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magz
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26 Jun 2019, 11:24 am

You're right.
The Viking Era ended with Vikings joining the civilization of medieval Europe - and contributing to it.
Technological advantage of Europeans wasn't just about navigation. I think e.g. firearms had enormous relevance.

Another thing about Old World - New World is disease. It's a general rule that in the place of origin, where a species has been present for longer time, the genetic diversity of the species is greater - but also genetic diversity of the species' pathogens is larger. This effect contributed greatly to the disadvantage of Indigenous Americans - the Europeans carried deadly diseases that Indians were very vulnerable to.


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Antrax
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26 Jun 2019, 3:58 pm

magz wrote:
You're right.
The Viking Era ended with Vikings joining the civilization of medieval Europe - and contributing to it.
Technological advantage of Europeans wasn't just about navigation. I think e.g. firearms had enormous relevance.

Another thing about Old World - New World is disease. It's a general rule that in the place of origin, where a species has been present for longer time, the genetic diversity of the species is greater - but also genetic diversity of the species' pathogens is larger. This effect contributed greatly to the disadvantage of Indigenous Americans - the Europeans carried deadly diseases that Indians were very vulnerable to.


Yes the Old World had a lot of advantages over the New World. I had not realized that the pathogen evolution may be greater due to longer time and larger population, but that makes sense.

Regarding firearms, while Europeans had superior weapons to later isolated cultures they encountered (New World, Sub-Saharan Africa), the Ottomans and the Chinese (prior to their isolationist period) had access to the same weapons. In fact Europeans got firearms from the Chinese via the Mongols. Until ~1350 chinese firearms were superior to their European or Muslim counterparts. There are a variety of theories of why Europeans and Muslims developed better guns after that timeframe one of those prominent having to do with the futility of trying to blast down thick Chinese walls, while thinner European walls were more susceptible to large cannons.

What distinguishes the Europeans from the Ottomans or Chinese is that they sailed to the New World and to Sub-Saharan Africa and accumulated the resources of those continents by conquering them.

By the way I have a tricky time deciding what to call the collection of Muslim caliphates, sultanates and empires that collectively held sway over Persia, North Africa, Turkey, Arabia, sometimes India, and sometimes parts of Europe. I've been referring to these as the Muslim societies based on their shared religion, but it feels strange. These societies were very advanced and contributed a lot of technological advancement to the Old World collective. The most prominent of them was the long-lived Ottoman empire that was a major player in World affairs all the way upto World War I.


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kraftiekortie
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26 Jun 2019, 4:35 pm

Wouldn't you say most of these sultanates, etc. west of Persia were under Ottoman hegemony primarily after about 1453 or so?



cyberdad
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27 Jun 2019, 2:34 am

Antrax wrote:
The Vikings may not have conquered the world, but they contributed greatly to the rest of Europe being able to do so. Their seafaring technology was adopted and improved upon by regions like England, France, Spain etc. Furthermore, Scandinavia was still in contact with those regions throughout history. It was actually the Swedes who figured out how to mass-manufacture cast-iron cannons such that they could be put on ships.


The vikings major weapon were their ships which although are claimed to be indigenous but looks awfully similar to the ancient phoenician warships which were also copied by the Romans and Greeks.

The knowledge of shipbuilding was obviously passed on to Germanic tribes through contact with Rome but indigenous workmanship mean't the vikings innovated their longships to be faster than the whatever their European adversaries had.



cyberdad
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27 Jun 2019, 2:39 am

magz wrote:
You're right.
The Viking Era ended with Vikings joining the civilization of medieval Europe - and contributing to it.
Technological advantage of Europeans wasn't just about navigation. I think e.g. firearms had enormous relevance.


There was a lot of rediscovery of ancient Roman/Greek knowledge during the renaissance which didn't really require much input from the vikings. But no doubt they did contribute to the makeup of modern Europe, although I think Charlemagne the Great was perhaps the founder of modern Europe and he was Frankish rather than Scandinavian.

The Vikings did virtually nothing outside of Europe. They were never a match for the organised armies of the Arabs, Turks, and Tatars. They also never ventured south to Africa.



magz
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27 Jun 2019, 3:43 am

Comb, ski, structural keel <- just a few Viking inventions still in use. They did contribute to European civilization.
Colonization of Greenland and exploration of Hudson Bay are not "virtually nothing outside of Europe".

Europe has never been a single empire - but since Middle Ages, it remains a single civilization with political plurality.
I think it was a mighty, thought very unobvious, innovation, allowing to explore more possibilities at the same time.
Portugal, Genoa, Venice and England weren't interested in funding the first voyage of Columbus - Spain agreed. All had access to the same technologies.
This diversity allowed to use opportunities better.

And then, the Industrial Revolution happened.


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Antrax
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27 Jun 2019, 4:01 am

cyberdad wrote:
Antrax wrote:
The Vikings may not have conquered the world, but they contributed greatly to the rest of Europe being able to do so. Their seafaring technology was adopted and improved upon by regions like England, France, Spain etc. Furthermore, Scandinavia was still in contact with those regions throughout history. It was actually the Swedes who figured out how to mass-manufacture cast-iron cannons such that they could be put on ships.


The vikings major weapon were their ships which although are claimed to be indigenous but looks awfully similar to the ancient phoenician warships which were also copied by the Romans and Greeks.

The knowledge of shipbuilding was obviously passed on to Germanic tribes through contact with Rome but indigenous workmanship mean't the vikings innovated their longships to be faster than the whatever their European adversaries had.


A short dive into the history of shipbuilding has shown the following progression: Viking Knarr -> Germanic Cogg -> Portuguese Carrack -> Spanish Galleon -> etc. etc.

I'm not certain whether the Vikings developed their ships independently or not. It's certainly possible they got aspects of their design from the Romans and the timeline seems to fit although most of the information I've seen suggests they created their own ships. It doesn't really matter as by medievel times they were in pretty constant contact with the rest of Europe.


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cyberdad
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27 Jun 2019, 4:13 am

magz wrote:
Comb, ski, structural keel <- just a few Viking inventions still in use. They did contribute to European civilization.
Colonization of Greenland and exploration of Hudson Bay are not "virtually nothing outside of Europe".


Iceland/Greenland are technically part of Europe as the native population was miniscule much like the natives of the Canary Island were no match for the Spanish and now the population in Canary Island are Spanish.

The Hudson Bay thing with Leif Erickson was a dismal failure as the Indians wiped out all trace of that viking settlement



cyberdad
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27 Jun 2019, 4:16 am

Antrax wrote:
I'm not certain whether the Vikings developed their ships independently or not. It's certainly possible they got aspects of their design from the Romans and the timeline seems to fit although most of the information I've seen suggests they created their own ships. It doesn't really matter as by medievel times they were in pretty constant contact with the rest of Europe.

Yep I agee with Magz about the viking keel and other structural innovations, however the south Indian catamaran (Tamil Kattu-maram or lashed logs) has also equally influenced ship design more than people would be comfortable to admit.



Wolfram87
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27 Jun 2019, 5:00 am

Would Constantinople be considered Europe or Asia?


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magz
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27 Jun 2019, 5:10 am

cyberdad wrote:
Antrax wrote:
I'm not certain whether the Vikings developed their ships independently or not. It's certainly possible they got aspects of their design from the Romans and the timeline seems to fit although most of the information I've seen suggests they created their own ships. It doesn't really matter as by medievel times they were in pretty constant contact with the rest of Europe.

Yep I agee with Magz about the viking keel and other structural innovations, however the south Indian catamaran (Tamil Kattu-maram or lashed logs) has also equally influenced ship design more than people would be comfortable to admit.

That's exactly how technological progress of a civilization works. Good ideas of different people from different times and places are brought together and reworked to create something even better. No one makes an invention completely from scratch, we all stand of the shoulders of giants - and these giants come from all over the world.


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kraftiekortie
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27 Jun 2019, 8:18 am

Both. Istanbul is in both Europe and Asia. West of the Bosporous is Europe; across the bridge to the east is Asia.



Antrax
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27 Jun 2019, 1:41 pm

Wolfram87 wrote:
Would Constantinople be considered Europe or Asia?


It's literally the point where the two continents meet.


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