbers. They are also used for writing numbers in other systems such as octal, and for writing identifiers such as ...

may have been partially caused by the plague. Importantly, many economies became specialist, producing only certain goods, seeking expansion elsewhere for exotic resources and slave labor. While typically Western European expansion as a result of the Black Death is most discussed, Islamic countries including the

Ottoman Empire The Ottoman Empire, * ; is an archaic version. The definite article forms and were synonymous * and el, Оθωμανική Αυτοκρατορία, Othōmanikē Avtokratoria, label=none * info page on book at Martin Luther University) ...

also partook in land-based expansionism and used their own slave trade.

Science

Westerner and Arab practicing geometry 15th century manuscript

The term ''post-classical science'' is often used in academic circles and in college courses to combine the study of medieval European science and medieval Islamic science due to their interactions with one another. However scientific knowledge also spread westward by trade and war from Eastern Eurasia, particularly from China by Arabs. The Islamic world also took medical knowledge from

South Asia South Asia is the southern subregion of Asia, which is defined in both geographical and ethno-cultural terms. The region consists of the countries of Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, Maldives, Nepal, Pakistan, and Sri Lanka.;;;;; ...

. In the Western world and in Islamic realms, much emphasis was placed on preserving the rationalist Greek tradition of figures such as

Aristotle Aristotle (; grc-gre, Ἀριστοτέλης ''Aristotélēs'', ; 384–322 BC) was a Greek philosopher and polymath during the Classical Greece, Classical period in Ancient Greece. Taught by Plato, he was the founder of the Peripatet ...

. In the context of science within Islam there are questions as to whether Islamic scientists simply preserved accomplishments from

classical antiquity Classical antiquity (also the classical era, classical period or classical age) is the period of cultural history between the 8th century BC and the 5th century AD centred on the Mediterranean Sea, comprising the interlocking civilizations ...

or built upon earlier Greek advances. Regardless, classical European science was brought back to the Christian kingdoms due to the experience of the

. As a result of Persian trade in China, and the battle of the

Talas River The Talas ( Kyrgyz, kk, Талас) is a river that rises in the Talas Region of Kyrgyzstan and flows west into Kazakhstan. The river is long and has a basin area of . Course It is formed from the confluence of the Karakol and Uch-Koshoy and ...

, Chinese innovations entered the Islamic intellectual world. These include advances in astronomy and in

paper-making Papermaking is the manufacture of paper and cardboard, which are used widely for printing, writing, and packaging, among many other purposes. Today almost all paper is made using industrial machinery, while handmade paper survives as a speciali ...

.Meggs, Philip B. ''A History of Graphic Design.'' John Wiley & Sons, Inc. 1998. (p. 58) Paper-making spread through the Islamic world as far west as

Islamic Spain Al-Andalus translit. ; an, al-Andalus; ast, al-Ándalus; eu, al-Andalus; ber, ⴰⵏⴷⴰⵍⵓⵙ, label= Berber, translit=Andalus; ca, al-Àndalus; gl, al-Andalus; oc, Al Andalús; pt, al-Ândalus; es, al-Ándalus () was the M ...

, before paper-making was acquired for Europe by the

. There is debate about transmission of gunpowder regarding whether the Mongols introduced Chinese gunpowder weapons to Europe or whether gunpowder weapons were independently invented in Europe. In the Mongol Empire, information from diverse cultures was brought together for large projects: for instance in 1303 the Mongol

combined Chinese and Islamic cartography to make a map that likely included all of Eurasia including western Europe. This "Eurasia map" is now lost, but it influenced Chinese and Korean geographical knowdlege centuries later. It is apparent that within Eurasia transfer of information between world cultures did occur, usually through translations of written documents.

Literate culture and arts

Within Eurasia, there were four major civilization groups that had literate cultures and created literature and arts, including Europe, the Middle East, South Asia and East Asia. Southeast Asia could be a possible fifth category but was influenced heavily from both South and East Asia literal cultures. All four cultures in Post-Classical Times used

poetry Poetry (derived from the Greek '' poiesis'', "making"), also called verse, is a form of literature that uses aesthetic and often rhythmic qualities of language − such as phonaesthetics, sound symbolism, and metre − to evoke meanings ...

drama Drama is the specific Mode (literature), mode of fiction Mimesis, represented in performance: a Play (theatre), play, opera, mime, ballet, etc., performed in a theatre, or on Radio drama, radio or television.Elam (1980, 98). Considered as a g ...

and

prose Prose is a form of written or spoken language that follows the natural flow of speech, uses a language's ordinary grammatical structures, or follows the conventions of formal academic writing. It differs from most traditional poetry, where the f ...

. Throughout the period and until the 19th century poetry was the dominant form of literary expression. In the Middle East, South Asia, Europe and China great poetic works often used figurative language. Examples include, the

Sanskrit Sanskrit (; attributively , ; nominalization, nominally , , ) is a classical language belonging to the Indo-Aryan languages, Indo-Aryan branch of the Indo-European languages. It arose in South Asia after its predecessor languages had Trans-cul ...

Shakuntala Shakuntala (Sanskrit: ''Śakuntalā'') is the wife of Dushyanta and the mother of Emperor Bharata. Her story is told in the '' Adi Parva'' of the ancient Indian epic ''Mahabharata'' and dramatized by many writers, the most famous adaption be ...

'', the

Arabic Arabic (, ' ; , ' or ) is a Semitic language spoken primarily across the Arab world.Semitic languages: an international handbook / edited by Stefan Weninger; in collaboration with Geoffrey Khan, Michael P. Streck, Janet C. E.Watson; Walte ...

Thousand and one nights ''One Thousand and One Nights'' ( ar, أَلْفُ لَيْلَةٍ وَلَيْلَةٌ, italic=yes, ) is a collection of Middle Eastern folk tales compiled in Arabic during the Islamic Golden Age. It is often known in English as the ''Arabian ...

'', Old English ''

Beowulf ''Beowulf'' (; ang, Bēowulf ) is an Old English Epic poetry, epic poem in the tradition of Germanic heroic legend consisting of 3,182 Alliterative verse, alliterative lines. It is one of the most important and List of translations of Beo ...

'' and works by the Chinese Du Fu. In Japan, prose uniquely thrived more than in other geographic areas. The ''

Tale of Genji Tale may refer to: * Narrative, or story, a report of real or imaginary connected events * TAL effector (TALE), a type of DNA binding protein * Tale, Albania, a resort town * Tale, Iran, a village * Tale, Maharashtra, a village in Ratnagiri di ...

'' is considered the world's first realistic novel written in the 9th century. Musically, most regions of the world only used monophonic melodies as opposed to

harmony In music, harmony is the process by which individual sounds are joined together or composed into whole units or compositions. Often, the term harmony refers to simultaneously occurring frequencies, pitches ( tones, notes), or chords. Howev ...

. Medieval Europe was the lone exception to this rule, developing harmonic music in the 14th/15th century as musical culture transitioned form sacred music (meant for the church) to secular music. South Asian and Mid-Eastern music were similar to each other for their use of microtone. East-Asian music shared some similarities with European Music by using twelve tones and employing scaes, but differed in the number of scales used- 5 for the former and seven for the latter

History by region in the Old World

Africa

Djenne Terracotta Equestrian (13th-15th cent)

During the Postclassical Era,

was both culturally and politically affected by the introduction of Islam and the Arabic empires. This was especially true in the north, the

Sudan region Sudan is the geographical region to the south of the Sahara, stretching from Western Africa to Central and Eastern Africa. The name derives from the Arabic ' (), or "the lands of the Blacks", referring to West Africa and northern Central Afric ...

, and the east coast. However, this conversion was not complete nor uniform among different areas, and the low-level classes hardly changed their beliefs at all. Prior to the migration and conquest of Muslims into Africa, much of the continent was dominated by diverse societies of varying sizes and complexities. These were ruled by kings or councils of elders who would control their constituents in a variety of ways. Most of these peoples practiced spiritual, animistic religions. Africa was culturally separated between Saharan Africa (which consisted of

and the

Sahara Desert , photo = Sahara real color.jpg , photo_caption = The Sahara taken by Apollo 17 astronauts, 1972 , map = , map_image = , location = , country = , country1 = , ...

) and Sub-Saharan Africa (everything south of the Sahara). Sub-Saharan Africa was further divided into the Sudan, which covered everything north of

Central Africa Central Africa is a subregion of the African continent comprising various countries according to different definitions. Angola, Burundi, the Central African Republic, Chad, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, the Republic of the Congo, E ...

, including

. The area south of the Sudan was primarily occupied by the

Bantu peoples The Bantu peoples, or Bantu, are an ethnolinguistic grouping of approximately 400 distinct ethnic groups who speak Bantu languages. They are native to 24 countries spread over a vast area from Central Africa to Southeast Africa and into Southe ...

who spoke the

Bantu language The Bantu languages (English: , Proto-Bantu: *bantʊ̀) are a large family of languages spoken by the Bantu people of Central, Southern, Eastern africa and Southeast Africa. They form the largest branch of the Southern Bantoid languages. T ...

. From 1100 onward

and the

Islamic World The terms Muslim world and Islamic world commonly refer to the Islamic community, which is also known as the Ummah. This consists of all those who adhere to the religious beliefs and laws of Islam or to societies in which Islam is practiced. In ...

became dependent on Africa for gold. After approximately 650 urbanization expanded for the first time beyond the ancient kingdoms Kingdom of Aksum, Aksum and Nubia. African civilizations can be divided into three categories based on religion: *Christian civilizations on the Horn of Africa, *Islamic civilizations which formed in the Niger River valley in West Africa, and on the coast of East Africa, and *Traditional society, traditional societies which adhered to native African religions. South of the Sahara African kingdoms developed based on continental trade with one another through land based routes and generally avoided sea trade. Sub-Saharan Africa was part of two large, separate trading networks, the Trans Saharan trade which bridged commerce between West and North Africa. Due to the huge profits from trade native African Islamic empires arose, including those of Ghana Empire, Ghana,

and Songhai Empire, Songhay. In the 14th century, Musa I of Mali, Mansa Musa king of Mali may have been the wealthiest person of his time. Within Mali, the city of Timbuktu was an international center of science and well known throughout the Islamic World, particularly from the Sankore Madrasah, University of Sankore. East Africa was part of the Indian Ocean trade, Indian Ocean trade network, which included both Arab ruled Islamic cities on the East African Coast such as Mombasa and Traditional cities such as Great Zimbabwe which exported gold, copper and ivory to markets in the Middle East, South Asia, and Southeast Asia.

Europe

In Europe, Western civilization reconstituted after the Fall of the Western Roman Empire into the period now known as the Early Middle Ages (500–1000). The Early Middle Ages saw a continuation of trends begun in Late Antiquity: depopulation, deurbanization, and increased barbarian invasion.Gilian Clark, ''Late Antiquity: A Very Short Introduction'' (Oxford 2011), pp. 1–2. From the 7th until the 11th centuries Early Muslim conquests, Arabs, Hungarians, Magyars and Viking Age, Norse were all threats to the Christian Kingdoms that killed thousands of people over centuries. Raiders however, also created new trading networks. In western Europe the Frankish king Charlemagne attempted to kindle the rise of culture and science in the Carolingian Renaissance. In the year 800 Charlemagne founded the

in attempt to resurrect Classical Rome. The reign of Charlemagne attempted to kindle a rise of learning and literacy in what has become known as the Carolingian Renaissance. In Eastern Europe, the Eastern Roman Empire survived in what is now called the

which created the Corpus Juris Civilis, Code of Justinian that inspired the legal structures of modern European states. Overseen by Orthodox Christianity, Christian Orthodox emperors, in the 9th-10th centuries the Byzantine

Christianized the First Bulgarian Empire and Kievan Rus', Kievan Rus, the cultural and political ancestors to modern-day Bulgaria and North Macedonia, on the one hand, and Russia and Ukraine, on the other. Byzantium flourished as the leading power and trade center in its region in the Macedonian Renaissance until it was overshadowed by Italian city-states, Italian City States and the Islamic

near the end of the Middle Ages. Bobolice, zamek

Later in the period, the creation of the feudal system allowed greater degrees of military and agricultural organization. There was sustained urbanization in Northern Europe, northern and western Europe. Later developments were marked by

and

, and evolved into the prosperous High Middle Ages. After 1000 the Christian kingdoms that had emerged from Rome's collapse changed dramatically in their cultural and societal character. During the High Middle Ages (c. 1000–1300), Christianity, Christian-oriented art and architecture flourished and the

were mounted to recapture the Holy Land from Muslim control. The influence of the emerging nation-state was tempered by the ideal of an international Christendom and the presence of the Catholic Church, Roman Catholic Church in all western kingdoms. The codes of chivalry and courtly love set rules for proper behavior, while the Scholasticism, Scholastic philosophers attempted to reconcile faith and reason. The age of Feudalism would be dramatically transformed by the cataclysm of the Black Death and its aftermath. This time would be a major underlying cause for the Renaissance. By the turn of the 16th century European or Western world, Western Civilization would be engaging in the Age of Discovery. The term "Middle Ages" first appears in Latin in the 15th century and reflects the view that this period was a deviation from the path of Classical antiquity, classical learning, a path supposedly reconnected by

scholarship.Miglio "Curial Humanism" ''Interpretations of Renaissance Humanism'' p. 112

West Asia

The Arabian peninsula and the surrounding Middle East and Near East regions saw dramatic change during the Postclassical Era caused primarily by the spread of Islam and the establishment of the Caliphate, Arabian Empires. In the 5th century, the Middle East was separated by empires and their spheres of influence; the two most prominent were the Persian Sasanian Empire, centered in what is now Iran, and the

in Anatolia (modern-day Turkey). The Byzantines and Sasanians fought with each other continually, a reflection of the rivalry between the Roman Empire and the Persian Empire seen during the previous five hundred years. The fighting weakened both states, leaving the stage open to a new power. Meanwhile, the nomadic Bedouin tribes who dominated the Arabian desert saw a period of tribal warfare for scarce resources and a familiarity with Abrahamic religions or monotheism. While the Byzantine Empire, Byzantine Roman and Sassanian Empire, Sassanid Persian empires were both weakened by the Byzantine–Sasanian War of 602–628, a new power in the form of Islam grew in the Middle East under Muhammad in Medina. In a series of rapid Muslim conquests, the Rashidun army, led by the Caliphs and skilled military commanders such as Khalid ibn al-Walid, swept through most of the Middle East, taking more than half of Byzantine territory in the Arab–Byzantine wars and completely engulfing Persia in the Muslim conquest of Persia. Meanwhile, the nomadic Bedouin tribes who dominated the Arabian desert saw a period of tribal warfare for scarce resources and a familiarity with Abrahamic religions or monotheism. It would be the Arab Caliphates of the

that would first unify the entire Middle East as a distinct region and create the dominant Arab, ethnic identity that persists today. These Caliphates included the Rashidun Caliphate, Umayyad Caliphate, Abbasid Caliphate, and later the Turkic-based Seljuq Empire. 15th century egyptian anatomy of horse

After Muhammad introduced Islam, it jump-started Middle Eastern culture into an

, inspiring achievements in architecture, the revival of old advances in science and technology, and the formation of a distinct way of life. Muslims saved and spread Greek advances in History of medicine, medicine, History of elementary algebra, algebra, History of geometry, geometry, History of astronomy, astronomy, History of anatomy, anatomy, and History of ethics, ethics that would later finds it way back to Western Europe. The dominance of the Arabs came to a sudden end in the mid-11th century with the arrival of the Seljuq Turks, migrating south from the Turkic homelands in Central Asia. They conquered Persia, Iraq (capturing Baghdad in 1055), Syria, Palestine, and the Hejaz. This was followed by a series of Christian Western Europe invasions. The fragmentation of the Middle East allowed joint European forces mainly from Kingdom of England, England, Kingdom of France, France, and the emerging

, to enter the region. In 1099 the knights of the First Crusade captured Jerusalem and founded the Kingdom of Jerusalem, which survived until 1187, when Saladin retook the city. Smaller crusader fiefdoms survived until 1291. In the early 13th century, a new wave of invaders, the armies of the Mongol Empire, swept through the region, sacking Baghdad in the Siege of Baghdad (1258) and advancing as far south as the border of Egypt in what became known as the

. The Mongols eventually retreated in 1335, but the chaos that ensued throughout the empire deposed the Seljuq Turks. In 1401, the region was further plagued by the Turco-Mongol tradition, Turko-Mongol, Timur, and his ferocious raids. By then, another group of Turks had arisen as well, the Ottoman Turks, Ottomans.

South Asia

There has been difficulty applying the word 'medieval' or 'post classical' to the history of South Asia. This section follows historian Stein Burton's definition that corresponds from the 8th century to the 16th century, more of less following the same time frame of the Post Classical Period and the European Middle Ages. Thanjuvur Peruvudayar Temple ( Big Temple)

Thanjuvur Peruvudayar Temple ( Big Temple)

Until the 13th century, there was no less than 20 to 40 different states on the Indian Subcontinent which hosted a variety of cultures, languages, writing systems and religions. At the beginning of the time period

was predominant throughout the area with the short-lived Pala Empire on the Indo-Gangetic Plain, Indo Gangetic Plain sponsoring the faith's institutions. One such institution was the Buddhist Nalanda University in modern-day Bihar, Bihar, India a centre of scholarship and brought a divided South Asia onto the global intellectual stage. Another accomplishment was the invention of the ''Chaturanga'' game which later was exported to Europe and became Chess. In Southern India, the Hindu Kingdom of Chola dynasty, Chola gained prominence with an overseas empire that controlled parts of modern-day Sri Lanka, Malaysia, and Chola invasion of Srivijaya, Indonesia as oversees territories and accelerated the spread of Hinduism into the historic culture of these places. In this time period, neighboring areas such as History of Afghanistan, Afghanistan, History of Tibet, Tibet, History of Southeast Asia, Southeast Asia were under Greater India, South Asian influence. From 1206 onward a series of Muslim conquests in the Indian subcontinent, Turkic Islamic invasions from modern-day Afghanistan and Iran conquered massive portions of Northern India, founding the Delhi Sultanate which remained supreme until the 16th century. Decline of Buddhism in the Indian subcontinent, Buddhism declined in South Asia vanishing in many areas but Hinduism survived and reinforced itself in areas conquered by Hindu–Islamic relations, Muslims. In the far South, the Kingdom of Vijayanagara Empire, Vijanyagar was not conquered by any Muslim state in the period. The turn of the 16th century would see the rise of a new Islamic Empire – the Mughal Empire, Mughals and the establishment of European trade posts by the Portuguese India, Portuguese.

Southeast Asia

From the 8th century onward Southeast Asia stood to benefit from the trade taking place between South and East Asia, numerous kingdoms arose in the region due to the flow of wealth passing through the Strait of Malacca. While Southeast Asia had numerous outside influences Greater India, India was the greatest source of inspiration for the region. North Vietnam as an exception was culturally closer to China for centuries due to conquest. Since rule from the third century BCE North Vietnam continued to be subjugated by Chinese states, although they continually resisted periodically. There were three periods of Chinese domination of Vietnam, Chinese Domination that spanned near 1100 years. The Vietnamese gained long lasting independence in the 10th century when China was Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms period, divided with Tĩnh Hải quân and the successor Đại Việt. Nonetheless, even as an independent state a sort of begrudging sinicization occurred. South Vietnam was governed by the ancient Hindu Champa, Champa Kingdom but was annexed by the Cham–Annamese War, Vietnamese in the 15th century. The spread of Hinduism,

and maritime trade between China and South Asia created the foundation for Southeast Asia's first major empires; including the Khmer Empire from Cambodia and Srivijaya, Sri Vijaya from Indonesia. During the Khmer Empire's height in the 12th century the city of Angkor Thom was among the largest of the pre-modern world due to its water management. Jayavarman II, King Jayavarman II constructed over a hundred hospitals throughout his realm. Nearby rose the Pagan Empire in modern-day Burma, using elephants as military might. The construction of the Buddhist Shwezigon Pagoda and its tolerance for believers of older polytheistic gods helped Theravada, Theravada Buddhism become supreme in the region. In Indonesia, Srivijaya from the 7th through 14th century was a Thalassocracy that focused on maritime city states and trade. Controlling the vital choke points of the Sunda Strait, Sunda and Strait of Malacca, Malacca straits it became rich from trade ranging from Japan through Arabia. Gold, Ivory and Ceramics were all major commodities traveling through port cities. The Empire was also responsible for the construction of wonders such as Borobudur. During this time Indonesian sailors crossed the

; evidence suggests that they may have colonized History of Madagascar, Madagascar. Indian culture spread to the History of the Philippines (900–1521), Philippines, likely through Indonesian trade resulting in the first documented use of writing in the archipelago and Indianized kingdoms. Over time changing economic and political conditions elsewhere and wars weakened the traditional empires of South East Asia. While the Mongol invasions and conquests, Mongol Invasions did not directly annex Southeast Asia the war-time devastation paved way for the rise of new nations. In the 14th century the Khmer Empire was uprooted by persistent years of war- losing the functinality and engineering knowledge of its advanced water management system. Srivijaya, Sri Vijaya was overtaken by the Majapahit. Islamic missionaries and merchants arrived eventually leading to Islamization in Indonesia.

East Asia

The time frame of 500–1500 in East Asia's history and China in particular has been proposed as a possible classification for the region's history within the context of global Post-classical history. Discussions within Columbia University's Association of Asian studies have postulated that similarities between China and other regions of Eurasia during Post-Classical Times have often been overlooked. Typically the English language histography of Japan postulates that its 'medieval period' began as late as 1185. During this period the Eastern world empires continued to expand through trade, migration and conquests of neighboring areas. Japan and Korea went under the process of voluntary sinicization, or the impression of Chinese cultural and political ideas. Three Kingdoms of Korea, Korea and Asuka period, Japan sinicized because their ruling class were largely impressed by China's bureaucracy. The major influences China had on these countries were the spread of Confucianism, the spread of Buddhism, and the establishment of centralized governance. Throughout East Asia, Buddhism was most visible in monasteries and local educational institutions and Confucianism remained the ideology of social cohesion and state power. In the times of the Sui dynasty, Sui, Tang dynasty, Tang and Song dynasty, Song dynasties (581–1279), China remained the world's largest economy and most technologically advanced society. Four Great Inventions, Inventions such as gunpowder, woodblock printing and the magnetic compass were improved upon. China stood in contrast to other areas at the time as the imperial governments exhibited concentrated central authority instead of

. China exhibited much interest in Foreign relations of imperial China, foreign affairs during the Tang and Song dynasties. From the 7th through the 10th Tang China was focused on securing the Silk Road as the selling of its goods westwards was central to the nation's economy. For a time China, successfully secured its frontiers by integrating their nomadic neighbors- the Göktürks, Gokturks into their civilization. The Tang dynasty expanded into Central Asia and received tribute from countries as distant as Eastern Iran. Western expansion ended with Battle of Talas, wars with the Abbasid Caliphate and the deadly An Lushan Rebellion which resulted in an deadly but uncertain death toll of millions. After the collapse of the Tang dynasty and subsequent Ten Kingdoms period, civil wars came the second phase of Chinese interest in foreign relations. Unlike the Tang, the Song specialized in overseas trade and peacefully created a maritime network and China's population became concentrated in the south. Chinese merchant ships reached Indonesia, India and Arabia. Southeast Asia's economy flourished from trade with Song China. With the country's emphasis on trade and economic growth, Economy of the Song dynasty, Song China's economy began to use machines to manufacture goods and coal as a source of energy. The advances of the Song in the 11th/12th centuries have been considered an early Chinese industrialization, industrial revolution. Economic advancements came at the cost of military affairs and the Song became open to invasions from the north. China became divided as Song's northern lands were conquered by the Jurchen people. By 1200 there were five Chinese kingdoms stretching from modern day Turkestan to the Sea of Japan including the Qara Khitai, Western Liao, Western Xia, Jin dynasty (1115–1234), Jin, Song dynasty, Southern Song and Dali Kingdom, Dali. Because these states competed with each other they all were eventually annexed by the rising Mongol Empire before 1279. After seventy years of Mongol conquest of China, conquest, the Mongols proclaimed the

and also annexed Mongol invasions of Korea, Korea; they failed to conquer Mongol invasions of Japan, Japan. Mongol conquerors also made China accessible to Europeans in Medieval China, European travelers such as Marco Polo. The Mongol era was short lived due to plagues and famine. After Red Turban Rebellion, revolution in 1368 the succeeding

ushered in a period of prosperity and brief Ming treasure voyages, foreign expeditions before isolating itself from global affairs for centuries. Joseon, Korea and Muromachi period, Japan however continued to have relations with China and with other Asian countries. In the 15th century Sejong the Great of Korea cemented his country's identity by creating the Hangul, Hangul Writing system to replace use of Chinese characters, Chinese Characters. Meanwhile, Japan fell under military rule of the

and later Ashikaga shogunate, Ashikaga Shogunate dominated by Samurai warriors.

The Americas

The Postclassical Era of the Americas can be considered set at a different time span from that of Afro-Eurasia. As the developments of Mesoamerican and Andean civilization differ greatly from that of the Old World, as well as the speed at which it developed, the Postclassical Era in the traditional sense does not take place until near the end of the medieval age in Western Europe. As such, for the purposes of this article, the Woodland period and Classic stage of the Americas will be discussed here, which takes place from about 400 to 1400. For the technical Postclassical stage in American development which took place on the eve of European contact, see Post-Classic stage.

North America

As a continent there was little unified trade or communication. Advances in agriculture spread northward from

indirectly through trade. Major cultural areas however still developed independently of each other.

Norse Contact and the Polar Regions

While there was little regular contact between the Americas and the Old World the Vikings, Norse Vikings explored and even colonized Greenland and Canada as early as 1000. None of these settlements survived past Middle Ages, Medieval Times. Outside of Scandinavia knowledge of the discovery of the Americas was interpreted as a Vinland#Medieval geographers, remote island or the North Pole. The Norse arriving from Greenland settled Greenland from approximately 980 to 1450. The Norse arrived in southern Greenland prior to the 13th century approach of Inuit Thule people in the area. The extent of the interaction between the Norse and Thule is unclear. Greenland was valuable to the Norse due to trade of ivory that came from the tusks of walruses. The

adversely affected the colonies and they vanished. Greenland would be lost to Europeans until Danish colonization of the Americas, Danish Colonization in the 18th century. The Norse also explored and colonized farther south in Newfoundland, Newfoundland Canada at L'Anse aux Meadows referred to by the Norse as ''Vinland''. The colony at most existed for twenty years and resulted in no known transmission of diseases or technology to the First Nations in Canada, First Nations. To the Norse ''Vinland'' was known for plentiful grape vines to make superior wine. One reason for the colony's failure was constant violence with the native Beothuk tribe who the Norse referred to as Skræling, Skraeling. After initial expeditions there is a possibility that the Norse continued to visit modern day Canada. Surviving records from medieval Iceland indicate some sporadic voyages to a land called ''Markland'', possibly the coast of Labrador, Labrador, Canada, as late as 1347 presumably to collect wood for deforested Greenland.

Northern Areas

Mississippi Pipe bowl chunkey player EthnM

In northern North America, many hunter-gatherer and agricultural societies thrived in the diverse region. Native American in the United States, Native American tribes varied greatly in characteristics; some, including the Mound Builders and the Oasisamerica, Oasisamerican cultures were complex chiefdoms. Other nations which inhabited the states of the modern northern United States and Canada had less complexity and did not follow technological changes as quickly. Approximately around the year 500 during the Woodland period, Native Americans began to transition to bows and arrows from spears for hunting and warfare. Technological advancement however was uneven. During the 12th century was the widespread adoption of Corn as a staple crop in the Eastern United States. Corn would continue to be the staple crop of natives in the Eastern United States and Canada until the Columbian Exchange, Colombian Exchange. Stonework Mesa Verde National Park Colorado USA

Stonework Mesa Verde National Park Colorado USA

In the eastern United States, rivers were the medium of trade and communication. Cahokia located in the modern U.S. State of Illinois was among the most significant city within the

. Focused around Monks Mound archaeology indicates the population increased exponentially after 1000 because it manufactured important tools for agriculture and hosted cultural attractions. Around 1350 Cahokia was abandoned, environmental factors have been proposed for the city's decline. At the same time Ancestral Puebloans constructed clusters of buildings in the Chaco Culture National Historical Park, Chaco Canyon site located in the New Mexico, State of New Mexico. Individual houses may have been occupied by more than 600 residents at any one time. Chaco Canyon was the only pre-Columbian site in the United States to build paved roads. Pottery indicates a society that was becoming more complex, turkeys for the first time in the continental United States were also domesticated. Around 1150 the structures of Chaco Canyon were abandoned, likely as a result of severe drought. There were also other Pueblo complexes in the Southwestern United States. After reaching climaxes native complex societies in the United States declined and did not entirely recover before the arrival of European Explorers.

Mesoamerica

At the beginning of the global Post Classic Period, the city of

was at its zenith, housing over 125,000 people, at 500 A.D it was the sixth largest city in the world at the time. The city's residents built the Pyramid of the Sun the third largest pyramid of the world, oriented to follow astronomical events. Suddenly in the 6th and 7th centuries, the city suddenly declined possibly as a result of severe environmental damage caused by extreme weather events of 535–536. There is evidence that large parts of the city were burned, possibly in a domestic rebellion. The city's legacy would inspire all future civilizations in the region. At the same time was Classic Age of the Maya civilization, Mayan Civilization clustered in dozens of city states on the Yucatán Peninsula, Yucatán and modern day Guatemala. The most significant of these cities was Chichen Itza which often fiercely competed with its neighbors to be the dominant economic influence in the region. The Mayans had an upper caste of priests, who were well versed in astronomy, mathematics and writing. The Mayan developed the concept of zero, and a 365-day calendar which possibly pre-dates its creation in Old-World societies. After 900, many Mayan cities suddenly declined in a period of drought. Aztec11 Bloodletting

The Toltec Empire arose from the Toltec culture, and were remembered as wise and benevolent leaders. One priest-king called Ce Acatl Topiltzin advocated against human sacrifice. After his death in 947, civil wars of religious character broke out between those who supported and opposed Topiltzin's teachings. Modern historians however are skeptical of the extent of Toltec and influence and believe that much of the information known about the Toltecs was created by the later Aztecs as an inspiration myth. In the 1300s, a small band of violent, religious radicals called the

s began minor raids throughout the area. Eventually they began to claim connections with the Toltec civilization, and insisted they were the rightful successors. They began to grow in numbers and conquer large areas of land. Fundamental to their conquest, was the use of Terrorism, political terror in the sense that the Aztec leaders and priests would command the human sacrifice of their Conquest (military)#Subjugation, subjugated people as means of humility and coercion. Most of the Mesoamerican region would eventually fall under the Aztec Empire. On the Yucatán Peninsula most of the Maya peoples, Mayan People continued to be independent of the Aztecs but their traditional civilization declined. Aztec developments expanded cultivation, applying the use of chinampas, irrigation, and terrace agriculture; important crops included maize, sweet potatoes, and avocados. In 1430 the city of Tenochtitlan allied with other powerful Nahuan languages, Nahuatl speaking cities- Texcoco (altepetl), Texcoco and Tlacopan to create the Aztec Empire otherwise known as Triple-Alliance. Though referred to as an empire the Aztec Empire functioned as a system of tribute collection with Tenochtitlan at its center. By the turn of the 16th century "flower wars" between the Aztecs and rival states such as Tlaxcala (Nahua state), Tlaxcala had continued for over fifty years.

South America

South American civilization was concentrated in the Andean region which had already hosted complex cultures since 2,500 BC. East of the Andean region, societies were generally semi nomadic. Discoveries on the Amazon basin, Amazon River Basin indicate the region likely had a pre-contact population of five million people and hosted complex societies. Around the continent numerous agricultural peoples from History of Colombia, Colombia to History of Argentina, Argentina steadily advanced through numerous stages of development from 500 AD until European contact.

Andean Region

Temple of the Sun, Machu Picchu, Peru - panoramio (1)

During Ancient history, Ancient times the Andean Region had developed civilizations independent of outside influences including that of

. Through the Post Classical era a cycle of civilizations continued until Spanish conquest of the Inca Empire, Spanish contact. Collectively Andean societies lacked currency, a written language and solid draft animals enjoyed by old world civilizations. Instead Andeans developed other methods to foster their growth, including use of the quipu system to communicate messages, llamas to carry smaller loads and an economy based on Reciprocity (social and political philosophy), reciprocity. Societies were often based on strict social hierarchies and economic redistribution from the ruling class. In the first half of the Post Classical Period the Andean Region was dominated by two almost equally powerful states. In the North of Peru was the Wari Empire and in the South of Peru and Bolivia there was the Tiwanaku empire both of whom were inspired by the earlier Moche culture, Moche People. While the extent of their relationship to each other is unknown, it is believed that they were in a Cold-War with one another, competing but avoiding direct conflict to avoid mutual assured destruction. Without war there was prosperity and around the year 700 Tiwanaku city hosted a population of 1.4. million. After the 8th century both states declined due to changing environmental conditions, laying the ground work for the Incas to emerge as a distinct culture centuries later. In the 15th century the Inca Empire rose to annex all other nations in the area. Led by their sun-god king, Sapa Inca, they slowly conquered what is now Peru, and built their society throughout the Andes cultural region. The Incas spoke the Quechua languages. The Incas used the advances created by earlier Andean societies. Incas have been known to have used abacuses to calculate mathematics. The Inca Empire is known for some of its magnificent structures, such as Machu Picchu in the Cusco region. The empire expanded quickly northwards to Ecuador, Southwards to central Chile. To the north of the Inca Empire remained the independent Tairona and Muisca Confederation who practiced agriculture and gold metallurgy.

Caribbean Region

Oceania

Separate from developments in Afro-Eurasia and the Americas the region of greater

continued to develop independently of the outside world. In History of Australia, Australia, the society of Aboriginal Australians changed little through the Post Classical Period since their arrival in the area from Africa around 50,000 BC. The only outside contact were encounters with fishermen of Makassan contact with Australia, Indonesian origin. Polynesian and Micronesian peoples are rooted from Taiwanese indigenous peoples, Taiwan and Southeast Asia and began their migration into the Pacific Ocean from 3000 to 1500 BC. After the 4th century Micronesian people, Micronesia and the Polynesians, Polynesian peoples began to explore the South Pacific and later constructed cities in previously uninhabitated areas including Nan Madol Muʻa (Tongatapu), Mu'a and others. Around 1200 AD the Tu'i Tonga Empire spread its influence far and wide throughout the South Pacific Islands, being described by academics as a maritime chiefdom which used trade networks to keep power centralized around the king's capital. Polynesians on Outrigger canoe, outrigger canoes Polynesian navigation, discovered and colonized some of the last uninhabited islands of earth. Discovery and settlement of Hawaii, Hawaii, History of New Zealand, New Zealand and History of Easter Island, Easter Island were among the final places to be reached, settlers discovering pristine lands. Polynesian narrative, Oral Tradition claimed that navigator Ui-te-Rangiora discovered icebergs in the Southern Ocean. In exploring and settling, Polynesian settlers did not strike at random but used their knowledge of wind and water currents to reach their destinations. Book-Hawaii-Vtorov-246

On the settled islands some Polynesian groups became distinct from one another. A significant example being the Māori people, Maori of New Zealand. Other island systems kept in contact with each other, such as

and the Society Islands. Ecologically, Polynesians had the challenge of sustaining themselves within limited environments. Some settlements caused mass extinctions of some native plant and animal species over time by hunting species such as the Moa and introducing the Polynesian Rat. Easter Island settlers engaged in complete ecological destruction of their habtiat and their population crashed afterwards possibly due to the construction of the Moai, Easter Island Statues. Other colonizing groups adapted to accommodate to the ecology of specific islands such as the Moriori of the Chatham Islands. Europeans on their voyages visited many Pacific Islands in the 16th and 17th century, but most areas of Oceania were not colonized until after the First voyage of James Cook, voyages of British explorer James Cook in the 1780s.

End of the period

As the postclassical era drew to a close in the 15th century, many of the empires established throughout the period were in decline. The

would soon be overshadowed in the Mediterranean by both Islamic and Christian rivals including Republic of Venice, Venice and Republic of Genoa, Genoa and the Ottoman Turks. The Byzantines faced repeated attacks from eastern and western powers during the Fourth Crusade, and declined further until the loss of Constantinople to the Ottoman Turks in 1453. The largest change came in terms of trade and technology. The global significance of the fall of the Byzantines was the disruption of overland routes between Asia and Europe. Traditional dominance of Nomadism in Eurasia declined and the

which had allowed for interactions between different civilizations was no longer available. Western Asia and South Asia were conquered by gunpowder empires which successfully used advances in military technology but closed the Silk Road. Europeans – specifically the Kingdom of Portugal and various Italian explorers – intended to replace land travel with sea travel. Originally European exploration merely looked for new routes to reach known destinations.#DeLamar 1992, DeLamar 1992 Portuguese Explorer Vasco da Gama, Vasco De Gama traveled to India by sea in 1498 by circumnavigating Africa around the Cape of Good Hope. India and the coast of Africa were already known to Europeans but none had attempted a large trading mission prior to that time. Due to navigation advances Portugal would create a Portuguese Empire, global colonial empire beginning with the Capture of Malacca (1511), conquest of Malacca in modern-day Malaysia from 1511. Other Explorers such as the Spanish sponsored Italian Christopher Columbus intended to engage in trade by traveling on unfamiliar routes west from Europe. The subsequent European discovery of the Americas in 1492 resulted in the Columbian Exchange, Colombian exchange and the world's first pan-oceanic globalization. Spanish Explorer Ferdinand Magellan performed the Magellan's circumnavigation, first known circumnavigation of Earth in 1521. The transfer of goods and diseases across oceans was unprecedented in creating a more connected world. From developments in navigation and trade modern history began.

Explanatory notes

References

Citations

Works cited

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External links

Freemanpedia
A graphical representation of the Post-classical era.
Silk Road Seattle
A rich selection of primary sources on the Silk Road and interactions between different cultures in Post-classical times. {{portal bar, History, World Fields of history Historical eras Articles which contain graphical timelines World history

Historiography

Terminology and periodization

Approaches

Global trends

Growth of civilization

Spread of universal religions

Trade and communication

Climate

Timeline

Eurasian trends

Feudalism

Mongol Empire

The Silk Road

Plague and disease

The First Plague

Second plague pandemic until 1500

Science

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History by region in the Old World

Africa

Europe

West Asia

South Asia

Southeast Asia

East Asia

The Americas

North America

Norse Contact and the Polar Regions

Northern Areas

Mesoamerica

South America

Andean Region

Caribbean Region

Oceania

End of the period

Explanatory notes

References

Citations

Works cited

Further reading

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