World History to 1500
This domain covers the first states and empires, major belief systems, and the trade and migration networks that linked Afro-Eurasia and the Americas before 1500.
First states and second-wave empires
- Riverine states: Mesopotamia (Tigris–Euphrates), Egypt (Nile), the Indus cities, and Shang China (Yellow River). Surplus agriculture, irrigation management, writing, and codified law - Hammurabi's Code, c. 1754 BCE.
- The axial age (c. 800–200 BCE) produced Confucianism, Daoism, Buddhism, Judaism, and Greek philosophy; second-wave empires (Achaemenid Persia, Maurya, Han, Rome) then carried those traditions across large territories.
Exchange networks
- Silk Roads: silk moved west, Buddhism entered China, papermaking spread westward, and plague traveled with caravans.
- Indian Ocean: monsoon-timed sailing with lateen sails and dhows linked Gujarat, Malacca, and the Swahili coast, carrying Islam along with cargo.
- Trans-Saharan routes (camels by c. 300 CE) supported Ghana and Mali; Mansa Musa's 1324 hajj and Timbuktu's scholars publicized Malian wealth.
- Americas: Maya city-states, the Aztec tribute empire at Tenochtitlan, and the Inca, who governed the Andes with quipu records and no full writing system.
Worked example
Why did the Black Death cross Eurasia so quickly in 1347–1351? Reasoning: thirteenth-century Mongol unification made caravan and sea travel safer and denser; Genoese ships carried infected rats and fleas from Kaffa to Messina in 1347; crowded cities and weak quarantine spread the disease; recurrences followed. A complete answer combines trade integration with demography rather than resting on a single "cause."
Traps
- Treating medieval societies as static; the period saw heavy urbanization and commercial growth.
- Flattening Africa into one narrative instead of distinct Sahelian, forest, and coastal zones.
- Mixing up Inca (Andean, quipu) and Aztec (Mesoamerican, chinampas, tribute lists).
- Answering what happened when the stem asks why.