Abadoned Technologies

[tallwingedgoat]

There are many WI threads on technology being adopted where it was not. However history is full of instances where societies abandoned known technologies for inexplicable reasons. Jared Diamond's book offers a sample of the phenomenon. The bow and arrow were abandoned by several peoples from the Australian aborigines to Polynesians and some Inuits. Other Inuits abandoned the dog and sled. Bone tools were abandoned by the Australian aborigines, and some Pacific Islanders abandoned the canoe. Most Polynesians gave up pottery. The Mesoamericans gave up the wheel. Of course post-Rome Europeans abandoned many things, among which cement. The Chinese gave up the mechanical clock and water powered spinning wheels. The Japanese famously abandoned the musket.

What other technologies could be conceivably abandoned by specific cultures at specific times?

[ImmortalImpi]

The Chinese were burning coal when Marco Polo was in Peking, but as is chinese tradition, never went beyond that and attempted to make a comustion engine. The Chinese are probably the greatest example. The technology was there, they just weren't interested.

[Riain]

The Gallic Reaper was abondoned during Roman times never to return.

The Dark Ages is all about wholesale abondonment of everything, it took a long time before stone and masonary building and things like waterwheel started being used again.

[Hyperbolus]

Wheeled vehicles were abandoned in much of the Middle East following the rise of the Islamic Empire and were replaced by Camels. Irrigation systems went unmaintained or were destroyed outright in Mesopotamia, Mesoamerica and parts of Iberia during periods of chaos and protracted warfare in the late middle ages. The conquerors, Mongols in the first instance and Castillians in the latter two were largely pastoralists.
Also the late Ming dynasty in China substantially banned large ocean going ships.

[Faeelin]

The Chinese gave up waterpower and mechanical clocks?

[tallwingedgoat]

The Chinese gave up waterpower and mechanical clocks?

The Song dynasty had clock towers, but these were one time curiosities. Not waterpower per se, but a water powered fiber spinning wheel design was abandoned. There's a reference to it in the Wikipedia section on High Level Equilibrium Trap.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High_level_equilibrium_trap

[ChucK Y]

Most of the cases of abandonment are not particularly inexplicable. Societal disruption, destruction of infrastructure and trade, and groups too small to reliably pass on all skills explain most of the examples.

[Sucrose]

I'd think the most famous example would be the Tasmanian aborigines, who lost the ability to make fire.

[Faeelin]

The Song dynasty had clock towers, but these were one time curiosities.

Well that's a complex issue, ain't it? There were plenty of clocks in China by the time of McCartney's mission, especially in the Yangzi Delta and along the southern coast.

[ImmortalImpi]

Well that's a complex issue, ain't it? There were plenty of clocks in China by the time of McCartney's mission, especially in the Yangzi Delta and along the southern coast.

Yes, yet the Chinese never devised an effecient, accurate calender, did they? Innovation was never China's strong point. If it was, the Portugese would have seen internal combustion engine powered ships in Canton.

[Faeelin]

Yes, yet the Chinese never devised an effecient, accurate calender, did they? Innovation was never China's strong point. If it was, the Portugese would have seen internal combustion engine powered ships in Canton.

They managed to adopt Jesuit astronomical teachings, no? And I note that nobody calls Europe stagnant because it wasn't using cast iron until the 18th century on a scale China had centuries before...

[Don Lardo]

Innovation was never China's strong point.


Anyone have that double facepalm picture handy?

Most of the cases of abandonment are not particularly inexplicable. Societal disruption, destruction of infrastructure and trade, and groups too small to reliably pass on all skills explain most of the examples.

This.

The archaeological record, for example, is littered with "advanced" pottery styles/techniques which developed, produced, and then seemingly abandoned only to be "reinvented" at some later date. The famous Jomon pottery is one example of this and the Portland Vase another albeit in glass working.

Another example of an abandoned technology may be bricks. I've read a few times, but haven't been able to really verify, that bricks weren't manufactured in Britain between the withdrawal of the Roman legions and the mid-17th Century.

Finally, there are a huge number of examples of technologies being developed by individuals or small groups only to be "lost" upon their death. There was a fellow who air conditioned Britain's Houses of Parliament during the reign of Jame I or Charles I only to pack up his equipment and go home when he didn't get the money he was asking for.

Technological advances like the air conditioning story above made by "court magicians", priests, alchemists, astrologers, and the like were almost always "lost" because those advances were closely controlled secrets labeled as "magic" or "miracles". Hero of Alexandria's many advances, real or suspected, were "lost" in this manner because his "customers" were almost always the priests of Alexandria's many temples vying with each other for worshipers and their donations.

[marl_d]

the Chinese were innovative...they just didn't like change large scale, and thats probably why many inventions either stayed curiosities or fell by the wayside

[LordVetinari]

Anyone have that double facepalm picture handy?

http://t2.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcQk-ELOuTlDmrc5j-ANzinm5yzq5Nuw5Ndd923ksv_krmJT-9NO&t=1

[Don Lardo]

http://t2.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcQk-ELOuTlDmrc5j-ANzinm5yzq5Nuw5Ndd923ksv_krmJT-9NO&t=1


Even better than I'd hoped for!

[Faeelin]

the Chinese were innovative...they just didn't like change large scale, and thats probably why many inventions either stayed curiosities or fell by the wayside

Which ones are you thinking of?

I mean, we're talking about a society that used printing frequently enough to develop a porn industry.

[marl_d]

largely the ones mentioned above, deep water sailing technologies.

They invented stuff and pushed forwards, but extremely slowly and sometimes for technologies to really leap forward the society in general needs to be one that pushes, thus why the Romans, Greeks and the US have made big strides, however they get burnout quickly too.

Don't get me wrong, I don't think that the Chinese didn't push, but have done so at a much slower pace in general. Though there are times that they did push forward they aren't many and are usually done because of outside pressure (Mongles, Ming, Europeans, American's) rather than internal pressure to expand that drove the Greeks, Romans, Europeans and American's

[Dathi THorfinnsson]

Not sure most of these are 'inexplicable'.

There are many WI threads on technology being adopted where it was not. However history is full of instances where societies abandoned known technologies for inexplicable reasons. Jared Diamond's book offers a sample of the phenomenon. The bow and arrow were abandoned by several peoples from the Australian aborigines to Polynesians and some Inuits.
- Did their ancestors actually have bow and arrow? That is a Neolithic invention that seems to have happened several places, but doesn't exist anywhere in the Palaeolithic, AFAIK.
- "Inuits" is an invalid word. "Inuit" is already plural (the singular is "inuk", IIRC). It's the equivalent of saying mens or oxens....

Other Inuits abandoned the dog and sled. Bone tools were abandoned by the Australian aborigines, and some Pacific Islanders abandoned the canoe. Most Polynesians gave up pottery.
Easter Islanders abandoned the canoe because they ran out of trees they could use for building them. AFAIK.
Pottery requires clay - was there decent clay on the islands were pottery was abandoned? Maybe there was, I don't know.

The Mesoamericans gave up the wheel. Of course post-Rome Europeans abandoned many things, among which cement.
Mesoamericans had wheels? Aside from toys? If not, how could they 'give them up'? If so, I've never heard of them.

The Chinese gave up the mechanical clock and water powered spinning wheels. The Japanese famously abandoned the musket.

As has been pointed out, the Chinese didn't abandon clocks, they just didn't advance them. And the Japanese musket thing was a very deliberate piece of social engineering.



Edit: Oops, sorry for the necromancy. I was reading this thread and forgot it was old.

[MerryPrankster]

I mean, we're talking about a society that used printing frequently enough to develop a porn industry.

Do elaborate.

[The Ubbergeek]

There was suprisingly 'hot' novels in premodern china.. I have read one, one day.. :o

[Abgrund]

"Not one plank of timber shall go down to the sea" - some Chinese Emperor whose name I do not remember after reading it twenty years ago.

The Japanese did not "abandon" muskets. They just didn't value or develop them, considering the bow to be superior.

[Hyperbolus]

Once the Grand Canal was complete, grain and other goods could be transported across the breadth of China more economically then by sea. Ergo the scholar-bureaucrat elite saw large ships as superfluous. They might also have been shielding corporate interests against a nascent mercantile elite.

[Misanthrope00]

modern cience abandoned tesla technology as means for wireless transport of electricity

i think the ankithera device (a mechanic computer or navigation system of greek origin) is an example of a clockwork type technology long lost until the 17th century

oh and lets not forget the greek fire of the byzantines

[Cook]

I'd think the most famous example would be the Tasmanian aborigines, who lost the ability to make fire.

It may be famous but it is also wrong. Tasmanian Aborigines did make fire, and even used it extensively for hunting. You could not survive in a place as cold as Tasmania without fire and you would never be able to just keep fires caused by lightning alive in a place as wet as Tasmania.

Bone tools were abandoned by the Australian aborigines...

No, they haven't.

[tormsen]

The Chinese were burning coal when Marco Polo was in Peking, but as is chinese tradition, never went beyond that and attempted to make a comustion engine. The Chinese are probably the greatest example. The technology was there, they just weren't interested.

The Song Chinese _might_ have been able to build a steam engine and had it spark into something, but industry had taken a big enough hit from Jurchen and Mongol invasions that they'd missed much of the opportunity. Things never really recovered in time. To an extent, they may have lacked some of the prerequisite expertise in metal-working that Europeans enjoyed.

But the biggest factor is of course the fact that there wasn't going to be an immediate use for a steam engine. Early British steam engines were horribly inefficient things that were only useful initially for pumping out flooded coal mines (because, y'know, the fuel was right there). As far as I know, the Chinese had a different problem: their coal mines were too dry and there was an explosive risk. Steam engines wouldn't help (in fact they'd make things worse.

"The Chinese didn't like innovation" is such a pervasive meme, but it shudders and wheezes between "way too oversimplified" to "wrong" depending on how it's deployed.

[tormsen]

Once the Grand Canal was complete, grain and other goods could be transported across the breadth of China more economically then by sea. Ergo the scholar-bureaucrat elite saw large ships as superfluous. They might also have been shielding corporate interests against a nascent mercantile elite.

It was also a reaction to the massive loss suffered from Zheng He's expeditions.

[Elfwine]

China seems to have been better than Europe at having elites in a position to, um, interfere with natural progress. Not necessarily in bad way:

On one hand we get great governmental projects.

On the other, independent merchants and overseas enterprise? Not so much. A government concerned with tightly controlling power is by definition not going to encourage individual initiative and autonomy. And one with big projects is going to have taxes reflect that, which rarely ends well for trade (I think France pre-19th century is a good illustration of how this can be very bad).

A pronounced tendency for those to be discouraged - not always, but more so at by weird coincidence the same time Europe is moving more in that direction - is a serious handicap to overcoming any "high end equilibrium trap". It leaves a society where increasing production isn't very useful because there is no increase in markets because restricting overseas trade has kept merchants from seeking such markets - there's China and there's the handful of places they still trade with (as opposed to having people to come to trade with China, which is not the same thing as searching for anything useful to bring back into China).

The scholar-bureaucratic elite had their priorities, not necessarily bad ones, and the policies that favored commercial growth weren't among them.

I've read that (I can't recall what article now - was related to the Treasure Fleets though) rivalry over who wielded power within the bureaucracy with the eunuchs on the "naval" side didn't help, which is definitely not so much anti-innovation as just...politics.

Unfortunate politics, but that makes a lot more sense as a reason for stagnation than just arbitrarily banning anyone from doing anything that might cause change.

[Mostlyharmless]

There was suprisingly 'hot' novels in premodern china.. I have read one, one day.. :o
I think that he may be remembering "The Plum in the Golden Vase" aka "The Golden Lotus". I once borrowed a copy from a library and found that while it was all translated, the translator had rendered some passages into latin for some obscure reason.

[Max Sinister]

I once borrowed a copy from a library and found that while it was all translated, the translator had rendered some passages into latin for some obscure reason.

That often happened in that times. In case your servants would read your books. Or so I heard.

[Byzer Bob]

Anyone have that double facepalm picture handy?



This.

The archaeological record, for example, is littered with "advanced" pottery styles/techniques which developed, produced, and then seemingly abandoned only to be "reinvented" at some later date. The famous Jomon pottery is one example of this and the Portland Vase another albeit in glass working.

Another example of an abandoned technology may be bricks. I've read a few times, but haven't been able to really verify, that bricks weren't manufactured in Britain between the withdrawal of the Roman legions and the mid-17th Century.

Finally, there are a huge number of examples of technologies being developed by individuals or small groups only to be "lost" upon their death. There was a fellow who air conditioned Britain's Houses of Parliament during the reign of Jame I or Charles I only to pack up his equipment and go home when he didn't get the money he was asking for.

Technological advances like the air conditioning story above made by "court magicians", priests, alchemists, astrologers, and the like were almost always "lost" because those advances were closely controlled secrets labeled as "magic" or "miracles". Hero of Alexandria's many advances, real or suspected, were "lost" in this manner because his "customers" were almost always the priests of Alexandria's many temples vying with each other for worshipers and their donations.


Check out this link http://www.herstmonceux-castle.com/ for a brick built castle mid 15th century There are no end of buildings in the UK from 400ad to the present built of brick.... not recycled from the blessed Romans .... Romans! What did they ever do for us?;)

[Oba]

Su Song's clock was destroyed by the Mongols; the Chinese did not abandon their industrial revolution so much as the Mongols destroyed it. The same largely goes for the Qing as to why China fell behind the Occident, which was pretty close to ASB given their circumstances in the early Ming Dynasty or even more so in the T'ang and Song Dynasties.

Also, the Indigenous Australians had bows? I did not know they ever had bows until the Europeans came in the 18th century; I thought they were just using boomerangs and woomeras.

[Oba]

The Song Chinese _might_ have been able to build a steam engine and had it spark into something, but industry had taken a big enough hit from Jurchen and Mongol invasions that they'd missed much of the opportunity. Things never really recovered in time. To an extent, they may have lacked some of the prerequisite expertise in metal-working that Europeans enjoyed.

But the biggest factor is of course the fact that there wasn't going to be an immediate use for a steam engine. Early British steam engines were horribly inefficient things that were only useful initially for pumping out flooded coal mines (because, y'know, the fuel was right there). As far as I know, the Chinese had a different problem: their coal mines were too dry and there was an explosive risk. Steam engines wouldn't help (in fact they'd make things worse.

"The Chinese didn't like innovation" is such a pervasive meme, but it shudders and wheezes between "way too oversimplified" to "wrong" depending on how it's deployed.All true, except that the Chinese had superior metallurgy in every nonnegligible way to the Europeans until the Industrial Revolution, with puddled wrought iron and the Bessemer Process; they even had the Siemens Process for producing silicon (even though it is not a metal, it is still very impressive.)

[Awilla the Hun]

Which ones are you thinking of?

I mean, we're talking about a society that used printing frequently enough to develop a porn industry.

Why doesn't this get mentioned in that long list of "made in China before everyone else" innovations? Clockwork, gunpowder, pornography... I mean, it just fits together so well!

[Petike]

I'd think the most famous example would be the Tasmanian aborigines, who lost the ability to make fire.

Whaaaaaat ?! :eek: Really ?

That's downright bizzare, no kidding.

Also, the Indigenous Australians had bows? I did not know they ever had bows until the Europeans came in the 18th century; I thought they were just using boomerangs and woomeras.

AFAIK, bows were typical of natives living in northern Australia, but many of these were of Papuanic and Indonesian origin and came in the later stages of pre-European Aussie history.

[Amedras]

The Japanese did not "abandon" muskets. They just didn't value or develop them, considering the bow to be superior.Conveniently, because the Tokugawa had a good idea what guns could do and no interest in letting more of them knock around the shogunate.

As soon as individual Japanese started realizing that they couldn't ignore their neighbors, they started developing in some earnest (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Firearms_of_Japan#Late_Tokugawa_period).

[Mongo]

The Unbreakable Glass of Ancient Rome (http://www.cmog.org/dynamic.aspx?id=5586)

Existing thread about this (http://www.alternatehistory.com/discussion/showthread.php?t=178554)

[mowque]

Whaaaaaat ?! :eek: Really ?

That's downright bizzare, no kidding.

But they didn't. It is a common myth.

[Oba]

But they didn't. It is a common myth.Yes, the Indigenous Tasmanians lacked the knowledge to start fires; they knew how to use fire once it was ignited but lacked any fire-starting technologies. A similar situation occurs among some Central African Mbuti People, who simply kept fires around and carried them when they changed camp.

[Cook]

Yes, the Indigenous Tasmanians lacked the knowledge to start fires; they knew how to use fire once it was ignited but lacked any fire-starting technologies.

Since I’ve already said quite plainly earlier that this is incorrect I will be more succinct:

BULLSHIT.

Keith Windschuttle inhabits a fantasy land that not only ignores the overwhelming archaeological and anthropological evidence that they most certainly did know how to make fire and make it well, he also ignores the fucking obvious; Tasmania is extremely cold and damp, if you cannot make a fire very quickly and efficiently you are going to die.

[tallwingedgoat]

I still maintain my original two abandoned techs were the greatest missed opportunities in history, Roman concrete, and the Chinese water wheel powered spinning machine.

The explanation for the former seems to be the lack of volcanic sands else where in the empire, and possibly the limitation of construction guilds had on technology being proliferated. The latter was famously explained in the High Level Equalibrium Trap Theory as a change in Chinese use from hemp to cotton. The water wheel spinner only worked for hemp, and due to the end of plantation labor, the average Chinese farmer lost the access to knowlege and capital of the plantation owners to push the technology forward and spin the more delicate cotton fiber. They then reverted to hand spinning cotton until the concept was reintroduced as the water frame in the English Industrial Revolution. About the same time the British reinvented Portland cement.

[Cook]

I just got a reply from a mate in the state’s anthropology department who has a few interesting details concerning the Tasmanian Aborigines:


They stopped eating fish. No good reason has ever been determined and seems to be entirely a cultural tradition. Given that the rivers of Tasmania teem with fresh water fish and giant crayfish it is extremely odd.


They didn’t have composite tools. It isn’t know if they ever did have them.


They lived alongside glaciers (and yes, had and could make fire)


Did not have dingos to hunt with. Since dingos are belived to have been brought to Australia as a hunting dog about 5000 years ago this does not constitute a lost technology.


Were the longest isolated group in history, being cut off from the rest of the world for 12,000 years.

[carlton_bach]

The Unbreakable Glass of Ancient Rome (http://www.cmog.org/dynamic.aspx?id=5586)

Existing thread about this (http://www.alternatehistory.com/discussion/showthread.php?t=178554)

Great story. Probability 90% or higher that's all it is, though. Tiberius has had a lot of tyrant tales embroidered around him.

[Julius Vogel]

I just got a reply from a mate in the state’s anthropology department who has a few interesting details concerning the Tasmanian Aborigines:


They stopped eating fish. No good reason has ever been determined and seems to be entirely a cultural tradition. Given that the rivers of Tasmania swarm with fresh water fish it is extremely odd.


They didn’t have composite tools. It isn’t know if they ever did have them.


They lived alongside glaciers (and yes, had and could make fire)


Did not have dingos to hunt with. Since dingos are belived to have been brought to Australia as a hunting dog about 5000 years ago this does not constitute a lost technology.


Were the longest isolated group in history, being cut off from the rest of the world for 12,000 years.



They didn't eat fish? Wow, that is an odd one

[Cook]

They didn't eat fish? Wow, that is an odd one

Or crayfish, (sorry, I edited my post after your comment) The rivers of Tasmania are home to a 5 kilogram freshwater crayfish.

[Maxwell Edison II]

Borosilicate glass, like Duran, is indeed stronger than ordinary glass, and its rate of thermal expansion is about a third. Lab-glass is usually borosilicate glass.

It would, however, break if hit hard enough, and a borosilicate beaker I dropped on our garage floor did indeed break, while a similar beaker held when dropped upon a wooden floor. It certainly wouldn't dent...

I actually dropped that beaker mere seconds after I had used it to boil down sulfuric acid, had to pour chalk and sand on it...Ah, childhood.

[JJDXB]

Muskets were abandoned (or rather, delegalised) in Japan because it was clear that they offered some lowly peasant a very good chance of killing a samurai.

Within decades of their introduction to Japan, the Japanese had more muskets than any other nation on the planet, and usually, they were more advanced and superior to the ones brought by the Portuguese.

China and innovation is something of a myth. The Chinese liked to invent things, but they didn't really have to urge to take it further.

For instance, Zheng He had brought his magnificent fleets to the East African Coast in a show of power, and demanded some form of tribute. He got giraffes.

The emperors of the time were not really interested in subjugating these people, rather so long as they acknowledged the superiority of the Chinese, they would be left alone. This is unlike the Europeans whereby technological development went hand in hand with colonial expansion and the means with which to subjugate the local populations was through innovation.

Then of course, China turned in on itself and wallowed in isolation, which just about ended any chance of them expanding overseas like the Western Europeans did.

[phx1138]

The Mesoamericans gave up the wheel. The Japanese famously abandoned the musket.
Mesoamericans had wheels? Aside from toys? If not, how could they 'give them up'? If so, I've never heard of them.
...
And the Japanese musket thing was a very deliberate piece of social engineering.
The Japanese did not "abandon" muskets. They just didn't value or develop them, considering the bow to be superior.
Agreed, AFAIK Mesoamerica never had the wheel. And samurai deliberately suppressed the musket because it meant any commoner could kill a samurai...:eek::eek: It wasn't that the bow was better...tho as a matter of fact, had Wellington had Welsh longbowmen (& they were in the main Welsh, not English, contrary to the myth:rolleyes:) at Waterloo, he'd have inflicted more casualties than with muskets: the bows were more accurate & faster-firing.:eek: (Also longer-ranged IIRC.:eek:)

As for China, there was a social issue at play. Commerce was considered "uncool", so it was deprecated (not unlike ancient Greece, where slaves were supposed to do work, not citizens), & innovation was thus not valued. Also, a lot of places where there was invention, it was in a royal monopoly & designed to solve a particular problem (salt extraction comes to mind), but not made available for other use. The famous example of Zheng, overseas exploration, & ships had more to do with internal court politics than being Chinese...

Elvin's equilibrium trap (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High_level_equilibrium_trap) seems not to take account of the issue of primogeniture (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Primogeniture), which both enabled major projects for private profit & provided profit... It wasn't practised in China.

[wietze]

I think a very recent one is also fascinating.

seems that big chunks of technology developed for the Apollo project is lost (like the heatshield), due to contracors no longer existing or govt insisting on destroying info. Not complete sure how much is true of that.

interesting link on lost tech:
http://www.toptenz.net/top-10-lost-technologies.php

[Midas]

Cushitic peoples have a taboo against fish as well, Somalis in particular. OT, but this is why so many fisherman resorted to piracy; there's no internal market for their product in Somalia, they relied on selling south to Kenya or to India, etc. But with no one willing to invest in boats or take risks on shipments, it just isn't profitable enough in the region to sustain. It's also contributed to their current famine; while fish would hardly solve the problem and many poor and desperate Somalis would eat anything they could, there's plenty just off the coast that could be exploited if they had any sort of native fishing industry. But they really don't have much. It just compound the issues there, very sad.

I just got a reply from a mate in the state’s anthropology department who has a few interesting details concerning the Tasmanian Aborigines:


They stopped eating fish. No good reason has ever been determined and seems to be entirely a cultural tradition. Given that the rivers of Tasmania teem with fresh water fish and giant crayfish it is extremely odd.

[phx1138]

...Roman concrete...
The explanation for the former seems to be the lack of volcanic sands else where in the empire
The Roman concrete was actually better than the modern because of something else they put in it: volcanic ash. This has recently (well, in the last 20 or so years...:rolleyes:) been rediscovered. Adding ash makes it more durable.:cool: This was learned by accident,:rolleyes: when roadbuilders used ash from incinerators, when the incinerator operators couldn't figure out what to do with the ash.:eek::rolleyes:

[Bob the Great]

And samurai deliberately suppressed the musket because it meant any commoner could kill a samurai...:eek::eek: It wasn't that the bow was better...tho as a matter of fact, had Wellington had Welsh longbowmen (& they were in the main Welsh, not English, contrary to the myth:rolleyes:) at Waterloo, he'd have inflicted more casualties than with muskets: the bows were more accurate & faster-firing.:eek: (Also longer-ranged IIRC.:eek:)
But using a longbow requires years of training and muscle building. Any damn fool can pick up a musket and fire in the general direction of Frenchmen.

[Flocculencio]

China seems to have been better than Europe at having elites in a position to, um, interfere with natural progress. Not necessarily in bad way:

On one hand we get great governmental projects.

On the other, independent merchants and overseas enterprise?

There were a whole lot of independent Chinese merchant communities in South-East Asia. You don't see overseas enterprise on the scale of Europe simply because there wasn't much demand for goods from overseas. In secotrs where there was demand (e.g. spices) you found Chinese merchant communities engaging in trade.

The same is true of a lot of Asian countries- the Indian states were in the same condition. There just wasn't much they needed to trade externally for.

[Elfwine]

There were a whole lot of independent Chinese merchant communities in South-East Asia. You don't see overseas enterprise on the scale of Europe simply because there wasn't much demand for goods from overseas. In secotrs where there was demand (e.g. spices) you found Chinese merchant communities engaging in trade.

The same is true of a lot of Asian countries- the Indian states were in the same condition. There just wasn't much they needed to trade externally for.

Which really doesn't change that the Chinese government did more to interfere with that and block that from developing further than say, France.

Yes, I picked France intentionally. The Netherlands and England are too extreme as an example of "Europe was interested".

When a given country is looking at the rest of the world as irrelevant barbarians, and discouraging or outlawing overseas trade, it becomes rather difficult to develop a commercial economy.

There's not much of an equivalent even to the herring industry in such a situation, or at least not while the anti-merchant forces are interfering.

[Incognito]

I think nuclear-power will be/is moving into “Abadoned Technologies” category.

Too bad – AFAIK despite recent events it has a lot of potential to be “green” technology :(.

[MattII]

No-one's quite sure how Damascus Steel was produced (numerous attempts have been made to replicate it, but so far none have managed it).

[phx1138]

But using a longbow requires years of training and muscle building. Any damn fool can pick up a musket and fire in the general direction of Frenchmen.
I do know that.:rolleyes: I wasn't suggesting it was exactly practical.:eek: