Post-classical history

[7] The population generally grew steadily throughout the period but endured some incidental declines due to events including the Plague of Justinian, the Mongol invasions, and the Black Death.

[3] 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.

[21] 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.

[16] Around the 2010s, therefore, researchers began 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.

Outside of Europe there is evidence of warming conditions, including higher temperatures in China and major North American droughts which adversely affected numerous cultures.

[48] Its causes are unclear: possible explanations include sunspots, orbital cycles of the Earth, volcanic activity, ocean circulation, and man-made population decline.

[60] 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.

[67][68][69][70][71][72] The vast transcontinental empire connected east and west with an enforced Pax Mongolica allowing trade, technologies, commodities, and ideologies to be disseminated and exchanged across Eurasia.

[76] 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 in 1299, they withdrew due to various geopolitical factors.

[81] It is even claimed by some historians – such as Andre Gunder Frank, William Hardy McNeill, Jerry H. Bentley, and Marshall Hodgson – that the Afro-Eurasian world was loosely united culturally, and that the Silk Road was fundamental to this unity.

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, shifting blame away from themselves.

[100] 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.

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 and Crimea through sparsely populated Central Asia.

While typically Western European expansion as a result of the Black Death is most discussed, Islamic countries including the Ottoman Empire also partook in land-based expansionism and used their own slave trade.

[135][136] Byzantium flourished as the leading power and trade center in its region in the Macedonian Renaissance until it was overshadowed by Italian city-states and the Islamic Ottoman Empire near the end of the Middle Ages.

[150] Muslims saved and spread Greek advances in medicine, algebra, geometry, astronomy, anatomy, and ethics that would later find their way back to Western Europe.

The fragmentation of the Middle East allowed joint European forces mainly from England, France, and the emerging Holy Roman Empire, to enter the region.

[159] In South India, the Hindu kingdom of Chola gained prominence with an overseas empire that controlled parts of modern-day Sri Lanka, Malaysia, and Indonesia as oversees territories and accelerated the spread of Hinduism into the historic culture of these places.

[161] From 1206 onward, a series of Turkic invasions from modern-day Afghanistan and Iran conquered massive portions of North India, founding the Delhi Sultanate which remained supreme until the 16th century.

[H][203] Around 1200 CE the Tuʻi 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.

Surviving records from medieval Iceland indicate some sporadic voyages to a land called Markland, possibly the coast of Labrador, Canada, as late as 1347 presumably to collect wood for deforested Greenland.

[228][K] Concentrating a significant number of islands, the Caribbean had been the scene of constant maritime migrations via canoes since the Lithic stage, with its first inhabitants reaching the area by around 5000 BCE.

[231] After a millennia of population flows, the various peoples of the Caribbean entered in the post-classical period with notable developments on numerous permanent settlements and more complex social organizations, which were a result of the improvement of agricultural techniques and also the considerable growth of villages, that became great ceremonial and commercial centers led by different Cacique.

[232] By around 650 C.E and 800 C.E, new migratory waves from the Caribbean coast of present-day Venezuela took place and several people began a process of major cultural, sociopolitical, and ritual reformulations, which led to the formation of the first chiefdoms and the emergence of social hierarchy.

Despite little evidence, some scholars still claim that the Taíno may have had a tenuous influence from the Maya civilization, as certain customs, such as the practice of batey, may have been inherited from the original Mesoamerican ballgame which also carried a religious character.

[234] When Christopher Columbus landed in the Bahamas in 1492, he and his crew initially maintained a peaceful contact with the local Taíno people, but soon afterwards they were enslaved by the Spanish colonizers, bringing the area into the early modern period.

[241] Likewise, other Mayan cities such as Tikal and Calakmul also initiated a series of full-scale conflicts in the area over power and prestige, culminating in the Tikal-Calakmul Wars in the 6th century.

Fundamental to their conquest, was the use of political terror in the sense that the Aztec leaders and priests would command the human sacrifice of their subjugated people as means of humility and coercion.

[248] Aztec developments expanded cultivation, applying the use of chinampas, irrigation, and terrace agriculture; important crops included maize, sweet potatoes, and avocados.

Instead Andeans developed other methods to foster their growth, including use of the quipu system to communicate messages, llamas to carry smaller loads and an economy based on reciprocity.

Leonardo Bruni , Renaissance historian who helped develop the concept of " Middle Ages "
Piquillacta was an administrative urban center of the Wari Empire , a South America Andean civilization that thrived from the 5th to the 8th century.
Siege of Antioch (picture from c. 1280 .) Religious wars were common in post-classical times. One of the largest was the Muslim conquests .
Pakistan 's Babusar Pass , part of the Silk Road
Reconstructed depth of Little Ice Age varies among studies. Anomalies shown are from the 1950–80 reference period.
Mahmud of Ghazni receiving Indian elephants as tribute. Islamic conquerors often maintained preexisting feudal systems; regardless of religious differences local aristocrats kept their positions as long as the jizya was paid.
Mounted warriors pursue enemies. Illustration of Rashid-ad-Din's Gami' at-tawarih. Tabriz (?), 1st quarter of 14th century.
Marco Polo describes the Toluid Civil War and Mongol armies at that time.
Letter from the Mongolian-Persian Ilkhanate to France, 1305. The Chinese style stamp was used outside China as the official symbol of the Khans and their messengers.
Central Asian Buddhist Monks, the Silk Road allowed for the exchange for ideas as well as goods. A Central Asian Buddhist teacher (possibly Sogdian ) instructs a monk. Dated from the 9th century near Turfan, Xinxiang, China
Marco Polo describing Khanbaliq's (Beijing's) role in the Silk Road
Chinese-Song era tapestry
Chinese-Song-era tapestry, Chinese Silk was carried west over large distancess
Old Testament Plague of boils in the Toggenburg Bible, 14th century. Bubonic Plagues deeply affected the life outlook of survivors.
Westerner and Arab practicing geometry 15th century manuscript
12th century illustration from the Tale of Genji , the world's first novel.
Behold Water of Waters, by Iranian poet Rumi . Example of lyric poetry
Djenne Terracotta Equestrian (13th–15th century), within the Mali Empire
Drawing from 1300 that depicts medieval ploughing. Most Europeans in the Middle Ages were landless peasants called serfs who worked in exchange for military protection. After the Black Death of the 1340s, a labor shortage caused serfs to demand wages for their labor.
Bobolice Castle , in Boblice Poland . Medieval European castles were centers of feudal power .
6th-century Sasanian defense lines in modern-day Derbent, Dagestan Russia
Anatomy of a horse from the 15th century. The Golden Age of Islam made advances in medicine .
Brihadisvara Temple, Thanjavur constructed by Rajendra Chola .
Built in the 9th century, Borobudur is the largest Buddhist temple in the world.
Detail of the bas-relief of the Battle of Tonlé Sap at the Bayon. Champa was a major rival of the Khmer Empire. Southeast Asian battles were often fought on rivers.
Ming dynasty painting of the imperial examinations , which gave citizens the opportunity to be employed by the imperial government of China through meritocracy . [ 173 ]
A Japanese Buddha sculpture from the Asuka period
The Korean Kangnido , inspired by Da Ming Hunyi Tu , showing East Asian knowledge of world geography.
Micronesian navigational chart
A Micronesian navigational chart , which was used by Polynesians to navigate through wind and water currents.
Hale o Keawe , a restored heiau in the U.S. state of Hawaii , used as sacred temple and sacrificial altar. The statues represent traditional gods.
Authentic reconstruction of Norse site at L'Anse aux Meadows .
Recording of Saga of Eirik the Red. Chapter 8-11 describing interactions between the Norse and Beothuk erroneously called Eskimo .
Mississippi Pipe bowl chunkey player
Stonework Mesa Verde National Park Colorado
Wood-sculpture of a Taíno deity, also called Zemi . Dominican Republic: 15th–16th century.
Toltec Atlantean figures at the Tula site. The Toltec civilization inspired the later Aztecs .
Aztec bloodletting, priests conduct a heart sacrifice, from the Tudela Codex , 16th century.
Temple of the Sun, Machu Picchu, Peru
Genoese world map , 1457 it suggests the possibility of sea travel to India from Western Europe though this had not yet been done at the time.
The fall of Constantinople brought the last remnants of the Roman Empire to an end.