Gunpowder and the Decline of the Steppes Nomads

 

Episode 34: Legacy of the Steppes

Barbarian Empires of the Steppes (2014)

Dr Kenneth Harl

Film Review

By 1500, the steppes nomads had ceased to play the strong historical role (as a military power and means to wealth creation and cultural exchange) they had played for 6,000 years.

In this final lecture, Harl credits their loss of power to the military revolution in Europe leading to hand held weapons and naval vessels fitted with heavy artillery. Ironically both these developments were made possibly by the Mongol Peace allowing the spread of Chinese black gunpowder to Europe.* Nomad horse archers were virtually powerless against firearms.

By 1500. the Ottoman Empire, Safavid Iran, Russia and the Mughal Empire were encroaching on the steppes, restricting nomad movement and exacting tribute along the Silk Road.

The Silk Road also declined in importance (as did the caravan cities) during the 16th century as European explorers discovered faster and safer sea routes to Europe and the Middle East. Harl explores in detail the Portuguese occupation of both coasts of Africa and India as they dominated the India Ocean. In the 17th century, they would be joined by the Dutch, English and French in their colonization of Africa and Asia.

In summing up the legacy of the steppes nomads, Harl points to the domestication of the horse and the invention of the wheel. Both, he feels, were as important as the agricultural revolution. Not only did the two inventions open up the steppes grasslands to human habitation, but they linked the steppes nomads to the prehistoric sedentary civilizations arising along major Middle East and Asian rivers.

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*Ironically this was one of the few Eastern cultural innovations to make it as far as Europe.

Film can be viewed free with a library card.

https://www.kanopy.com/en/pukeariki/video/5694984/5695059

Militarized Nomads: Who were the Scythians, Huns and Mongols?

Episode 16: The Importance of the Nomads

The Big History of Civilizations (2016)

Dr Craig G Benjamin

Film Review

One of my favorite lectures, this presentation covers the militarized pastoral nomads who dominated Central Asia from 5000 BC onward. According to Benjamin, the “life ways” of pastoral nomad conquerors only became feasible after when he calls the 5th millenium “secondary products revolution,” ie the discovery of secondary uses (ie blood, milk, hair, leather, and traction power) for domesticated animals. Domestication of the horse in the 5th millenium BC made it possible for pastoral nomads to establish vast military empires.

Benjamin covers three main networks of militarized nomads known for terrorizing sedentary civilizations: the Scythians, the Huns and the Mongols. Obtaining their weapons (bows and arrows, axes, swords and maces) from sedentary civilizations, all three played an invaluable role developing the Silk Road trade networks between China and they Mediterranean.

The Scythians terrorized the Greek city states. Although the Roman Army successfully kept them at bay,  they eventually caused the collapse of the Assyrian Empire. Eventually networks of Scythian tribes extended as far east as Uzbekistan and China. Weakened by battles with the Celts and Sarmatians,* they were assimilated by the Goths in the third millenium BC.

The Huns, who appeared between the fourth and sixth century AD, devastated Europe’s Germanic tribes and the late Roman Empire.

The Mongols who appeared in the 13th century AD created the larges contiguous empire in world history.

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*The Samatians were are large Iranian confederation around 500 BC

This film can be viewed free on Kanopy with a library card.

https://pukeariki.kanopy.com/video/importance-nomads