Increased Economic Productive Capacity and Its Consequences
Changes in trade networks resulted from and stimulated increasing productive capacity, with important implications for social and gender structures and environmental processes. Productivity rose in both agriculture and industry. Rising productivity supported population growth and urbanization but also strained environmental resources and at times caused dramatic demographic swings. Shifts in production and the increased volume of trade also stimulated new labor practices, including adaption of existing patterns of free and coerced labor. Social and gender structures evolved in response to these changes.
I. Innovations stimulated agricultural and industrial production in many regions.
- Agricultural production increased significantly due to technological innovations.
- Champa rice varieties
- The chinampa field system
- Waru waru agricultural techniques in the Andean areas
- Improved terracing techniques
- The horse collar
- In response to increasing demand in Afro-Eurasia for foreign luxury goods, crops were transported from their indigenous homelands to equivalent climates in other regions.
- Chinese, Persian, and Indian artisans and merchants expanded their production of textiles and porcelains for export; industrial production of iron and steel expanded in China.
II. The fate of cities varied greatly, with periods of significant decline, and with periods of increased urbanization buoyed by rising productivity and expanding trade networks.
- Multiple factors contributed to the declines of urban areas in this period.
- The decline of agricultural productivity
- The Little Ice Age
- Multiple factors contributed to urban revival
- The end of invasions
- The availability of safe and reliable transport
- The rise of commerce and the warmer temperatures between 800 and 1300
- Increased agricultural productivity and subsequent rising population
- Greater availability of labor also contributed to urban growth
- While cities in general continued to play the roles they had played in the past as governmental, religious, and commercial centers, many older cities declined at the same time that numerous new cities emerged to take on these established roles.
III. Despite significant continuities in social structures and in methods of production, there were also some important changes in labor management and in the effect of religious conversion on gender relations and family life.
- As in the previous period, there were many forms of labor organization.
- Free peasant agriculture
- Nomadic pastoralism
- Craft production and guild organization
- Various forms of coerced and unfree labor
- Government-imposed labor taxes
- military obligations
- As in the previous period, social structures were shaped largely by class and caste hierarchies. Patriarchy persisted; however, in some areas, women exercised more power and influence, most notably among the Mongols and in West Africa, Japan, and Southeast Asia.
- New forms of coerced labor appeared, including serfdom in Europe and Japan and the elaboration of the mit'a in the Inca Empire. Free peasants resisted attempts to raise dues and taxes by staging revolts. The demand for slaves for both military and domestic purposes increased, particularly in central Eurasia, parts of Africa, and the eastern Mediterranean.
- China
- The diffusion of Buddhism, Christianity, Islam, and Neo-Confucianism often led to significant changes in gender relations and family structure.