"Europe of 400-500 AD was populated by people not too far removed from the Stone Age, or more like Bronze Age nomads than the Romans at their height."
We see it that way, but the Dark Ages went on to produce the Book of Kells and an artistic Renaissance (Celtic) that rivals the later European Renaissance ... http://www.bookofkells.ie/famous.html Furthermore - in other (non-European) areas of the world cultures are flourishing throughout this time - http://www.angkorwat.org "The infection rate continues to climb, and the food production rate continues to fall. Communities grow more isolated. The death toll rises. Human populations are slow to recover. The climate continues to degrade. Other diseases, once less common and less deadly begin to ravage the population." The AIDs pandemic in Africa appears to share many of the same broad characteristics of the European Black Death pandemic that led to the emergence of Europe from the grips of the feudal peasant society and lead directly to the European Renaissance. -- Edmund Cramp http://www.emgsrus.com/graffiti.htm
