Regions other than Arabia that united could have had a Late Antiquity population boom

Are there regions other than Arabia that, if united or stabilized, could have had a population boom in Late Antiquity?

If there's a place in East Asia or Sub-Saharan Africa or even Mesoamerica that could have had a population boom, go ahead and say it, but I'm mostly asking about regions between the Sahara, India, and North Sea. AKA the 'Known World' of the Mediterranean civilizations.
 
The Sahel in general was on the cusp of a major population boom for several centuries. Knock out the tsetse fly and the Sahel would have been a major cradle of civilization on par with Mesopotamia or China.

Can you get rid of the tsetse fly without ASBs though? From what I understand, they are damn hard to kill even in modern day.
 
Err...Did Arabia HAD a population boom OTL in Late Antiquity?

I would say, no one. Pleague, climatic changes and repercussion on agriculture had too many bad aspect to allow such boom. At best, you could have regions with less loss as one of the hypothesis about Arabia that claim the peninsula was relativly less touched by epidemics due to its isolation. It's disputed, yet.
 
Can you get rid of the tsetse fly without ASBs though? From what I understand, they are damn hard to kill even in modern day.

Well, you don't need to totally eliminate the fly, just control it's impact on the region so it's more a pest than anything. Modern tsetse traps are fairly efficient and extremely cheap, and largely involve simple dark cloth which resembles cattle hide that lures in the flies and funnels them into a collection trap. It's really so simple that it's just amazing that it wasn't adopted earlier IOTL. The Ethiopians avoided the fly by living in the highlands, and everywhere else across the Sahel people simply grew accustomed to the presence of the fly, which had major affects on the development of the Sahel's socioeconomic and cultural development, which diverged significantly from the rest of Afro-Eurasia.
 
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Err...Did Arabia HAD a population boom OTL in Late Antiquity?

I would say, no one. Pleague, climatic changes and repercussion on agriculture had too many bad aspect to allow such boom. At best, you could have regions with less loss as one of the hypothesis about Arabia that claim the peninsula was relativly less touched by epidemics due to its isolation. It's disputed, yet.
From a documentary about Arabia, forum user Cuauhtemoc, and I think Wikipedia (yeah yeah I know you don't like Wikipedia) I've heard that as a result of the unification of Arabia under Islam and the relative peace between the Arabs as opposed to before, Arabia experienced a period of rapid population growth.
 
I could see Italy having a major population boom had the Byzantines not dragged out such a nasty war with the Ostrogoths and the Lombards later.

If Mesopotamia had not been constantly stuck between the ERE and Persia, perhaps by either being held by one for a substantial period of time without war, or by a native state unifying and protecting the region.

As mentioned previously, Scandinavia as well. They were finally getting substantial contact with the rest of the "civilized" world at that time. However, Scandinavia would remain largely tribal for a few more hundred years, so it would be difficult to unify the region. It was pretty war-torn from what I understand.
 
From a documentary about Arabia, forum user Cuauhtemoc, and I think Wikipedia (yeah yeah I know you don't like Wikipedia)
As long it's quoted, I would like to see it.
For Wikipedia, it's not the sources that are problematic, it's the take over of entiere subject by pseudo-specialist (or worse, actual specialist that wrote a thesis) and that put a non-mainstream hypothesis.

It's why, by exemple, every single romance dialect is indicated as a language of its own.

But if you have a source concerning population boom in Early Middle-Ages in Arabia, I would be sincerely interested.

I've heard that as a result of the unification of Arabia under Islam and the relative peace between the Arabs as opposed to before, Arabia experienced a period of rapid population growth.

Arabic unification isn't normally considered as Late Antiquity that most of times considering ending in 600 (particularly because of Islamic rise, and inner changes in both Western and Eastern Christianities)

That said, "relative peace opposed to before"? Arabia more or less turned back to the previous situation since the VIII century (without counting Sunnit-Shia wars).
My view on this was, maybe wrongly, that the population of Arabia was relativly important already before the unification and that it was used as a reserve for the conquests (at the point that many elites focused on these conquest rather than Arabia that turned more autonomous)
 
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I could see Italy having a major population boom had the Byzantines not dragged out such a nasty war with the Ostrogoths and the Lombards later.
The issue is that the population already declined. What was destroyed where the infrastructures that could have allowed a later regrowth. But for Europe, regarding the recurrence of epidemics and invasions, it wouldn't have happened up to the VIII century, out of reach of Late Antiquity.

If Mesopotamia had not been constantly stuck between the ERE and Persia, perhaps by either being held by one for a substantial period of time without war, or by a native state unifying and protecting the region.
Maybe by having Persia conquering definitly Syria and Palestine?
It have to be an earlier POD, as after the VI, the plague is returning in force in Orient.

That's doable, but that said it seems it was fairly populated for these times already. Maybe it could be hard to force even more population of the territory.

As mentioned previously, Scandinavia as well. They were finally getting substantial contact with the rest of the "civilized" world at that time. However, Scandinavia would remain largely tribal for a few more hundred years, so it would be difficult to unify the region. It was pretty war-torn from what I understand.

It wasn't that of a War's realm, it was just the original population was really, really tiny. It's why the climatic change of VIII and the amelioration of agricultural production posed finally an issue to Scandinavia, as they have a bit too much men for what they were able to produce, being a factor for the Vikings raids.
 
As long it's quoted, I would like to see it.
For Wikipedia, it's not the sources that are problematic, it's the take over of entiere subject by pseudo-specialist (or worse, actual specialist that wrote a thesis) and that put a non-mainstream hypothesis.

It's why, by exemple, every single romance dialect is indicated as a language of its own.

But if you have a source concerning population boom in Early Middle-Ages in Arabia, I would be sincerely interested.



Arabic unification isn't normally considered as Late Antiquity (usually, it ends in 600).

That said, "relative peace opposed to before"? Arabia more or less turned back to the previous situation since the VIII century (without counting Sunnit-Shia wars).


According to an old book I have, "Atlas of world population history" by Colin McEvedy and Richard Jones the population of Arabia grew from around two million @ 0 Ad to 5.25 million by 600 AD. The atlas does however emphasise that there is a lack of primary sources for this estimate...it as somewhat of an educated guess. At the very least there must have been a large population in existence to fuel the post Mohammed expansion.
 
According to an old book I have, "Atlas of world population history" by Colin McEvedy and Richard Jones the population of Arabia grew from around two million @ 0 Ad to 5.25 million by 600 AD. The atlas does however emphasise that there is a lack of primary sources for this estimate...it as somewhat of an educated guess. At the very least there must have been a large population in existence to fuel the post Mohammed expansion.

It was kinda my point. 5,25 millions inhabitants is already important population without having the need of Islam to justify it.

That said, I'm not sure about the 2 Millions around AD. I was other guesstimates with 3,5 Millions for Arabia in hellenistic period (with half for southern Arabia). Probably that guesstimates worth each other.

I wonder what is the guesstimated population ca. 200 as it would be helpful to say in which mesure, the population in 600 of Arabia is in important decline, stagnant or growing.
By exemple, using guesstimates for Spain, with 3 millions people in 0 and 3,5 in 700, it could be interpretated as a slight expansion when in fact the peninsula loose 2, maybe more, millions of inhabitants.

My point was what even with a possible isolation from plague (I mean by that, less ridden by plague than elsewhere, desert aren't a biological bareer, critically when it involves traders and raiders), Arabia suffered many issues with climatic changes and war in the South (Abyssinia, Yemen) that wouldn't have allowed a population "boom".

EDIT
https://sites.google.com/site/islamiceconomyuwo/population/population-in-the-medieval-middle-east
This is probably coming from the book you quoted?
 
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It was kinda my point. 5,25 millions inhabitants is already important population without having the need of Islam to justify it.

That said, I'm not sure about the 2 Millions around AD. I was other guesstimates with 3,5 Millions for Arabia in hellenistic period (with half for southern Arabia). Probably that guesstimates worth each other.

I wonder what is the guesstimated population ca. 200 as it would be helpful to say in which mesure, the population in 600 of Arabia is in important decline, stagnant or growing.
By exemple, using guesstimates for Spain, with 3 millions people in 0 and 3,5 in 700, it could be interpretated as a slight expansion when in fact the peninsula loose 2, maybe more, millions of inhabitants.

My point was what even with a possible isolation from plague (I mean by that, less ridden by plague than elsewhere, desert aren't a biological bareer, critically when it involves traders and raiders), Arabia suffered many issues with climatic changes and war in the South (Abyssinia, Yemen) that wouldn't have allowed a population "boom".

EDIT
https://sites.google.com/site/islamiceconomyuwo/population/population-in-the-medieval-middle-east
This is probably coming from the book you quoted?

It gives a figure of just in 3 million for 200 AD and 4 million for 400 AD with a fairly constant aggregate growth rate (not allowing for plague,war, ect), with growth fairly evenly split between the Interior and the Yemen (minor growth also occurring on the gulf coast and in the Oman region. There is not so much as a "boom" in the 1 - 600 AD period as a steady growth....

Interestingly enough population then declines from the early 600 peak down to 4.5 million by 1000, which probably represents the large Arabic migration which the Islamic expansion fueled, although I do seem to remember reading a book a few years ago claiming that the steady growth of Arab numbers caused the expansion, at least at the early stages.

And that's not the book, this one seeks to explain populations in all countries and continents throughout history. All in all a useful reference to pick up in a 2nd hand store!

Having flicked through the book the one thing does seem to have caused large scale population expansions tends to be agricultural and technological innovations and introductions. Applying these to almost any region will invariably produce growth, until a new malthusian limit is reached, although by modern standards it tends to occur over a longer term.
 
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