Main Phases of the Afroeurasian World-System’s Evolution
Discussion
By Leonid E. Grinin and Andrey V. Korotayev:
"In the 10th – 8th millennia BCE the transition from foraging to food production took place in West Asia (in the Fertile Crescent area), and thus, one could observe a significantly growing complexity of respective social systems, which marked the start of the formation of the Afroeurasian world system. The formation of the Afroeurasian world-system was one of the crucial points of social evolution, starting from which the social evolution rate and effectiveness increased dramatically.
In the 8th – 5th millennia BCE one could observe the Afroeurasian world-system's expansion and the formation of rather effective informational, cultural, and even trade links between its parts.
In the 4th and 3rd millennia first in Southern Mesopotamia, and then in most other parts of the Afroeurasian world-system one could observe the formation of a large number of cities. Writing systems, large-scale irrigation-based agriculture, new technologies of tillage had developed. The first early states and civilizations would form on this basis. A large number of very important technological innovations were introduced in most parts of the Afroeurasian worldsystem: wheel, plow, pottery wheel, harness, etc. The emergence and diffusion of the copper and bronze metallurgy increased military capabilities and contributed to the intensification of regional struggles for hegemony. New civilization centers emerged outside the Middle Eastern core (e.g., the Minoan and Harappan civilization).
In the late 3rd and the 2nd millennia BCE in Mesopotamia one could observe the succession of such large-scale political entities as the Kingdom of Akkad, the 3rd Dynasty of Ur, the Old Babylonian and Assyrian Kingdoms. The struggle for hegemony in the core of the Afroeurasian world-system came up to a new level with a clash between the New Kingdom of Egypt and the Hittite Empire. The political macroprocesses were exacerbated by invasions from the tribal peripheries (the Gutians, Amorites, Hyksos, etc.) with a gradual increase of the role of nomadic herders in such invasions.
In the 2nd millennium BCE, a new Afroeurasian world-system center emerged in the Far East with the formation of the first Chinese state of Shang/Yin. In general, those processes led to the enormous expansion of the Afroeurasian world-system.
In the late 2nd and 1st millennia BCE, the iron metallurgy diffused throughout Afroeurasian world-system, which led to a significant growth of agricultural production in the areas of non-irrigation agriculture in Europe, North Africa, the Middle East, South Asia, and the Far East. This also led to the rise of crafts, trade, urbanization, and military capabilities.
In the 1st millennium BCE the hegemony struggles moved far beyond the Near East. The fall of the New Assyrian Empire in the 7th century BCE paved the way to the formation of new enormous empires (Median, and later Persian ones). The Greek-Persian wars marked the first clash between European and Asian powers. In the second half of the 4th century BCE, Alexander the Great's campaign created (albeit for a short period of time) a truly Afroeurasian empire encompassing vast territories in all the three parts of the Old World – Asia, Africa, and Europe.
In the 2nd millennium BCE, the Harappan civilization disappeared in a rather mysterious way; however, in the 1st millennium BCE the Indoarians who had migrated to this region from Central Asia created there a new and more powerful civilization.
In the late 1st millennium BCE, one could observe a formation of new empires: the Roman Republic and the Chinese Empire (Qin, and later Han). Then there developed an unusually long network of trade routes (the so-called Silk Route) between the western and eastern centers of the Afroeurasian worldsystem.
In the 1st millennium BCE – the early 1st millennium CE in connection with the climatic change and some important technological innovations (saddle, stirrup, etc.) a new type of nomadic societies emerged; the new nomads were able to cover enormous distances and to transform quickly into a sort of mobile army. As a result, the whole enormous landmass of the Eurasian steppe belt became a nomadic periphery of the Afroeurasian world-system. The Scythian ‘Kingdom’ in Europe and the more recent ‘empire’ of the Hsiung-nu that emerged to the north from China were one of the first powerful nomadic polities of this kind.
In the first centuries CE, as a result of mass migrations and military invasions of peoples from the barbarian periphery, the ethnic and cultural landscape of the Afroeurasian world-system experienced very significant changes. The Western Roman Empire disappeared as a result of the barbarians' onslaught. The Han Empire in China had collapsed earlier. As a result of the stormy events within the Afroeurasian world-system a considerable number of new states (including states of the imperial type) emerged (Frankish, Byzantine, Sassanid empires, the Gupta Empire in India, the Tang Empire in China, etc.); note that some of them (like the Turkic khaganates) played a role of a trade link between the East and the West. The first millennium CE evidenced the emergence of new world religions and a wide diffusion of old and new world and super-ethnic religions (including Confucianism). Buddhism spread very widely in many regions of Central, South-East, and East Asia (including China, Korea, Japan, and Tibet). Confucianism prevailed in East Asia. Christianity embraced whole Western and Eastern Europe and proliferated to some areas of Africa and Asia. Finally, starting with the 7th century one could observe an explosive spread of Islam that embraced the whole of Near and Middle East. The enormously large Islamic Khalifate emerged (it disintegrated quite soon afterwards, but it left a huge Islamic communication network [see, e.g., Korotayev 2003a; Korotayev, Klimenko, and Proussakov 1999, 2003]).
The first half of the 2nd millennium CE. The Crusades (the 11th – 13th centuries CE) were one of the most important world-system events; among other things they opened a channel of spice trade with Europe. The Mongolian conquests of the 13th century played a tremendous role as they led to unprecedented destructions and political perturbations. However, later the emergence of an unprecedentedly large Mongolian empire contributed to the diffusion of a number of extremely important technologies throughout the Afroeurasian world-system (including its European part); it also established a network of trade roots connecting East Asia with Europe that was unprecedented in terms of scale and efficiency. The barbarian semiperiphery turned out to be incorporated in the civilization environment (of Islam, Buddhism, and Confucianism), which contributed to vigorous penetration of the world-system links far to the Eurasian North and deep into Africa. On the other hand, the expansion of trade contacts between the East and the West contributed to the diffusion of the Black Death pandemic in the 14th century.
An important event was the firm incorporation of South India into tight contacts with other parts of the Afroeurasian world-system through a gradual penetration of the Islamic polities and a partial Islamization of its population. In the 15th century, a new political and military force emerged in West Asia – the Ottoman Empire. The Turks hindered the Levantine spice trade and, thus, accelerated the search for the sea route to India. New qualitative changes within the Afroeurasian world-system were connected with the start of the Great Geographic Discoveries and the Afroeurasian world-system's transformation into the planetary capitalist World System, which marked the start of a qualitatively new phase in the globalization history."
(https://www.sociostudies.org/almanac/articles/files/evolution_3/pdf/030-068.pdf)