Mr. Nice! posted:

It wasn't a one-way trip, though. We know because south American potatoes were grown by Polynesian people across the entirety of the pacific. We have DNA evidence in humans to know they traveled and traded with the Americas and we have sweet potatoes on the islands that originated in South America.

Also the people of Madagascar are Polynesian. They conquered the Indian Ocean, too. My point was Polynesian sailors had trade networks that traversed hundreds or thousands of miles of open ocean. No one else comes close to that level of nautical skill until the modern age. These weren't one and done trips.

Cetea posted:

I feel that it's a huge stretch that trade routes can be proven with something that can easily be a one and done thing; organic goods are not a good example of trade, because they can be grown locally once you get a viable sample of that particular crop (as long as it is viable in that region), so people going one way, staying for a few generations, then going back to the nearest island, with each generation spreading the specific crop further and further afield over time. However, material goods such as ceramics, metal ore, specific minerals, coins and etc are far better proof of trade, either directly or indirectly (For example, the people who built the Stonehenge traded for (or moved them personally) rocks (the same ones used to build the Stonehenge eventually) from as far away as France all the way over to modern England; we know this because people analysed the mineral composition of said rocks and found that they matched the profile of rocks similar to those in the south of France). At the same time, DNA found in the local population is a pretty good evidence that people visited at least once, but not proof that people could constantly come and go as they please.

The basic map from Wikipedia is here:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polyn...wood,_2011).png

We can see that from there, it took generations upon generations of people to make those long migration waves out of their homeland to their new settlements, with a gap of 2400 years between settling New Caledonia and New Zealand. The fact that they could accomplish this is amazing given their tech base, but my argument was that they are not more advanced than the Akkadians, Sumerians and etc in the terms of scientific knowledge.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Early_human_migrations#/media/File:Putative_migration_waves_out_of_Africa.png
You could say that the first waves of migrations out of Africa were even more impressive, given that they went a further distance in the end than the Polynesians; that would be unfair, as it's almost certain that the Polynesians were more advanced than the humans of 100kya, plus the initial human waves took a lot longer than a few hundred years, as they were on the scale of tens of thousands of years.

As for Sargon's personal reach, we know that for sure (with archaeological proof via coins minted in his name, dated to the correct era, alongside written sources) he crossed the Mediterranean personally, and had direct trade relationships with proto-Greece, North Africa, Pakistan, and India (via the sea route through the Gulf of Aden); there's not enough evidence of direct trade between the civilizations of the fertile crescent and the tribes of Western Europe at the time, but we do know that tin exports from around modern Germany (first mined around 2500 BCE) did make its way towards the Middle East, although it would be highly unlikely that this would be direct trade.

EDIT: To the above post talking about Dark Ages being a misnomer, academics still use it specifically referring to the Bronze Age collapse, following which there was certainly an age that could be described as nothing but "Dark". The written word vanished in for a few centuries, most cities and civilizations of the time were completely destroyed (Egypt survived as a rump state compared to the one that existed before 1150 BCE, but it did survive none the less; most of our records of the time come directly from Egypt as a result; Assyria was another empire that made it through mostly intact, and we do have records from them as well). Global trade ground to a halt, and would not be resumed for centuries; even agriculture was completely wiped out in places like modern Syria, with people retreating to fortified mountain settlements of a few hundred people whereas before there were cities with tens of thousands of individuals. In modern academics, it's more common to not refer to the pre-Charlemagne era as "the Dark Ages" because while Western Europe did suffer (and I would argue that it was pretty dark for Western Europe at the time, with the loss of literacy, urban density, agricultural output and etc), technological advances did happen in the ERE, the Muslim Caliphates, India, China and the like. This was not the case during the Bronze Age collapse, where almost the whole world save for a few specific locations (we don't know too much about the Mesoamerican cultures that existed around 1150 BCE, but it's quite possible that they were also affected by the global climate shift during that era, though they wouldn't have had to deal with the double whammy of the tin supply being cut off at the same time) was essentially thrown back thousands of years back to a hunter-gatherer lifestyle for a little while.

Mr. Nice! posted:

It took a while to first discover the new islands, but there's no reason to assume that the exploration went one way. That's why the potato demonstrates people were traveling over massive stretches routinely. It spread all over the Pacific in a short timeframe because the Polynesians were traveling all the drat time.

eke out posted:

speaking of Charlemagne, anyone have recommendations for good history podcasts that covered him (and the period running up to him/after)? i realize i know basically nothing about the beginnings of the HRE

Cetea posted:

Is there a paper that details exactly how quickly the sweet potato spread as a crop? I am not familiar with that particular point. Still, for definitive proof of trade, you'd need Polynesian artifacts (such as weapons or other material goods) that can be reliably carbon dated in South America, with repeated instances of these transfers happening in a large volume over a long period of time (plenty of examples of this exists between the Akkadian Empire and the various cultures in India, Pakistan, proto-Mycenaean Greece and etc). Otherwise this would be similar to arguing that trade existed between Britain and India around 500 BCE (earliest date for chicken bones found in Britain), while the most reliable date of domestication for the chicken comes from India, around 2500 BCE. Crops like rice, wheat, millet and etc were also spread everywhere, but that does not confirm that the people from the point of origin traded with the people who gained access to the crop; it only proves that these people eventually came into contact with that specific crops after a period of time, usually through multiple generations of farmers trading goods over very short distances.

https://www.prehistoricsociety.org/files/PAST_84_for_web.pdf

EDIT: If such a pacific based trade system did exist, I would expect specific Maori based artifacts, such as moa bone jewelry, jade clubs and the like to be found in other Polynesian settlements outside of New Zealand; I am not familiar with any such examples, but if they do exist, I would love to take a look at the sources there, as it would be quite fascinating as well. The logistical difficulty transporting those goods frequently would have been immense given their technology, and I find it difficult to imagine how they would ever have benefited from it at all, given the high risks of sailing in the Pacific with canoe like boats. This same difficulty did not apply to the cultures in the fertile crescent, as you could simply sail along the coast until you reached your desired destination, which is a much easier and more practical to do.

Mr. Nice! posted:

None of the distances in the pacific were short. The Polynesian people traded between their islands and had contact enough with the Americas that they spread potatoes around the Pacific and there is lasting DNA evidence in people from South and Central America.

https://www.popularmechanics.com/technology/a21796/ancient-polynesian-trade-routes-extended-for-thousands-of-miles/

Jazerus posted:

you don't really need super-extensive evidence when a plant that only exists in one place suddenly shows up in another, and the only way it could have gotten there at that time was people in boats. britain got chickens through a long set of intermediaries, and there are no intermediary peoples between south america and polynesia. just water.

nobody's asserting that there was a huge trade network, just some level of contact

eke out posted:

speaking of Charlemagne, anyone have recommendations for good history podcasts that covered him (and the period running up to him/after)? i realize i know basically nothing about the beginnings of the HRE

cheetah7071 posted:

I don't think it's possible to rank the technological bases of different cultures like that and come up with a definitive "culture X was more advanced than culture Y" and it's problematic to try

I mean there's the super-simple cases where culture X has everything culture Y has, plus a few bonus inventions, or overwhelming gaps like the modern world and the ancient world, but in fuzzy cases it's best to just say "each culture had invented some things the other hadn't" and leave it at that

skasion posted:

I plug this book a lot but The Inheritance of Rome does a really good job how the late antique fun times with various Franks, Goths, Romans etc shook out into Carolingian and then Ottonian empires. Though there is also a lot of stuff about the ERE and the other imperial successor states which doesn’t directly bear on it, but that is still interesting in its own right.

cheetah7071 posted:

I agree it's not a coincidence that human society has changed (mostly for the better) more in the last 10000 years than in the 100000 before that but I think the invention that preceded it wasn't writing, it was agriculture. Agriculture allowed people to form sedentary communities instead of nomadic ones, where tools too large to carry with you could be practical. Agriculture allowed higher population density, meaning there were just more people thinking about the problems they faced, and a higher chance of someone coming up with a clever idea to make their lives better. Agriculture produced enough surplus that it allowed a much larger portion of the population to not be actively involved with acquiring food on a daily basis, which allowed for specialist professions to a much greater degree. In fact, our earliest writings are a direct consequence of the specialist economy--in the middle east, it was merchants who had too many debts owed to remember them all, who started using mnemonic devices which eventually turned into full-on writing.

I'm not going to disagree that writing is a massive game changer but I don't think you can lay the past 6000 years worth of inventions at its feet

cheetah7071 posted:

I mean there's the super-simple cases where culture X has everything culture Y has, plus a few bonus inventions

Teriyaki Hairpiece posted:

I'm really sorry for posting about posting but I've been reading and commenting in this thread for over 8 years and the second I saw how many new posts there were, I knew in my heart some wackjob was spouting off about their pet theory.

Cetea, you stand in the footsteps of Kings

Koramei posted:

I mean I think this is basically your point, but I'm honestly not sure there are. On the face of it, for instance, I would say East Asia is about as open and shut a case of different levels of advancement as there is--China was markedly ahead of Korea and Japan for most of their histories, and if you see a premodern East Asian invention chances are very good China had it first. But that definitely doesn't mean they had everything Korea and Japan had; architectural and clothing adaptations to match their climate and lifestyle, local peculiarities to imported court customs to fit cultural differences; things that the "more advanced" culture didn't fill, because their situations were very different. It's not as simple as "__ was in China first" -- if that innovation is inapplicable to the Korean or Japanese context, is it really more advanced?

e:: On reading that again the way I articulated my point seems a bit tortured but I hope it comes across. For a clearer cut example, the Chinese had a vastly more elaborate material culture than the steppe tribes to the north, but latter's situation would never permit that kind of culture in a way that's workable in their environment -- the local traditions were far better developed for their way of life, and so, you could argue, just as advanced?

Cetea posted:

If you're talking about the concept that using a different language to communicate can change your personality and worldview, it's pretty well researched at this point (arguably people do say that it could also depend heavily on the environment where you're speaking, but certainly the etymology of words do change how people perceive them):

https://academic.oup.com/jcr/article-abstract/35/2/279/1806130?redirectedFrom=fulltext (paywall)

https://www.psychologytoday.com/nz/blog/life-bilingual/201111/change-language-change-personality (non paywall).

I also feel that it's pretty relevant to the thread; during the heyday of Roman Empire, you'd definitely run into people with two different identities; one local, the other Roman. Josephus would be a great example, Arrian another. In fact, most of the citizens of the Roman Empire by the later point would certainly have two identities, given that citizenship was slowly granted to more and more people outside of Italia. Eventually the imperial identity did supplant the local identity entirely in places like Syria, Greece and etc. Today, a Greek might address their peers as "fellow Romans", which now has the meaning of "fellow citizen", even if at this point they identify more with their pre-Roman counterparts again. Certainly, the term "Roman" was not an ethnic identity by the time of the late Empire (and arguably had not been since the Romans granted citizenship to the various other Italian cities following the Social War), and more of a cultural identity and membership as a citizen of the Empire.

If you're talking about the debate that arose through people arguing around languages, and oral only languages vs languages with a writing system (which usually does seem to always stir up intense feelings for one reason or another), that's just a tangent of the original point.


I understand fully what you're getting at and I agree with you for the most part; there are just some inventions that are measurably superior and useful in every culture, no matter the background. Things like metallurgy, the written word, blades, computers and etc. Usually if any group of people comes into contact with a technology they know is useful to them, they will fully adopt it immediately; this is why I thought it was odd that people used the Polynesians as an example of an oral culture that was superior to a culture with a written language; the Polynesians themselves adopted writing quite quickly when they came into contact with it, recognizing the benefit it would bring to them (The Maori for example, quickly wrote down all their myths and legends the moment they gained access to the technology). As an additional example of a people recognizing the innate usefulness of something new and different, the Maori tribes in NZ had a very keen understanding of how gunpowder weaponry could revolutionize military engagements (and they were good enough at employing these new technologies alongside some basic military tactics to become the only native people to ever have defeated a European army in battle while being outnumbered, as far as I know).

As for the steppe tribes, one of the things I admired most about them was their level of adaptability; after Genghis reformed their society, they quickly adopted most of the customs and technologies of the civilizations around them that would be useful to their conquests and future governance of the land. The Japanese were also very similar in that regard, as were the Romans as well. Of course, one could say that adaptability comes from geographic imperatives and learned cultural habits; usually cultures that knew they weren't the greatest power in the land were also the most adaptable, whereas long established super powers with no real threats become stagnant (China in particular falls into the latter trap many times throughout history).

Teriyaki Hairpiece posted:

Okay here I want to speak to you clearly:

You are a crazy person. You need to understand that no crazy person thinks they're crazy. All of them think they are right and correct in what they say and do. You're in that category, firmly.

Your ideas about civilization are complex and ever changing but at the core you sem to believe that discrete societal changes lead to a society that "moves forward". Whether those changes are writing or who knows what. You've got a classic internet person poisoned by different historical games perspective, where you believe civilizations inexorably advance from a low point to a higher point. The reality is more complicated.

Dalael posted:

How can the Roman Empire have fell if Rome still exists?

SlothfulCobra posted:

Things keep existing after falling and losing their relevance all the drat time.

Cetea posted:

in traditional Chinese society, the merchant class was considered the lowest of the low.

LingcodKilla posted:

The founding fathers did read about Roman history. They had giant plantations with slave labor. What else do they need to know?

Arglebargle III posted:

Cetea posted:

The problem with modern discourse is that political correctness stands in the way of anthropology (and thus our ability to adapt ideas from different cultures, integrate it into our own and therefore improve it as a whole)

Nothingtoseehere posted:

The intellectual histoty of the American revolution really ties back to 1650s England and the ECW than it does the classics (not that classics weren't also read)

Cetea posted:

Economically I would certainly agree with you, particularly when it comes to the works of Adam Smith. The concept of "Rights" as it stands in the declaration comes from John Locke, but as for the structure of the constitution, that was heavily based off the unwritten Roman constitution, and heavily influenced by Cicero.

SlothfulCobra posted:

Honestly Charlemagne feels only tangentially related to the Holy Roman Empire proper, and the state we know by that name really got started about a century later with Otto the Great, because he's the guy who really fused the title with Germany and its weird electoral tradition and forged a state that would more recognizably last past his own death. Although still there's a lot less continuity between rulers of medieval states than we expect from more modern states.

It also gets kinda blurry when you try to figure out what the foundations the states of medieval France and Germany were built on just like how the downfall of Rome was blurry as groups of Germans ran around the whole area being a cross between an integrated branch of the imperial government and bandits taking as much advantage of the institutions and wealth lying around as they could, and eventually used all of that to take over Germany east of the Rhine while the Germans that didn't muck around in Rome didn't leave much records (so far as I can tell) of what they were like beforehand or how much of their institutions or culture or whatever survived past the Franks taking over.

I wish I could recommend some sources, but honestly a whole lot of what I know comes from just reading wikipedia a bunch, and that's built on top of what I read from Larry Gonick's Cartoon History of the Universe (volume 3).