From Three Possible Iron Age World-Systems to a Single Afro-Eurasian World-System

Philippe Beaujard (1)

1 CEMAf - Centre d'Etudes des Mondes Africains

The brutal collapse of the Late Bronze Age western world-system around 1200 B.C. and of the Shang state in China at the end of the first millennium B.C. led to a period of political fragmentation and then to a new phase of integration in the two regions. The renewed growth of networks and states was furthered by crucial technological and institutional innovations (development of iron metallurgy, agricultural progress, diffusion of alphabets, organizing of provinces or satrapies, creation of stamped money...). Innovations were also ideological, with the appearance of universal religions in the crucial period of the 6th century B.C. In China, intense competition between emerging powers (Warring States) led to the ascendancy of the Qin state in the 3rd century B.C. The different empires which built up in Western Asia were clearly aimed at controlling spaces and peoples between the Mediterranean and the Persian gulf, also pushing towards Arabia and Egypt on one side, and towards the Indus and Central Asia on the other. It could be argued that the urban blossoming in Central Asia in the 7th and 6th centuries B. C. and the thrust of the Persian empire towards this region and the Indus valley marked the formation of a single system uniting the spheres of western Asia-Egypt-the Mediterranean and northern India. For the former, it is possible to distinguish phases of limited demise and of restructuring during the second part of the 9th century, during the second part of the 7th century, at the end of the 5th and the beginning of the 4th century (the demise of Greece), and then a major phase of recession (for the Mesopotamian and Egyptian cores) and of restructuring between 200 and 50 B.C. Some of these recessions were partly initiated by climatic deteriorations - on a limited scale - around 800 and 200 B.C., which can be seen as part of a systemic logic. If we look at the trajectories of each region, we clearly see, first that not all of them followed the same rhythm, and secondly that some regions were directly affected (negatively or positively) by the expansion of dominant cores. The evolutions between the 3rd and the 1st century B.C. represent a decisive step towards an integration of the Mediterranean-western Asian, Indian and Chinese spheres. The unification of a large part of India under the Mauryas, together with the fast spread of Buddhism, the increasing integration of western Asia, and the unification of China (Qin and Han empires) made possible the opening of land routes across Central Asia and maritime routes in the China Sea and the Indian Ocean. They foreshadow the turning period of the 1st century A.D., when the rise of exchange networks led to an interdependence of the various parts of an area that can be considered as a single world-system stretching from eastern Asia to Europe and Africa.

Mots clés: Iron Age; exchange networks; world-system; cycles

Domaines: Histoire

Philippe Beaujard. From Three Possible Iron Age World-Systems to a Single Afro-Eurasian World-System. Journal of World History, 2010, 21 (1), pp.1-43. ⟨halshs-00706278⟩