>One needs to remember that, around the time the horse collar was invented,
>Europe was devolving. Fields reverted to woods, for lack of cultivation.
I don't know about whether Europe was de-volving during this period; rather
it had already de-volved. IIRC the horse-collar was developed sometime
during the 10th c. In the next several centuries, up until the middle of
the 14th, Europe would experience a population explosion in which its
population doubled and even tripled in some areas. It was the period of the
Late Roman Empire (and to a lesser extent the later invasions by the
Muslims, Magyars, Slavs, and Norse) that de-populated Western Europe to a
large extent.
However, while the horse collar was an important medieval development, do
you think, agriculturally speaking, it was more important than the 3 field
system of crop rotation? Or the cultivation of legumes? Both of these
developments contributed significantly to the factors that would allow the
population explosion that would occur later. The 3 field system allowed for
more food to be cultivated in a given year (66% compared to 50% of the land
was in use, and legumes help replenish the soil), while the legume
contributed significantly to female longevity. While child-birth was still
dangerous, because of the nutrients in beans (particularly iron), women
were less anemic than they had in previous centuries (where wheat was the
primary, and often only, food consumed) and this allowed them to better
resist disease and survive child birth. Some records indicate that there
were MORE women surviving in peasant and serf communities than men. Of
course this also allowed for women to bear more children successfully.
While disease and accidents would still take their toll, a woman could
theoretically bear more children now, because she was living longer.
What I;m trying to say here is that to try to pin down a single invention
as being critical to the development of society (i.e. "The Bean Saved the
West") is impossible and ignores a number of critial and important
developments that ALSO needed to take place in order for society to
develop. In my example, the population explosion of the 11th-14th C. were
dependent on a number of factors, namely: use of the horse collar in
agriculture, 3 field system, cultivation of legumes, use of the heavy iron
plow, and probably a number of others I'm forgetting. The point is that all
of these developments were needed to allow for the population explosion,
and the population explostion was neccessary for a number of other
scientific, philosophic, religious, political, and economic developments
that were important in the MA and helped shaped society today. To pin these
developments to a single technology therefore becomes pointless.
Damon.
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Damon Agretto
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
"Qui desiderat pacem, praeparet bellum"
http://www.geocities.com/garrand.geo/index.html
Now Building: AFV Club's M10 Tank Destroyer
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