In world history, post-classical history refers to the period from about 500 AD to 1500, roughly corresponding to the European Middle Ages. 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, the spread of Islam created a series of caliphates and inaugurated the Islamic Golden Age, leading to advances in science in the medieval Islamic world and trade among the Asian, African and European continents. East Asia experienced the full establishment of power of

Imperial China The earliest known written records of the history of China date from as early as 1250 BC, from the Shang dynasty (c. 1600–1046 BC), during the reign of king Wu Ding. Ancient historical texts such as the '' Book of Documents'' (early chapte ...

, which established several prosperous dynasties influencing Korea, Vietnam, and Japan. Religions such as Buddhism and Neo-Confucianism spread in the region. Gunpowder was developed in China during the post-classical era. The

Mongol Empire The Mongol Empire of the 13th and 14th centuries was the largest contiguous land empire in history. Originating in present-day Mongolia in East Asia, the Mongol Empire at its height stretched from the Sea of Japan to parts of Eastern Europe, ...

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 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, causi ...

.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 (in 476 AD), the Gupta Empire (in 543 AD), and the

Sasanian Empire The Sasanian () or Sassanid Empire, officially known as the Empire of Iranians (, ) and also referred to by historians as the Neo-Persian Empire, was the History of Iran, last Iranian empire before the early Muslim conquests of the 7th-8th cen ...

(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 Middle Ages 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 Proto-globalization or early modern globalization is a period of the history of globalization roughly spanning the years between 1600 and 1800, following the period of archaic globalization. First introduced by historians A. G. Hopkins and Christo ...

(beginning around 1500) and subsequent developments, and views post-classical history as mainly pertaining to

Afro-Eurasia Afro-Eurasia (also Afroeurasia, Eurafrasia or the Old World) is a landmass comprising the continents of Africa, Asia, and Europe. The terms are compound words of the names of its constituent parts. Its mainland is the largest and most populou ...

. 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 The Columbian exchange, also known as the Columbian interchange, was the widespread transfer of plants, animals, precious metals, commodities, culture, human populations, technology, diseases, and ideas between the New World (the Americas) in ...

. 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, of ...

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. 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 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 Asia, Africa, Europe, Mesoamerica, and western South America. 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. Africa created the Songhai and Mali 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), as well as a different society (i.e. manorialism). 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 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: 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. * Buddhism 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 had become the

State church of the Roman Empire Christianity became the official religion of the Roman Empire when Emperor Theodosius I issued the Edict of Thessalonica in 380, which recognized the catholic orthodoxy of Nicene Christians in the Great Church as the Roman Empire's state religion. ...

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 Paganism (from classical Latin ''pāgānus'' "rural", "rustic", later "civilian") is a term first used in the fourth century by early Christians for people in the Roman Empire who practiced polytheism, or ethnic religions other than Judaism. ...

. An attempt was even made to incur upon the Middle East during the Crusades. The split of the Catholic Church in Western Europe and the Eastern Orthodox Church in Eastern Europe encouraged religious and cultural diversity in Eurasia. *

Islam Islam (; ar, ۘالِإسلَام, , ) is an Abrahamic religions, Abrahamic Monotheism#Islam, monotheistic religion centred primarily around the Quran, a religious text considered by Muslims to be the direct word of God in Islam, God (or ...

began between 610 and 632, with a series of revelations to Muhammad. It helped unify the warring

Bedouin The Bedouin, Beduin, or Bedu (; , singular ) are nomadic Arab tribes who have historically inhabited the desert regions in the Arabian Peninsula, North Africa, the Levant, and Mesopotamia. The Bedouin originated in the Syrian Desert and A ...

clans of the Arabian peninsula and, through a rapid series of Muslim conquests, became established to the west across North Africa, the Iberian Peninsula, and parts of West Africa, and to the east across Persia, Central Asia, India, and Indonesia. 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

increased rapidly. The

Silk Road The Silk Road () was a network of Eurasian trade routes active from the second century BCE until the mid-15th century. Spanning over 6,400 kilometers (4,000 miles), it played a central role in facilitating economic, cultural, political, and reli ...

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 Eastern civilizations. In Africa the earlier introduction of the

camel A camel (from: la, camelus and grc-gre, κάμηλος (''kamēlos'') from Hebrew or Phoenician: גָמָל ''gāmāl''.) is an even-toed ungulate in the genus ''Camelus'' that bears distinctive fatty deposits known as "humps" on its back. C ...

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 and in the Mediterranean, replacing Byzantium in the latter region. The Christian Crusades into the Middle East (as well as Muslim Spain and Sicily) brought Islamic science, technology, and goods to Western Europe. Western trade into East Asia was pioneered by

Marco Polo Marco Polo (, , ; 8 January 1324) was a Venetian merchant, explorer and writer who travelled through Asia along the Silk Road between 1271 and 1295. His travels are recorded in ''The Travels of Marco Polo'' (also known as ''Book of the Marv ...

. Importantly, China began to influence regions like Japan, Korea and Vietnam through trade and conquest. Finally, the growth of the

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: Crusades 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:

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: Mesoamerica 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 feudalism 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 Central Asia, 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

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 ...

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

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

. 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

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 Crusades. 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, Africa 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

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 ...

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

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 ...

. 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

Aksum Axum, or Aksum (pronounced: ), is a town in the Tigray Region of Ethiopia with a population of 66,900 residents (as of 2015). It is the site of the historic capital of the Aksumite Empire, a naval and trading power that ruled the whole region ...

and

Nubia Nubia () (Nobiin language, Nobiin: Nobīn, ) is a region along the Nile river encompassing the area between the Cataracts of the Nile, first cataract of the Nile (just south of Aswan in southern Egypt) and the confluence of the Blue Nile, Blue ...

. African civilizations can be divided into three categories based on religion: *Christian civilizations on the

Horn of Africa The Horn of Africa (HoA), also known as the Somali Peninsula, is a large peninsula and geopolitical region in East Africa.Robert Stock, ''Africa South of the Sahara, Second Edition: A Geographical Interpretation'', (The Guilford Press; 2004), ...

, *Islamic civilizations which formed in the Niger River valley in West Africa, and on the coast of East Africa, and *

traditional societies In sociology, traditional society refers to a society characterized by an orientation to the past, not the future, with a predominant role for custom and habit. Such societies are marked by a lack of distinction between family and business, with the ...

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 Ghana (; tw, Gaana, ee, Gana), officially the Republic of Ghana, is a country in West Africa. It abuts the Gulf of Guinea and the Atlantic Ocean to the south, sharing borders with Ivory Coast in Ghana–Ivory Coast border, the west, Burkina ...

, Mali and Songhay. In the 14th century,

Mansa Musa Mansa Musa ( ar, منسا موسى, Mansā Mūsā; ) was the ninth '' mansa'' of the Mali Empire, which reached its territorial peak during his reign. Musa is known for his wealth and generosity. He has been subject to popular claims that he is ...

king of Mali may have been the wealthiest person of his time. Within Mali, the city of

Timbuktu Timbuktu ( ; french: Tombouctou; Koyra Chiini: ); tmh, label= Tuareg, script=Tfng, ⵜⵏⴱⴾⵜ, Tin Buqt a city in Mali, situated north of the Niger River. The town is the capital of the Tombouctou Region, one of the eight administrat ...

was an international center of science and well known throughout the Islamic World, particularly from the

University of Sankore Sankoré Madrasa (also called the University of Sankoré, or Sankore Masjid) is one of three ancient centers of learning located in Timbuktu, Mali. It is believed to be established by Mansa Musa, who was the ruler of the Mali Empire, though th ...

. East Africa was part of the Indian Ocean trade network, which included both Arab ruled Islamic cities on the East African Coast such as

Mombasa Mombasa ( ; ) is a coastal city in southeastern Kenya along the Indian Ocean. It was the first capital of the British East Africa, before Nairobi was elevated to capital city status. It now serves as the capital of Mombasa County. The town is ...

and Traditional cities such as

Great Zimbabwe Great Zimbabwe is a medieval city in the south-eastern hills of Zimbabwe near Lake Mutirikwi and the town of Masvingo. It is thought to have been the capital of a great kingdom during the country's Late Iron Age about which little is known. ...

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 The fall of the Western Roman Empire (also called the fall of the Roman Empire or the fall of Rome) was the loss of central political control in the Western Roman Empire, a process in which the Empire failed to enforce its rule, and its vas ...

into the period now known as the

Early Middle Ages The Early Middle Ages (or early medieval period), sometimes controversially referred to as the Dark Ages, is typically regarded by historians as lasting from the late 5th or early 6th century to the 10th century. They marked the start of the M ...

(500–1000). The Early Middle Ages saw a continuation of trends begun in

Late Antiquity Late antiquity is the time of transition from classical antiquity to the Middle Ages, generally spanning the 3rd–7th century in Europe and adjacent areas bordering the Mediterranean Basin. The popularization of this periodization in English has ...

: depopulation, deurbanization, and increased

barbarian A barbarian (or savage) is someone who is perceived to be either uncivilized or primitive. The designation is usually applied as a generalization based on a popular stereotype; barbarians can be members of any nation judged by some to be less ...

invasion.Gilian Clark, ''Late Antiquity: A Very Short Introduction'' (Oxford 2011), pp. 1–2. From the 7th until the 11th centuries

Arabs The Arabs (singular: Arab; singular ar, عَرَبِيٌّ, DIN 31635: , , plural ar, عَرَب, DIN 31635: , Arabic pronunciation: ), also known as the Arab people, are an ethnic group mainly inhabiting the Arab world in Western Asia, ...

Magyars Hungarians, also known as Magyars ( ; hu, magyarok ), are a nation and ethnic group native to Hungary () and historical Hungarian lands who share a common culture, history, ancestry, and language. The Hungarian language belongs to the Ural ...

and

Norse Norse is a demonym for Norsemen, a medieval North Germanic ethnolinguistic group ancestral to modern Scandinavians, defined as speakers of Old Norse from about the 9th to the 13th centuries. Norse may also refer to: Culture and religion * Nor ...

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 Charlemagne ( , ) or Charles the Great ( la, Carolus Magnus; german: Karl der Große; 2 April 747 – 28 January 814), a member of the Carolingian dynasty, was King of the Franks from 768, King of the Lombards from 774, and the first Em ...

attempted to kindle the rise of culture and science in the

Carolingian Renaissance The Carolingian Renaissance was the first of three medieval renaissances, a period of cultural activity in the Carolingian Empire. It occurred from the late 8th century to the 9th century, taking inspiration from the Christian Roman Empire of t ...

. In the year 800

founded the

in attempt to resurrect

Classical Rome In modern historiography, ancient Rome refers to Roman civilisation from the founding of the city of Rome in the 8th century BC to the collapse of the Western Roman Empire in the 5th century AD. It encompasses the Roman Kingdom (753–509 BC ...

. The reign of Charlemagne attempted to kindle a rise of learning and literacy in what has become known as the

. In Eastern Europe, the

Eastern Roman 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 ...

survived in what is now called the

which created the

Code of Justinian The Code of Justinian ( la, Codex Justinianus, or ) is one part of the ''Corpus Juris Civilis'', the codification of Roman law ordered early in the 6th century AD by Justinian I, who was Eastern Roman emperor in Constantinople. Two other units, ...

that inspired the legal structures of modern European states. Overseen by Christian Orthodox emperors, in the 9th-10th centuries the Byzantine Eastern Orthodox Church Christianized the First Bulgarian Empire and

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 o ...

, the cultural and political ancestors to modern-day

Bulgaria Bulgaria (; bg, България, Bǎlgariya), officially the Republic of Bulgaria,, ) is a country in Southeast Europe. It is situated on the eastern flank of the Balkans, and is bordered by Romania to the north, Serbia and North Mac ...

and

North Macedonia North Macedonia, ; sq, Maqedonia e Veriut, (Macedonia before February 2019), officially the Republic of North Macedonia,, is a country in Southeast Europe. It gained independence in 1991 as one of the successor states of Socialist Feder ...

, on the one hand, and

Russia Russia (, , ), or the Russian Federation, is a transcontinental country spanning Eastern Europe and Northern Asia. It is the largest country in the world, with its internationally recognised territory covering , and encompassing one-eigh ...

and

Ukraine Ukraine ( uk, Україна, Ukraïna, ) is a country in Eastern Europe. It is the second-largest European country after Russia, which it borders to the east and northeast. Ukraine covers approximately . Prior to the ongoing Russian invas ...

, on the other. Byzantium flourished as the leading power and trade center in its region in the

Macedonian Renaissance Macedonian Renaissance ( el, Μακεδονική Αναγέννηση) is a historiographical term used for the blossoming of Byzantine culture in the 9th–11th centuries, under the eponymous Macedonian dynasty (867–1056), following the up ...

until it was overshadowed by

Italian City States The Italian city-states were numerous political and independent territorial entities that existed in the Italian Peninsula from the beginning of the Middle Ages until the proclamation of the Kingdom of Italy, which took place in 1861. After ...

and the Islamic

near the end of the Middle Ages. Bobolice, zamek

Later in the period, the creation of the

feudal system 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 structur ...

allowed greater degrees of military and agricultural organization. There was sustained

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 ...

in northern and

western Europe Western Europe is the western region of Europe. The region's countries and territories vary depending on context. The concept of "the West" appeared in Europe in juxtaposition to "the East" and originally applied to the ancient Mediterranean ...

. Later developments were marked by manorialism and feudalism, and evolved into the prosperous

High Middle Ages The High Middle Ages, or High Medieval Period, was the period of European history that lasted from AD 1000 to 1300. The High Middle Ages were preceded by the Early Middle Ages and were followed by the Late Middle Ages, which ended around AD ...

. 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),

Christian Christians () are people who follow or adhere to Christianity, a monotheistic Abrahamic religion based on the life and teachings of Jesus Christ. The words '' Christ'' and ''Christian'' derive from the Koine Greek title ''Christós'' (Χρ ...

-oriented art and architecture flourished and the Crusades were mounted to recapture the

Holy Land The Holy Land; Arabic: or is an area roughly located between the Mediterranean Sea and the Eastern Bank of the Jordan River, traditionally synonymous both with the biblical Land of Israel and with the region of Palestine. The term "Ho ...

from Muslim control. The influence of the emerging

nation-state A nation state is a political unit where the state and nation are congruent. It is a more precise concept than "country", since a country does not need to have a predominant ethnic group. A nation, in the sense of a common ethnicity, may in ...

was tempered by the ideal of an international

Christendom 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 intertwin ...

and the presence of the

Roman 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 all western kingdoms. The codes of

chivalry Chivalry, or the chivalric code, is an informal and varying code of conduct developed in Europe between 1170 and 1220. It was associated with the medieval Christian institution of knighthood; knights' and gentlemen's behaviours were governed b ...

and

courtly love Courtly love ( oc, fin'amor ; french: amour courtois ) was a medieval European literary conception of love that emphasized nobility and chivalry. Medieval literature is filled with examples of knights setting out on adventures and performing vari ...

set rules for proper behavior, while the

Scholastic Scholastic may refer to: * a philosopher or theologian in the tradition of scholasticism * ''Scholastic'' (Notre Dame publication) * Scholastic Corporation, an American publishing company of educational materials * Scholastic Building, in New Y ...

philosophers attempted to reconcile faith and reason. The age of Feudalism would be dramatically transformed by the cataclysm of the

and its aftermath. This time would be a major underlying cause for the Renaissance. By the turn of the 16th century European or

Western Civilization human proportions with geometry described by the ancient Roman architect Vitruvius in Book III of his treatise ''De architectura''. image:Plato Pio-Clemetino Inv305.jpg, upPlato, arguably the most influential figure in all of Western philosoph ...

would be engaging in the

Age of Discovery The Age of Discovery (or the Age of Exploration), also known as the early modern period, was a period largely overlapping with the Age of Sail, approximately from the 15th century to the 17th century in European history, during which seafari ...

. 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 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 The Middle East ( ar, الشرق الأوسط, ISO 233: ) is a geopolitical region commonly encompassing Arabia (including the Arabian Peninsula and Bahrain), Asia Minor (Asian part of Turkey except Hatay Province), East Thrace (Europ ...

and Near East regions saw dramatic change during the Postclassical Era caused primarily by the spread of

and the establishment of the 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

, centered in what is now

Iran 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 Turkm ...

, and the

Anatolia Anatolia, tr, Anadolu Yarımadası), and the Anatolian plateau, also known as Asia Minor, is a large peninsula in Western Asia and the westernmost protrusion of the Asian continent. It constitutes the major part of modern-day Turkey. The r ...

(modern-day

Turkey Turkey ( tr, Türkiye ), officially the Republic of Türkiye ( tr, Türkiye Cumhuriyeti, links=no ), is a list of transcontinental countries, transcontinental country located mainly on the Anatolia, Anatolian Peninsula in Western Asia, with ...

). 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

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 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 ...

Roman and

Sassanid The Sasanian () or Sassanid Empire, officially known as the Empire of Iranians (, ) and also referred to by historians as the Neo-Persian Empire, was the last Iranian empire before the early Muslim conquests of the 7th-8th centuries AD. Name ...

Persian empires were both weakened by the

Byzantine–Sasanian War of 602–628 The Byzantine–Sasanian War of 602–628 was the final and most devastating of the series of wars fought between the Byzantine / Roman Empire and the Sasanian Empire of Iran. The previous war between the two powers had ended in 591 after ...

, a new power in the form of

grew in the Middle East under

Muhammad in Medina The Islamic prophet Muhammad came to the city of Medina following the migration of his followers in what is known as the '' Hijrah'' (migration to Medina) in 622. He had been invited to Medina by city leaders to adjudicate disputes between clans ...

. In a series of rapid Muslim conquests, the

Rashidun army The Rashidun army () was the core of the Rashidun Caliphate's armed forces during the early Muslim conquests in the 7th century. The army is reported to have maintained a high level of discipline, strategic prowess and organization, gran ...

, led by the

Caliph A caliphate or khilāfah ( ar, خِلَافَة, ) is an institution or public office under the leadership of an Islamic steward with the title of caliph (; ar, خَلِيفَة , ), a person considered a political-religious successor to th ...

s and skilled military commanders such as

Khalid ibn al-Walid Khalid ibn al-Walid ibn al-Mughira al-Makhzumi (; died 642) was a 7th-century Arab military commander. He initially headed campaigns against Muhammad on behalf of the Quraysh. He later became a Muslim and spent the remainder of his career in ...

, swept through most of the Middle East, taking more than half of Byzantine territory in the

Arab–Byzantine wars The Arab–Byzantine wars were a series of wars between a number of Muslim Arab dynasties and the Byzantine Empire between the 7th and 11th centuries AD. Conflict started during the initial Muslim conquests, under the expansionist Rashidun and ...

and completely engulfing Persia in the

Muslim conquest of Persia The Muslim conquest of Persia, also known as the Arab conquest of Iran, was carried out by the Rashidun Caliphate from 633 to 654 AD and led to the fall of the Sasanian Empire as well as the eventual decline of the Zoroastrian religion. The ...

. Meanwhile, the nomadic

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

Caliphate A caliphate or khilāfah ( ar, خِلَافَة, ) is an institution or public office under the leadership of an Islamic steward with the title of caliph (; ar, خَلِيفَة , ), a person considered a political-religious successor to th ...

s of the Middle Ages that would first unify the entire Middle East as a distinct region and create the dominant

ethnic identity An ethnic group or an ethnicity is a grouping of people who identify with each other on the basis of shared attributes that distinguish them from other groups. Those attributes can include common sets of traditions, ancestry, language, history ...

that persists today. These Caliphates included the

Rashidun Caliphate The Rashidun Caliphate ( ar, اَلْخِلَافَةُ ٱلرَّاشِدَةُ, al-Khilāfah ar-Rāšidah) was the first caliphate to succeed the Islamic prophet Muhammad. It was ruled by the first four successive caliphs of Muhammad after hi ...

Umayyad Caliphate The Umayyad Caliphate (661–750 CE; , ; ar, ٱلْخِلَافَة ٱلْأُمَوِيَّة, al-Khilāfah al-ʾUmawīyah) was the second of the four major caliphates established after the death of Muhammad. The caliphate was ruled by the ...

Abbasid Caliphate 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-Mutta ...

, and later the Turkic-based

Seljuq 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 t ...

After Muhammad introduced Islam, it jump-started Middle Eastern culture into an Islamic Golden Age, inspiring achievements in

architecture Architecture is the art and technique of designing and building, as distinguished from the skills associated with construction. It is both the process and the product of sketching, conceiving, planning, designing, and constructing buildings ...

, 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

medicine Medicine is the science and Praxis (process), practice of caring for a patient, managing the diagnosis, prognosis, Preventive medicine, prevention, therapy, treatment, Palliative care, palliation of their injury or disease, and Health promotion ...

algebra Algebra () is one of the areas of mathematics, broad areas of mathematics. Roughly speaking, algebra is the study of mathematical symbols and the rules for manipulating these symbols in formulas; it is a unifying thread of almost all of mathem ...

geometry Geometry (; ) is, with arithmetic, one of the oldest branches of mathematics. It is concerned with properties of space such as the distance, shape, size, and relative position of figures. A mathematician who works in the field of geometry is c ...

astronomy Astronomy () is a natural science that studies astronomical object, celestial objects and phenomena. It uses mathematics, physics, and chemistry in order to explain their origin and chronology of the Universe, evolution. Objects of interest ...

anatomy Anatomy () is the branch of biology concerned with the study of the structure of organisms and their parts. Anatomy is a branch of natural science that deals with the structural organization of living things. It is an old science, having its ...

, and

ethics Ethics or moral philosophy is a branch of philosophy that "involves systematizing, defending, and recommending concepts of right and wrong behavior".''Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy'' The field of ethics, along with aesthetics, concerns ...

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 The Seljuk dynasty, or Seljukids ( ; fa, سلجوقیان ''Saljuqian'', alternatively spelled as Seljuqs or Saljuqs), also known as Seljuk Turks, Seljuk Turkomans "The defeat in August 1071 of the Byzantine emperor Romanos Diogenes by the Turk ...

, 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

England England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Wales to its west and Scotland to its north. The Irish Sea lies northwest and the Celtic Sea to the southwest. It is separated from continental Europe ...

France France (), officially the French Republic ( ), is a country primarily located in Western Europe. It also comprises of overseas regions and territories in the Americas and the Atlantic, Pacific and Indian Oceans. Its metropolitan ar ...

, and the emerging

, to enter the region. In 1099 the knights of the

First Crusade The First Crusade (1096–1099) was the first of a series of religious wars, or Crusades, initiated, supported and at times directed by the Latin Church in the medieval period. The objective was the recovery of the Holy Land from Islamic ...

captured

Jerusalem Jerusalem (; he, יְרוּשָׁלַיִם ; ar, القُدس ) (combining the Biblical and common usage Arabic names); grc, Ἱερουσαλήμ/Ἰεροσόλυμα, Hierousalḗm/Hierosóluma; hy, Երուսաղեմ, Erusałēm. i ...

and founded the

Kingdom of Jerusalem The Kingdom of Jerusalem ( la, Regnum Hierosolymitanum; fro, Roiaume de Jherusalem), officially known as the Latin Kingdom of Jerusalem or the Frankish Kingdom of Palestine,Example (title of works): was a Crusader state that was establish ...

, which survived until 1187, when

Saladin Yusuf ibn Ayyub ibn Shadi () ( – 4 March 1193), commonly known by the epithet Saladin,, ; ku, سه‌لاحه‌دین, ; was the founder of the Ayyubid dynasty. Hailing from an ethnic Kurdish family, he was the first of both Egypt and ...

retook the city. Smaller crusader fiefdoms survived until 1291. In the early 13th century, a new wave of invaders, the armies of the

, swept through the region, sacking Baghdad in the

Siege of Baghdad (1258) The siege of Baghdad was a siege that took place in Baghdad in 1258, lasting for 13 days from January 29, 1258 until February 10, 1258. The siege, laid by Ilkhanate Mongol forces and allied troops, involved the investment, capture, and sack of ...

and advancing as far south as the border of

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

Turko-Mongol The Turco-Mongol or Turko-Mongol tradition was an ethnocultural synthesis that arose in Asia during the 14th century, among the ruling elites of the Golden Horde and the Chagatai Khanate. The ruling Mongol elites of these Khanates eventually ...

Timur Timur ; chg, ''Aqsaq Temür'', 'Timur the Lame') or as ''Sahib-i-Qiran'' ( 'Lord of the Auspicious Conjunction'), his epithet. ( chg, ''Temür'', 'Iron'; 9 April 133617–19 February 1405), later Timūr Gurkānī ( chg, ''Temür Kür ...

, and his ferocious raids. By then, another group of Turks had arisen as well, the

Ottomans The Ottoman Turks ( tr, Osmanlı Türkleri), were the Turkic founding and sociopolitically the most dominant ethnic group of the Ottoman Empire ( 1299/1302–1922). Reliable information about the early history of Ottoman Turks remains scarce, ...

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 Buddhism was predominant throughout the area with the short-lived

Pala Empire The Pāla Empire (r. 750-1161 CE) was an imperial power during the post-classical period in the Indian subcontinent, which originated in the region of Bengal. It is named after its ruling dynasty, whose rulers bore names ending with the suffi ...

on the Indo Gangetic Plain sponsoring the faith's institutions. One such institution was the Buddhist Nalanda University in modern-day

Bihar, India Bihar (; ) is a state in eastern India. It is the 2nd largest state by population in 2019, 12th largest by area of , and 14th largest by GDP in 2021. Bihar borders Uttar Pradesh to its west, Nepal to the north, the northern part of West Ben ...

a centre of scholarship and brought a divided South Asia onto the global intellectual stage. Another accomplishment was the invention of the ''

Chaturanga Chaturanga ( sa, चतुरङ्ग; ') is an ancient Indian strategy game. While there is some uncertainty, the prevailing view among chess historians is that it is the common ancestor of the board games chess (European), xiangqi (Chinese), ...

'' game which later was exported to Europe and became

Chess Chess is a board game for two players, called White and Black, each controlling an army of chess pieces in their color, with the objective to checkmate the opponent's king. It is sometimes called international chess or Western chess to dist ...

. In Southern India, the Hindu Kingdom of

Chola The Chola dynasty was a Tamil thalassocratic 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 to the 3rd century B ...

gained prominence with an overseas empire that controlled parts of modern-day Sri Lanka, Malaysia, 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 ...

as oversees territories and accelerated the spread of Hinduism into the historic culture of these places. In this time period, neighboring areas such as

Afghanistan Afghanistan, officially the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan,; prs, امارت اسلامی افغانستان is a landlocked country located at the crossroads of Central Asia and South Asia. Referred to as the Heart of Asia, it is bord ...

Tibet Tibet (; ''Böd''; ) is a region in East Asia, covering much of the Tibetan Plateau and spanning about . It is the traditional homeland of the Tibetan people. Also resident on the plateau are some other ethnic groups such as Monpa people, ...

Southeast Asia Southeast Asia, also spelled South East Asia and South-East Asia, and also known as Southeastern Asia, South-eastern Asia or SEA, is the geographical United Nations geoscheme for Asia#South-eastern Asia, south-eastern region of Asia, consistin ...

were under South Asian influence. From 1206 onward a series of 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. Buddhism declined in South Asia vanishing in many areas but Hinduism survived and reinforced itself in areas conquered by

Muslims Muslims ( ar, المسلمون, , ) are people who adhere to Islam, a monotheistic religion belonging to the Abrahamic tradition. They consider the Quran, the foundational religious text of Islam, to be the verbatim word of the God of Abra ...

. In the far South, the Kingdom of 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

Mughals 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 d ...

and the establishment of European trade posts by the

Portuguese Portuguese may refer to: * anything of, from, or related to the country and nation of Portugal ** Portuguese cuisine, traditional foods ** Portuguese language, a Romance language *** Portuguese dialects, variants of the Portuguese language ** Port ...

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 The Strait of Malacca is a narrow stretch of water, 500 mi (800 km) long and from 40 to 155 mi (65–250 km) wide, between the Malay Peninsula (Peninsular Malaysia) to the northeast and the Indonesian island of Sumatra to the southwest, conn ...

. While Southeast Asia had numerous outside influences

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 ...

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 that spanned near 1100 years. The Vietnamese gained long lasting independence in the 10th century when China was

divided Division is one of the four basic operations of arithmetic, the ways that numbers are combined to make new numbers. The other operations are addition, subtraction, and multiplication. At an elementary level the division of two natural numbers ...

with

Tĩnh Hải quân Tĩnh Hải quân or the Jinghai Military Command ( Chinese: 靜海軍, pinyin: Jìnghǎi Jūn) (literally "Peaceful Sea Army"), also known as Annam (安南), was an administrative division of the Tang dynasty of China administered by Chinese go ...

and the successor

Đại Việt Đại Việt (, ; literally Great Việt), often known as Annam ( vi, An Nam, Chữ Hán: 安南), was a monarchy in eastern Mainland Southeast Asia from the 10th century AD to the early 19th century, centered around the region of present-day ...

. Nonetheless, even as an independent state a sort of begrudging

sinicization Sinicization, sinofication, sinification, or sinonization (from the prefix , 'Chinese, relating to China') is the process by which non-Chinese societies come under the influence of Chinese culture, particularly the language, societal norms, cul ...

occurred. South Vietnam was governed by the ancient Hindu Champa Kingdom but was annexed by the Vietnamese in the 15th century. The spread of

Hinduism Hinduism () is an Indian religion or ''dharma'', a religious and universal order or way of life by which followers abide. As a religion, it is the world's third-largest, with over 1.2–1.35 billion followers, or 15–16% of the global po ...

, Buddhism and maritime trade between China and

created the foundation for Southeast Asia's first major empires; including the Khmer Empire from Cambodia and

Sri Vijaya Srivijaya ( id, Sriwijaya) was a Buddhist thalassocratic empire based on the island of Sumatra (in modern-day Indonesia), which influenced much of Southeast Asia. Srivijaya was an important centre for the expansion of Buddhism from the 7th t ...

from Indonesia. During the Khmer Empire's height in the 12th century the city of

Angkor Thom Angkor Thom ( km, អង្គរធំ ; meaning "Great City"), alternatively Nokor Thom ( km, នគរធំ ) located in present-day Cambodia, was the last and most enduring capital city of the Khmer Empire. It was established in the late twe ...

was among the largest of the pre-modern world due to its water management. King Jayavarman II constructed over a hundred hospitals throughout his realm. Nearby rose the

Pagan Empire The Kingdom of Pagan ( my, ပုဂံခေတ်, , ; also known as the Pagan Dynasty and the Pagan Empire; also the Bagan Dynasty or Bagan Empire) was the first Burmese kingdom to unify the regions that would later constitute modern-da ...

in modern-day Burma, using elephants as military might. The construction of the Buddhist

Shwezigon Pagoda The Shwezigon Pagoda or Shwezigon Paya ( my-Mymr, ရွှေစည်းခုံဘုရား ) is a Buddhist stupa located in Nyaung-U, Myanmar. A prototype of Burmese stupas, it consists of a circular gold leaf-gilded stupa surrounded b ...

and its tolerance for believers of older polytheistic gods helped

Theravada Buddhism ''Theravāda'' () ( si, ථේරවාදය, my, ထေရဝါဒ, th, เถรวาท, km, ថេរវាទ, lo, ເຖຣະວາດ, pi, , ) is the most commonly accepted name of Buddhism's oldest existing school. The school' ...

become supreme in the region. In Indonesia,

Srivijaya Srivijaya ( id, Sriwijaya) was a Buddhist thalassocratic empire based on the island of Sumatra (in modern-day Indonesia), which influenced much of Southeast Asia. Srivijaya was an important centre for the expansion of Buddhism from the ...

from the 7th through 14th century was a

Thalassocracy A thalassocracy or thalattocracy sometimes also maritime empire, is a state with primarily maritime realms, an empire at sea, or a seaborne empire. Traditional thalassocracies seldom dominate interiors, even in their home territories. Examples ...

that focused on maritime city states and trade. Controlling the vital choke points of the Sunda and

Malacca straits The Strait of Malacca is a narrow stretch of water, 500 mi (800 km) long and from 40 to 155 mi (65–250 km) wide, between the Malay Peninsula (Peninsular Malaysia) to the northeast and the Indonesian island of Sumatra to the southwest, conne ...

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 Borobudur, also transcribed Barabudur ( id, Candi Borobudur, jv, ꦕꦤ꧀ꦝꦶꦧꦫꦧꦸꦝꦸꦂ, Candhi Barabudhur) is a 9th-century Mahayana Buddhist temple in Magelang Regency, not far from the town of Muntilan, in Central Java, Indo ...

. During this time Indonesian sailors crossed the Indian Ocean; evidence suggests that they may have colonized

Madagascar Madagascar (; mg, Madagasikara, ), officially the Republic of Madagascar ( mg, Repoblikan'i Madagasikara, links=no, ; french: République de Madagascar), is an island country in the Indian Ocean, approximately off the coast of East Africa ...

. Indian culture spread to the

Philippines The Philippines (; fil, Pilipinas, links=no), officially the Republic of the Philippines ( fil, Republika ng Pilipinas, links=no), * bik, Republika kan Filipinas * ceb, Republika sa Pilipinas * cbk, República de Filipinas * hil, Republ ...

, likely through Indonesian trade resulting in the first documented use of writing in the archipelago and

Indianized kingdom Greater India, or the Indian cultural sphere, is an area composed of many countries and regions in South and Southeast Asia that were historically influenced by Indian culture, which itself formed from the various distinct indigenous cultures ...

s. Over time changing economic and political conditions elsewhere and wars weakened the traditional empires of South East Asia. While the

Mongol Invasions 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 ...

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.

was overtaken by the

Majapahit Majapahit ( jv, ꦩꦗꦥꦲꦶꦠ꧀; ), also known as Wilwatikta ( jv, ꦮꦶꦭ꧀ꦮꦠꦶꦏ꧀ꦠ; ), was a Javanese Hindu-Buddhist thalassocratic empire in Southeast Asia that was based on the island of Java (in modern-day Indonesi ...

. 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 The Eastern world, also known as the East or historically the Orient, is an umbrella term for various cultures or social structures, nations and philosophical systems, which vary depending on the context. It most often includes at least ...

empires continued to expand through trade, migration and conquests of neighboring areas. Japan and

Korea Korea ( ko, 한국, or , ) is a peninsular region in East Asia. Since 1945, it has been divided at or near the 38th parallel, with North Korea (Democratic People's Republic of Korea) comprising its northern half and South Korea (Republi ...

went under the process of voluntary

, or the impression of Chinese cultural and political ideas.

and 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, Tang and Song dynasties (581–1279), China remained the world's largest economy and most technologically advanced society.

Inventions An invention is a unique or novel device, method, composition, idea or process. An invention may be an improvement upon a machine, product, or process for increasing efficiency or lowering cost. It may also be an entirely new concept. If an id ...

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 feudalism. China exhibited much interest in

foreign affairs ''Foreign Affairs'' is an American magazine of international relations and U.S. foreign policy published by the Council on Foreign Relations, a nonprofit, nonpartisan, membership organization and think tank specializing in U.S. foreign policy and ...

during the Tang and Song dynasties. From the 7th through the 10th Tang China was focused on securing the

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 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

wars War is an intense armed conflict between states, governments, societies, or paramilitary groups such as mercenaries, insurgents, and militias. It is generally characterized by extreme violence, destruction, and mortality, using regular ...

with the

and the deadly

An Lushan Rebellion The An Lushan Rebellion was an uprising against the Tang dynasty of China towards the mid-point of the dynasty (from 755 to 763), with an attempt to replace it with the Yan dynasty. The rebellion was originally led by An Lushan, a general off ...

which resulted in an deadly but uncertain death toll of millions. After the collapse of the Tang dynasty and subsequent

civil wars A civil war or intrastate war is a war between organized groups within the same state (or country). The aim of one side may be to take control of the country or a region, to achieve independence for a region, or to change government policie ...

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, 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

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 ...

. 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 Jurchen (Manchu language, Manchu: ''Jušen'', ; zh, 女真, ''Nǚzhēn'', ) is a term used to collectively describe a number of East Asian people, East Asian Tungusic languages, Tungusic-speaking peoples, descended from the Donghu people. They ...

. By 1200 there were five Chinese kingdoms stretching from modern day Turkestan to the Sea of Japan including the

Western Liao The Qara Khitai, or Kara Khitai (), also known as the Western Liao (), officially the Great Liao (), was a Sinicized dynastic regime based in Central Asia ruled by the Khitan Yelü clan. The Qara Khitai is considered by historians to be an ...

Western Xia The Western Xia or the Xi Xia (), officially the Great Xia (), also known as the Tangut Empire, and known as ''Mi-nyak''Stein (1972), pp. 70–71. to the Tanguts and Tibetans, was a Tangut-led Buddhist imperial dynasty of China tha ...

, Jin,

Southern Song The Song dynasty (; ; 960–1279) was an imperial dynasty of China that began in 960 and lasted until 1279. The dynasty was founded by Emperor Taizu of Song following his usurpation of the throne of the Later Zhou. The Song conquered the res ...

and Dali. Because these states competed with each other they all were eventually annexed by the rising

before 1279. After seventy years of

conquest Conquest is the act of military subjugation of an enemy by force of arms. Military history provides many examples of conquest: the Roman conquest of Britain, the Mauryan conquest of Afghanistan and of vast areas of the Indian subcontinent, t ...

, the Mongols proclaimed the

and also annexed

; they failed to conquer Japan. Mongol conquerors also made China accessible to European travelers such as

. The Mongol era was short lived due to plagues and famine. After

revolution In political science, a revolution (Latin: ''revolutio'', "a turn around") is a fundamental and relatively sudden change in political power and political organization which occurs when the population revolts against the government, typically due ...

in 1368 the succeeding

ushered in a period of prosperity and brief foreign expeditions before isolating itself from global affairs for centuries.

and Japan however continued to have relations with China and with other Asian countries. In the 15th century

Sejong the Great Sejong of Joseon (15 May 1397 – 8 April 1450), personal name Yi Do ( Korean: 이도; Hanja: 李祹), widely known as Sejong the Great ( Korean: 세종대왕; Hanja: 世宗大王), was the fourth ruler of the Joseon dynasty of Korea. Initi ...

of Korea cemented his country's identity by creating the Hangul Writing system to replace use of

Chinese Characters Chinese characters () are logograms developed for the writing of Chinese. In addition, they have been adapted to write other East Asian languages, and remain a key component of the Japanese writing system where they are known as '' kan ...

. Meanwhile, Japan fell under military rule of the

and later Ashikaga Shogunate dominated by

Samurai were the hereditary military nobility and officer caste of History of Japan#Medieval Japan (1185–1573/1600), medieval and Edo period, early-modern Japan from the late 12th century until their abolition in 1876. They were the well-paid retai ...

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 In the classification of archaeological cultures of North America, the Woodland period of North American pre-Columbian cultures spanned a period from roughly 1000 BCE to European contact in the eastern part of North America, with some archaeo ...

and

Classic stage In archaeological cultures of North America, the classic stage is the theoretical North and Meso-American societies that existed between AD 500 and 1200. This stage is the fourth of five stages posited by Gordon Willey and Philip Phillips' 195 ...

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 In the classification of the archaeology of the Americas, the Post-Classic Stage is a term applied to some Precolumbian cultures, typically ending with local contact with Europeans. This stage is the fifth of five archaeological stages posited b ...

North America

As a continent there was little unified trade or communication. Advances in agriculture spread northward from Mesoamerica 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 Norse Vikings explored and even colonized

Greenland Greenland ( kl, Kalaallit Nunaat, ; da, Grønland, ) is an island country in North America that is part of the Kingdom of Denmark. It is located between the Arctic and Atlantic oceans, east of the Canadian Arctic Archipelago. Greenland is ...

and

Canada Canada is a country in North America. Its ten provinces and three territories extend from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean and northward into the Arctic Ocean, covering over , making it the world's second-largest country by tota ...

as early as 1000. None of these settlements survived past

Medieval Times 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 an ...

. Outside of Scandinavia knowledge of the discovery of the Americas was interpreted as a

remote island Remote may refer to: Arts, entertainment, and media * ''Remote'' (1993 film), a 1993 movie * ''Remote'' (2004 film), a Tamil-language action drama film * ''Remote'' (album), a 1988 album by Hue & Cry * Remote (band), ambient chillout band * ...

or the

North Pole The North Pole, also known as the Geographic North Pole or Terrestrial North Pole, is the point in the Northern Hemisphere where the Earth's rotation, Earth's axis of rotation meets its surface. It is called the True North Pole to distingu ...

. The Norse arriving from Greenland settled Greenland from approximately 980 to 1450. The Norse arrived in southern

prior to the 13th century approach of

Inuit Inuit (; iu, ᐃᓄᐃᑦ 'the people', singular: Inuk, , dual: Inuuk, ) are a group of culturally similar indigenous peoples inhabiting the Arctic and subarctic regions of Greenland, Labrador, Quebec, Nunavut, the Northwest Territories, ...

Thule people The Thule (, , ) or proto-Inuit were the ancestors of all modern Inuit. They developed in coastal Alaska by the year 1000 and expanded eastward across northern Canada, reaching Greenland by the 13th century. In the process, they replaced people o ...

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 in the 18th century. The Norse also explored and colonized farther south in Newfoundland Canada at

L'Anse aux Meadows L'Anse aux Meadows ( lit. Meadows Cove) is an archaeological site, first excavated in the 1960s, of a Norse settlement dating to approximately 1,000 years ago. The site is located on the northernmost tip of the island of Newfoundland in the ...

referred to by the Norse as ''

Vinland Vinland, Vineland, or Winland ( non, Vínland ᚠᛁᚾᛚᛅᚾᛏ) was an area of coastal North America explored by Vikings. Leif Erikson landed there around 1000 AD, nearly five centuries before the voyages of Christopher Columbus and Jo ...

''. The colony at most existed for twenty years and resulted in no known transmission of diseases or technology to the

First Nations First Nations or first peoples may refer to: * Indigenous peoples, for ethnic groups who are the earliest known inhabitants of an area. Indigenous groups *First Nations is commonly used to describe some Indigenous groups including: ** First Nat ...

. 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 The Beothuk ( or ; also spelled Beothuck) were a group of indigenous people who lived on the island of Newfoundland. Beginning around AD 1500, the Beothuk culture formed. This appeared to be the most recent cultural manifestation of peoples w ...

tribe who the Norse referred to as 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 Markland () is the name given to one of three lands on North America's Atlantic shore discovered by Leif Eriksson around 1000 AD. It was located south of Helluland and north of Vinland. Although it was never recorded to be settled by Norsemen, th ...

'', possibly the coast of

Labrador, Canada , nickname = "The Big Land" , etymology = , subdivision_type = Country , subdivision_name = Canada , subdivision_type1 = Province , subdivision_name1 ...

, 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 Agriculture or farming is the practice of cultivating plants and livestock. Agriculture was the key development in the rise of sedentary human civilization, whereby farming of domesticated species created food surpluses that enabled peopl ...

societies thrived in the diverse region. Native American tribes varied greatly in characteristics; some, including the

Mound Builders A number of pre-Columbian cultures are collectively termed "Mound Builders". The term does not refer to a specific people or archaeological culture, but refers to the characteristic mound earthworks erected for an extended period of more than ...

and the 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

, 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 The Eastern United States, commonly referred to as the American East, Eastern America, or simply the East, is the region of the United States to the east of the Mississippi River. In some cases the term may refer to a smaller area or the East C ...

. Corn would continue to be the staple crop of natives in the Eastern United States and Canada until the 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 The Cahokia Mounds State Historic Site ( 11 MS 2) is the site of a pre-Columbian Native American city (which existed 1050–1350 CE) directly across the Mississippi River from modern St. Louis, Missouri. This historic park lies in south- ...

located in the modern U.S.

State of Illinois Illinois ( ) is a U.S. state, state in the Midwestern United States, Midwestern United States. Its largest metropolitan areas include the Chicago metropolitan area, and the Metro East section, of Greater St. Louis. Other smaller metropolita ...

was among the most significant city within the

. Focused around

Monks Mound Monks Mound is the largest Pre-Columbian earthwork in the Americas and the largest pyramid north of Mesoamerica. The beginning of its construction dates from 900–955 CE. Located at the Cahokia Mounds UNESCO World Heritage Site near Collins ...

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 Canyon Chaco Culture National Historical Park is a United States National Historical Park in the American Southwest hosting a concentration of pueblos. The park is located in northwestern New Mexico, between Albuquerque and Farmington, in a remote c ...

site located in the

State of New Mexico ) , population_demonym = New Mexican ( es, Neomexicano, Neomejicano, Nuevo Mexicano) , seat = Santa Fe, New Mexico, Santa Fe , LargestCity = Albuquerque, New Mexico, Albuquerque , LargestMetro = Albuquerque metropolitan area, Tiguex , Offi ...

. 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 Pyramid of the Sun is the largest building in Teotihuacan, and one of the largest in Mesoamerica. It is believed to have been constructed about 200 AD. Found along the Avenue of the Dead, in between the Pyramid of the Moon and the Ciudadel ...

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 The volcanic winter of 536 was the most severe and protracted episode of climatic cooling in the Northern Hemisphere in the last 2,000 years. The volcanic winter was caused by an eruption, with several possible locations proposed in various conti ...

. 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

Mayan Civilization The Maya civilization () of the Mesoamerican people is known by its ancient temples and glyphs. Its Maya script is the most sophisticated and highly developed writing system in the pre-Columbian Americas. It is also noted for its art, arc ...

clustered in dozens of city states on the

Yucatán Yucatán (, also , , ; yua, Yúukatan ), officially the Free and Sovereign State of Yucatán,; yua, link=no, Xóot' Noj Lu'umil Yúukatan. is one of the 31 states which comprise the federal entities of Mexico. It comprises 106 separate mun ...

and modern day Guatemala. The most significant of these cities was

Chichen Itza Chichen Itza , es, Chichén Itzá , often with the emphasis reversed in English to ; from yua, Chiʼchʼèen Ìitshaʼ () "at the mouth of the well of the Itza people" was a large pre-Columbian city built by the Maya people of the Termi ...

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 The Toltec Empire'', ''Toltec Kingdom or Altepetl Tollan was a political entity in modern Mexico. It existed through the classic and post-classic periods of Mesoamerican chronology, but gained most of its power in the post-classic. During this t ...

arose from the

Toltec 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 CE. Th ...

culture, and were remembered as wise and benevolent leaders. One priest-king called

Ce Acatl Topiltzin Cē Ācatl Topiltzin Quetzalcoatl (''Our Prince One-Reed Precious Serpent'') (c. 895–947) is a mythologised figure appearing in 16th-century accounts of Nahua historical traditions, where he is identified as a ruler in the 10th century of the ...

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 Aztecs 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 political terror in the sense that the Aztec leaders and priests would command the

human sacrifice Human sacrifice is the act of killing one or more humans as part of a ritual, which is usually intended to please or appease gods, a human ruler, an authoritative/priestly figure or spirits of dead ancestors or as a retainer sacrifice, wherei ...

of their subjugated people as means of humility and coercion. Most of the Mesoamerican region would eventually fall under the Aztec Empire. On the

Yucatán Peninsula The Yucatán Peninsula (, also , ; es, Península de Yucatán ) is a large peninsula in southeastern Mexico and adjacent portions of Belize and Guatemala. The peninsula extends towards the northeast, separating the Gulf of Mexico to the north ...

most of the

Mayan People Mayan most commonly refers to: * Maya peoples, various indigenous peoples of Mesoamerica and northern Central America * Maya civilization, pre-Columbian culture of Mesoamerica and northern Central America * Mayan languages, language family spoken ...

continued to be independent of the Aztecs but their traditional civilization declined. Aztec developments expanded cultivation, applying the use of

chinampa Chinampa ( nah, chināmitl ) is a technique used in Mesoamerican agriculture which relies on small, rectangular areas of fertile arable land to grow crops on the shallow lake beds in the Valley of Mexico. They are built up on wetlands of a lake o ...

s, irrigation, and

terrace agriculture In agriculture, a terrace is a piece of sloped plane that has been cut into a series of successively receding flat surfaces or platforms, which resemble steps, for the purposes of more effective farming. This type of landscaping is therefore ...

; important crops included

maize Maize ( ; ''Zea mays'' subsp. ''mays'', from es, maíz after tnq, mahiz), also known as corn ( North American and Australian English), is a cereal grain first domesticated by indigenous peoples in southern Mexico about 10,000 years ago. ...

sweet potato The sweet potato or sweetpotato ('' Ipomoea batatas'') is a dicotyledonous plant that belongs to the bindweed or morning glory family, Convolvulaceae. Its large, starchy, sweet-tasting tuberous roots are used as a root vegetable. The young ...

es, and

avocado The avocado (''Persea americana'') is a medium-sized, evergreen tree in the laurel family (Lauraceae). It is native to Americas, the Americas and was first domesticated by Mesoamerica, Mesoamerican tribes more than 5,000 years ago. Pre-Columb ...

s. In 1430 the city of

Tenochtitlan , ; es, Tenochtitlan also known as Mexico-Tenochtitlan, ; es, México-Tenochtitlan was a large Mexican in what is now the historic center of Mexico City. The exact date of the founding of the city is unclear. The date 13 March 1325 was ...

allied with other powerful

Nahuatl Nahuatl (; ), Aztec, or Mexicano is a language or, by some definitions, a group of languages of the Uto-Aztecan language family. Varieties of Nahuatl are spoken by about Nahua peoples, most of whom live mainly in Central Mexico and have small ...

speaking cities- Texcoco and

Tlacopan Tlacopan, also called Tacuba, was a Tepanec / Mexica altepetl on the western shore of Lake Texcoco. The site is today the neighborhood of Tacuba, in Mexico City. Etymology The name comes from Classical Nahuatl ''tlacōtl'', "stem" or "rod ...

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 war A flower war or flowery war ( nah, xōchiyāōyōtl, es, guerra florida) was a ritual war fought intermittently between the Aztec Triple Alliance and its enemies from the "mid-1450s to the arrival of the Spaniards in 1519." Enemies included th ...

s" between the Aztecs and rival states such as

Tlaxcala Tlaxcala (; , ; from nah, Tlaxcallān ), officially the Free and Sovereign State of Tlaxcala ( es, Estado Libre y Soberano de Tlaxcala), is one of the 32 states which comprise the Federal Entities of Mexico. It is divided into 60 municipaliti ...

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 River Basin The Amazon basin is the part of South America drained by the Amazon River and its tributaries. The Amazon drainage basin covers an area of about , or about 35.5 percent of the South American continent. It is located in the countries of Boli ...

indicate the region likely had a pre-contact population of five million people and hosted complex societies. Around the continent numerous agricultural peoples from Colombia to

Argentina Argentina (), officially the Argentine Republic ( es, link=no, República Argentina), is a country in the southern half of South America. Argentina covers an area of , making it the second-largest country in South America after Brazil, t ...

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 times 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 ...

the Andean Region had developed civilizations independent of outside influences including that of Mesoamerica. Through the Post Classical era a cycle of civilizations continued until 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 ''Quipu'' (also spelled ''khipu'') are recording devices fashioned from strings historically used by a number of cultures in the region of Andean South America. A ''quipu'' usually consisted of cotton or camelid fiber strings. The Inca peop ...

system to communicate messages, llamas to carry smaller loads and an economy based on 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 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 Mutual assured destruction (MAD) is a doctrine of military strategy and national security policy which posits that a full-scale use of nuclear weapons by an attacker on a nuclear-armed defender with second-strike capabilities would cause the ...

. 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 The Sapa Inca (from Quechua ''Sapa Inka'' "the only Inca") was the monarch of the Inca Empire (''Tawantinsuyu''), as well as ruler of the earlier Kingdom of Cusco and the later Neo-Inca State. While the origins of the position are mythical an ...

, they slowly conquered what is now

Peru , image_flag = Flag of Peru.svg , image_coat = Escudo nacional del Perú.svg , other_symbol = Great Seal of the State , other_symbol_type = Seal (emblem), National seal , national_motto = "Fi ...

, and built their society throughout the Andes cultural region. The Incas spoke the

Quechua languages Quechua (, ; ), usually called ("people's language") in Quechuan languages, is an indigenous language family spoken by the Quechua peoples, primarily living in the Peruvian Andes. Derived from a common ancestral language, it is the most widel ...

. The Incas used the advances created by earlier Andean societies. Incas have been known to have used

abacus The abacus (''plural'' abaci or abacuses), also called a counting frame, is a calculating tool which has been used since ancient times. It was used in the ancient Near East, Europe, China, and Russia, centuries before the adoption of the H ...

es to calculate mathematics. The Inca Empire is known for some of its magnificent structures, such as

Machu Picchu Machu Picchu is a 15th-century Inca citadel located in the Eastern Cordillera of southern Peru on a mountain range.UNESCO World Heritage Centre. It is located in the Machupicchu District within Urubamba Province above the Sacred Valley, whi ...

in the

Cusco region Cusco, also spelled Cuzco (; qu, Qusqu suyu ), is a department and region in Peru and is the fourth largest department in the country, after Madre de Dios, Ucayali, and Loreto. It borders the departments of Ucayali on the north; Madre de ...

. The empire expanded quickly northwards to Ecuador, Southwards to central Chile. To the north of the Inca Empire remained the independent

Tairona Tairona (or Tayrona) was a Pre-Columbian culture of Colombia, which consisted in a group of chiefdoms in the region of Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta in present-day Cesar, Magdalena and La Guajira Departments of Colombia, South America, which ...

and

Muisca Confederation The Muisca Confederation was a loose confederation of different Muisca rulers (''zaques'', ''zipas'', ''iraca'', and ''tundama'') in the central Andes, Andean highlands of present-day Colombia before the Spanish conquest of the Americas, Spanish ...

who practiced agriculture and gold metallurgy.

Caribbean Region

Oceania

Separate from developments in

and the Americas the region of greater

continued to develop independently of the outside world. In Australia, the society of

Aboriginal Australians Aboriginal Australians are the various Indigenous peoples of the Mainland Australia, Australian mainland and many of its islands, such as Tasmania, Fraser Island, Hinchinbrook Island, the Tiwi Islands, and Groote Eylandt, but excluding the T ...

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

Indonesian Indonesian is anything of, from, or related to Indonesia, an archipelagic country in Southeast Asia. It may refer to: * Indonesians, citizens of Indonesia ** Native Indonesians, diverse groups of local inhabitants of the archipelago ** Indonesia ...

origin. Polynesian and

Micronesian peoples The Micronesians or Micronesian peoples are various closely related ethnic groups native to Micronesia, a region of Oceania in the Pacific Ocean. They are a part of the Austronesian ethnolinguistic group, which has an Urheimat in Taiwan. Ethno ...

are rooted from

Taiwan Taiwan, officially the Republic of China (ROC), is a country in East Asia, at the junction of the East and South China Seas in the northwestern Pacific Ocean, with the People's Republic of China (PRC) to the northwest, Japan to the northe ...

and

and began their migration into the

Pacific Ocean The Pacific Ocean is the largest and deepest of Earth's five oceanic divisions. It extends from the Arctic Ocean in the north to the Southern Ocean (or, depending on definition, to Antarctica) in the south, and is bounded by the contine ...

from 3000 to 1500 BC. After the 4th century

Micronesia Micronesia (, ) is a subregion of Oceania, consisting of about 2,000 small islands in the western Pacific Ocean. It has a close shared cultural history with three other island regions: the Philippines to the west, Polynesia to the east, and ...

and the

n peoples began to explore the South Pacific and later constructed cities in previously uninhabitated areas including

Nan Madol Nan Madol is an archaeological site adjacent to the eastern shore of the island of Pohnpei, now part of the Madolenihmw district of Pohnpei state in the Federated States of Micronesia in the western Pacific Ocean. Nan Madol was the capital of t ...

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 An outrigger is a projecting structure on a boat, with specific meaning depending on types of vessel. Outriggers may also refer to legs on a wheeled vehicle that are folded out when it needs stabilization, for example on a crane that lifts h ...

canoes discovered and colonized some of the last uninhabited islands of earth.

New Zealand New Zealand ( mi, Aotearoa ) is an island country in the southwestern Pacific Ocean. It consists of two main landmasses—the North Island () and the South Island ()—and over 700 List of islands of New Zealand, smaller islands. It is the ...

and

Easter Island Easter Island ( rap, Rapa Nui; es, Isla de Pascua) is an island and special territory of Chile in the southeastern Pacific Ocean, at the southeasternmost point of the Polynesian Triangle in Oceania. The island is most famous for its nearl ...

were among the final places to be reached, settlers discovering pristine lands.

Oral Tradition Oral tradition, or oral lore, is a form of human communication wherein knowledge, art, ideas and cultural material is received, preserved, and transmitted orally from one generation to another. Vansina, Jan: ''Oral Tradition as History'' (1985 ...

claimed that navigator

Ui-te-Rangiora Ui-te-Rangiora or Hui Te Rangiora is a legendary Polynesian navigator from Rarotonga who is claimed to have sailed to the Southern Ocean and sometimes to have discovered Antarctica. According to a 19th-century interpretation of Rarotongan legen ...

discovered icebergs in the

Southern Ocean The Southern Ocean, also known as the Antarctic Ocean, comprises the southernmost waters of the World Ocean, generally taken to be south of 60° S latitude and encircling Antarctica. With a size of , it is regarded as the second-smal ...

. 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 Maori of New Zealand. Other island systems kept in contact with each other, such as

and the

Society Islands The Society Islands (french: Îles de la Société, officially ''Archipel de la Société;'' ty, Tōtaiete mā) are an archipelago located in the South Pacific Ocean. Politically, they are part of French Polynesia, an overseas country of the F ...

. 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 Moa are extinct giant flightless birds native to New Zealand. The term has also come to be used for chicken in many Polynesian cultures and is found in the names of many chicken recipes, such as Kale moa and Moa Samoa. Moa or MOA may also refe ...

and introducing the

Polynesian Rat The Polynesian rat, Pacific rat or little rat (''Rattus exulans''), known to the Māori as ''kiore'', is the third most widespread species of rat in the world behind the brown rat and black rat. The Polynesian rat originated in Southeast Asia, ...

. Easter Island settlers engaged in complete ecological destruction of their habtiat and their population crashed afterwards possibly due to the construction of the

Easter Island Statues Moai or moʻai ( ; es, moái; rap, moʻai, , statue) are monolithic human figures carved by the Rapa Nui people on Rapa Nui in eastern Polynesia between the years 1250 and 1500. Nearly half are still at Rano Raraku, the main moai quarry, ...

. Other colonizing groups adapted to accommodate to the ecology of specific islands such as the

Moriori The Moriori are the native Polynesian people of the Chatham Islands (''Rēkohu'' in Moriori; ' in Māori), New Zealand. Moriori originated from Māori settlers from the New Zealand mainland around 1500 CE. This was near the time of ...

of the

Chatham Islands The Chatham Islands ( ) ( Moriori: ''Rēkohu'', 'Misty Sun'; mi, Wharekauri) are an archipelago in the Pacific Ocean about east of New Zealand's South Island. They are administered as part of New Zealand. The archipelago consists of about t ...

. 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

voyages Voyage(s) or The Voyage may refer to: Literature *''Voyage : A Novel of 1896'', Sterling Hayden * ''Voyage'' (novel), a 1996 science fiction novel by Stephen Baxter *''The Voyage'', Murray Bail * "The Voyage" (short story), a 1921 story by K ...

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

Venice Venice ( ; it, Venezia ; vec, Venesia or ) is a city in northeastern Italy and the capital of the Veneto region. It is built on a group of 118 small islands that are separated by canals and linked by over 400 bridges. The isla ...

and

Genoa Genoa ( ; it, Genova ; lij, Zêna ). is the capital of the Regions of Italy, Italian region of Liguria and the List of cities in Italy, sixth-largest city in Italy. In 2015, 594,733 people lived within the city's administrative limits. As of t ...

and the

Ottoman Turks The Ottoman Turks ( tr, Osmanlı Türkleri), were the Turkic founding and sociopolitically the most dominant ethnic group of the Ottoman Empire ( 1299/1302–1922). Reliable information about the early history of Ottoman Turks remains scarce, ...

. The Byzantines faced repeated attacks from eastern and western powers during the Fourth Crusade, and declined further until the loss of

Constantinople la, Constantinopolis ota, قسطنطينيه , alternate_name = Byzantion (earlier Greek name), Nova Roma ("New Rome"), Miklagard/Miklagarth ( Old Norse), Tsargrad ( Slavic), Qustantiniya (Arabic), Basileuousa ("Queen of Cities"), Megalopolis ( ...

to the

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

Nomad A nomad is a member of a community without fixed habitation who regularly moves to and from the same areas. Such groups include hunter-gatherers, pastoral nomads (owning livestock), tinkers and trader nomads. In the twentieth century, the po ...

ism in Eurasia declined and the

which had allowed for interactions between different civilizations was no longer available.

Western Asia Western Asia, West Asia, or Southwest Asia, is the westernmost subregion of the larger geographical region of Asia, as defined by some academics, UN bodies and other institutions. It is almost entirely a part of the Middle East, and includes A ...

and

were conquered by

gunpowder empires The gunpowder empires, or Islamic gunpowder empires, is a collective term coined by Marshall G. S. Hodgson and William H. McNeill at the University of Chicago, referring to three Muslim empires: the Ottoman Empire, Safavid Empire and the Mughal ...

which successfully used advances in military technology but closed the

. Europeans – specifically the

Kingdom of Portugal The Kingdom of Portugal ( la, Regnum Portugalliae, pt, Reino de Portugal) was a monarchy in the western Iberian Peninsula and the predecessor of the modern Portuguese Republic. Existing to various extents between 1139 and 1910, it was also kn ...

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 Portuguese Explorer

Vasco De Gama Vasco da Gama, 1st Count of Vidigueira (; ; c. 1460s – 24 December 1524), was a Portuguese explorer and the first European to reach India by sea. His initial voyage to India by way of Cape of Good Hope (1497–1499) was the first to link E ...

traveled to India by sea in 1498 by circumnavigating Africa around the

Cape of Good Hope The Cape of Good Hope ( af, Kaap die Goeie Hoop ) ;''Kaap'' in isolation: pt, Cabo da Boa Esperança is a rocky headland on the Atlantic coast of the Cape Peninsula in South Africa. A common misconception is that the Cape of Good Hope is ...

. 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 global colonial empire beginning with the conquest of Malacca in modern-day

Malaysia Malaysia ( ; ) is a country in Southeast Asia. The federation, federal constitutional monarchy consists of States and federal territories of Malaysia, thirteen states and three federal territories, separated by the South China Sea into two r ...

from 1511. Other Explorers such as the Spanish sponsored Italian

Christopher Columbus Christopher Columbus * lij, Cristoffa C(or)ombo * es, link=no, Cristóbal Colón * pt, Cristóvão Colombo * ca, Cristòfor (or ) * la, Christophorus Columbus. (; born between 25 August and 31 October 1451, died 20 May 1506) was a ...

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 Colombian exchange and the world's first pan-oceanic

globalization Globalization, or globalisation (English in the Commonwealth of Nations, Commonwealth English; American and British English spelling differences#-ise, -ize (-isation, -ization), see spelling differences), is the process of foreign relation ...

. Spanish Explorer

Ferdinand Magellan Ferdinand Magellan ( or ; pt, Fernão de Magalhães, ; es, link=no, Fernando de Magallanes, ; 4 February 1480 – 27 April 1521) was a Portuguese explorer. He is best known for having planned and led the 1519 Spanish expedition to the Eas ...

performed the first known circumnavigation of Earth in 1521. The transfer of goods and diseases across

ocean The ocean (also the sea or the world ocean) is the body of salt water that covers approximately 70.8% of the surface of Earth and contains 97% of Earth's water. An ocean can also refer to any of the large bodies of water into which the wo ...

s was unprecedented in creating a more connected world. From developments in navigation and trade modern history began.

Explanatory notes

References

Citations

Works cited

* * * * * * * * * * * * *

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

Literate culture and arts

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

External links