I found a cool monograph on the feedback loop style relationship between the rise of Empires and Nomadic Confederations along the ecological boundary separating agricultural settlements and nomads.
http://cliodynamics.info/PDF/Steppe_JGH_reprint.pdf
QuoteAbstract
Between 3000 BCE and 1800 CE there were more than sixty 'mega-empires' that, at the peak,
controlled an area of at least one million square kilometres. What were the forces that kept
together such huge pre-industrial states? I propose a model for one route to mega-empire,
motivated by imperial dynamics in eastern Asia, the world region with the highest concentration
of mega-empires. This 'mirror-empires' model proposes that antagonistic interactions
between nomadic pastoralists and settled agriculturalists result in an autocatalytic process,
which pressures both nomadic and farming polities to scale up polity size, and thus military
power. The model suggests that location near a steppe frontier should correlate with the frequency
of imperiogenesis. A worldwide survey supports this prediction: over 90% of megaempires
arose within or next to the Old World's arid belt, running from the Sahara desert
to the Gobi desert. Specific case studies are also plausibly explained by this model. There
are, however, other possible mechanisms for generating empires, of which a few are discussed
at the end of the article.
Thanks. :)
Fascinating.
On a related note, does anybody know of any good explanation as to why the great nomad empires stopped spawning? Though this paper might seem to suggest that the great steppe was simply overtaken by two civilized empires (china and russia) which now had the will and power to impose their will on the steppes at a time when the steppe was in a decline phase of the feedback loop.
Quote from: Viking on February 18, 2010, 07:41:02 PM
Fascinating.
On a related note, does anybody know of any good explanation as to why the great nomad empires stopped spawning? Though this paper might seem to suggest that the great steppe was simply overtaken by two civilized empires (china and russia) which now had the will and power to impose their will on the steppes at a time when the steppe was in a decline phase of the feedback loop.
Reliable firearms and artillery negating the traditional nomadic military advantage?
Quote from: Sahib on February 18, 2010, 07:46:03 PM
Quote from: Viking on February 18, 2010, 07:41:02 PM
Fascinating.
On a related note, does anybody know of any good explanation as to why the great nomad empires stopped spawning? Though this paper might seem to suggest that the great steppe was simply overtaken by two civilized empires (china and russia) which now had the will and power to impose their will on the steppes at a time when the steppe was in a decline phase of the feedback loop.
Reliable firearms and artillery negating the traditional nomadic military advantage?
I would say even more important than that was the increased ability of the state to mobilize its resources and take advantage of the massive disparity in population .
Quote from: Sahib on February 18, 2010, 07:46:03 PM
Reliable firearms and artillery negating the traditional nomadic military advantage?
Do we have any example of a large nomadic confederation/empire fighting bow vs. arquebus and losing?
Quote from: Viking on February 18, 2010, 08:03:09 PM
Quote from: Sahib on February 18, 2010, 07:46:03 PM
Reliable firearms and artillery negating the traditional nomadic military advantage?
Do we have any example of a large nomadic confederation/empire fighting bow vs. arquebus and losing?
Muscovy?
Quote from: Faeelin on February 18, 2010, 09:37:25 PM
Quote from: Viking on February 18, 2010, 08:03:09 PM
Quote from: Sahib on February 18, 2010, 07:46:03 PM
Reliable firearms and artillery negating the traditional nomadic military advantage?
Do we have any example of a large nomadic confederation/empire fighting bow vs. arquebus and losing?
Muscovy?
Was Muscovy heavily equipped with gunpowder weapons?
Were Kazan and Crimea not?
Were Kazan and Crimea not stationary bandits?
Quote from: Viking on February 18, 2010, 09:54:50 PM
Quote from: Faeelin on February 18, 2010, 09:37:25 PM
Quote from: Viking on February 18, 2010, 08:03:09 PM
Quote from: Sahib on February 18, 2010, 07:46:03 PM
Reliable firearms and artillery negating the traditional nomadic military advantage?
Do we have any example of a large nomadic confederation/empire fighting bow vs. arquebus and losing?
Muscovy?
Were Kazan and Crimea not stationary bandits?
The article references raids deep by the Crimean khanate into Muscovite territory so I don't think so.
Quote from: jimmy olsen on February 18, 2010, 09:57:00 PM
Quote from: Viking on February 18, 2010, 09:54:50 PM
Quote from: Faeelin on February 18, 2010, 09:37:25 PM
Quote from: Viking on February 18, 2010, 08:03:09 PM
Quote from: Sahib on February 18, 2010, 07:46:03 PM
Reliable firearms and artillery negating the traditional nomadic military advantage?
Do we have any example of a large nomadic confederation/empire fighting bow vs. arquebus and losing?
Muscovy?
Were Kazan and Crimea not stationary bandits?
The article references raids deep by the Crimean khanate into Muscovite territory so I don't think so.
The questions were not rhetorical. I want to know.
They had a city and they had settled in the Ukraine. This then poses the question, when does a raiding bandit become a settled bandit and can he be both?
Quote from: Viking on February 19, 2010, 12:33:35 AM
Quote from: jimmy olsen on February 18, 2010, 09:57:00 PM
Quote from: Viking on February 18, 2010, 09:54:50 PM
Quote from: Faeelin on February 18, 2010, 09:37:25 PM
Quote from: Viking on February 18, 2010, 08:03:09 PM
Quote from: Sahib on February 18, 2010, 07:46:03 PM
Reliable firearms and artillery negating the traditional nomadic military advantage?
Do we have any example of a large nomadic confederation/empire fighting bow vs. arquebus and losing?
Muscovy?
Were Kazan and Crimea not stationary bandits?
The article references raids deep by the Crimean khanate into Muscovite territory so I don't think so.
The questions were not rhetorical. I want to know.
They had a city and they had settled in the Ukraine. This then poses the question, when does a raiding bandit become a settled bandit and can he be both?
Ah, well I don't know much about the Crimeans and their situation. :blush:
Quote from: Viking on February 18, 2010, 08:03:09 PM
Quote from: Sahib on February 18, 2010, 07:46:03 PM
Reliable firearms and artillery negating the traditional nomadic military advantage?
Do we have any example of a large nomadic confederation/empire fighting bow vs. arquebus and losing?
Native Americans and/or Zulus.
Quote from: Martinus on February 19, 2010, 02:36:53 AM
Quote from: Viking on February 18, 2010, 08:03:09 PM
Quote from: Sahib on February 18, 2010, 07:46:03 PM
Reliable firearms and artillery negating the traditional nomadic military advantage?
Do we have any example of a large nomadic confederation/empire fighting bow vs. arquebus and losing?
Native Americans and/or Zulus.
The Zulus were a settled agrarian, not nomadic, culture.
And the native Americans were not a united confederation. Moreover, the few times several tribes fought together (such as in 1876) they never did so on anything approaching the scale of the Eurasian steppe.
Quote from: Viking on February 19, 2010, 12:33:35 AM
The questions were not rhetorical. I want to know.
They had a city and they had settled in the Ukraine. This then poses the question, when does a raiding bandit become a settled bandit and can he be both?
Nomads and settled peoples often settle in to what could generously be called a symbiotic, and realistically be called a parasitic relationship, at least past the time of the Scythians and early Indo-Europeans, who were substantially more complex and far better agriculturalists than most, particularly non-Indo-European nomads. That said, with land as fertile as the Ukraine, there was probably ALWAYS some manner of sedentary population, with a blur of sedentary and nomad. For instance, the Slavic languages all developed on the fascinating Forest-Steppe frontier, and their language seems to reflect a truly ancient relationship with more easterly Iranian proto-nomads and the native, largely sedentary population.
What would often happen is the lower classes would settle and assimilate with the native agrarian/pastoralist population, while an upper nomadic class would become a new feudal class. Often, this resulted in haphazard gestalt feudal states initially established as confederations of Nomads, with a later, more thoroughly sedentary Empire, combining the militaristic strengths of the Nomadic peoples with the organizational ability of sedentary peoples.
I misread the title as having something to do with Foundation and Empire. :(
An interesting article; I basically agree with the notion that the frontier between nomad and settled is likely to lead to scaling-up.
The author wrote another paper that I think is interesting.
Click for the full article
http://www.pnas.org/content/early/2013/09/20/1308825110.full.pdf
QuoteWar, space, and the evolution of Old World complex societies
Abstract
How did human societies evolve from small groups, integrated by
face-to-face cooperation, to huge anonymous societies of today,
typically organized as states? Why is there so much variation in
the ability of different human populations to construct viable
states? Existing theories are usually formulated as verbal models
and, as a result, do not yield sharply defined, quantitative predictions that could be unambiguously tested with data. Here we develop a cultural evolutionary model that predicts where and when the largest-scale complex societies arose in human history.
The central premise of the model, which we test, is that costly
institutions that enabled large human groups to function without
splitting up evolved as a result of intense competition between
societies—primarily warfare. Warfare intensity, in turn, depended
on the spread of historically attested military technologies (e.g.,
chariots and cavalry) and on geographic factors (e.g., rugged land-
scape).
The model was simulated within a realistic landscape of
the Afroeurasian landmass and its predictions were tested against
a large dataset documenting the spatiotemporal distribution of
historical large-scale societies in Afroeurasia between 1,500 BCE
and 1,500 CE. The model-predicted pattern of spread of large-scale
societies was very similar to the observed one.
Overall, the model explained 65% of variance in the data. An alternative model, omitting the effect of diffusing military technologies, explained only
16% of variance. Our results support theories that emphasize the
role of institutions in state-building and suggest a possible explanation why a long history of statehood is positively correlated with political stability, institutional quality, and income per capita.
imperiogenesis...now that's a nice word.
I'm a bit skeptical of this. People have tried to turn history into a science before.
Quote from: Viking on February 18, 2010, 09:54:50 PM
Was Muscovy heavily equipped with gunpowder weapons?
Were Kazan and Crimea not?
Were Kazan and Crimea not stationary bandits?
At the time of the conquest of Kazan, the Russian army had an insane amount of artillery (in fact Russian artillery in mid-16th century was some of the best in Europe). Also, Russian infantry combined the use of melee (bardiches) and guns, as opposed to separate melee and gunpowder infantry elsewhere. Kazan had some firearms but mostly had the traditional nomad cavalry.
My paper on post-coital behavior of Cro-Magnon man was very well received. I have also published extensively on stamps of the early 4th century.
Quote from: The Brain on October 10, 2013, 09:37:17 AM
My paper on post-coital behavior of Cro-Magnon man was very well received. I have also published extensively on stamps of the early 4th century.
Did they wash their dicks or dunk them in a cup?
Quote from: Ed Anger on October 10, 2013, 09:39:45 AM
Quote from: The Brain on October 10, 2013, 09:37:17 AM
My paper on post-coital behavior of Cro-Magnon man was very well received. I have also published extensively on stamps of the early 4th century.
Did they was their dicks or dunk them in a cup?
Penis beeter. No, that was just too contrived and unfunny.