The Middle Ages (500 – 1499 AD)

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wjfox
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Re: The Middle Ages (500 – 1499 AD)

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caltrek
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Re: The Middle Ages (500 – 1499 AD)

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Skaftö Wreck’s Cargo Tells a Tale of 15th Century Trade Routes
October 24, 2022

Introduction:
(EurekAlert) Research at the University of Gothenburg has shown that the Skaftö wreck had probably taken on cargo in Gdańsk in Poland and was heading towards Belgium when it foundered in the Lysekil archipelago around 1440. Modern methods of analysis of the cargo are now providing completely new answers about the way trade was conducted in the Middle Ages.

“The analyses we have carried out give us a very detailed picture of the ship’s last journey and also tell us about the geographical origins of its cargo. Much of this is completely new knowledge for us,” says Staffan von Arbin, a maritime archaeologist.

For example, it was not previously known that calcium oxide (CaO), commonly known as quicklime or burnt lime, was exported from Gotland in the 15th century.

In 2003, the Skaftö wreck was found at the bottom of the sea off Lysekil, north of Gothenburg. But it is only now that researchers have been able to carry out analyses of its cargo using new, modern methods.

An international research team, headed by maritime archaeologist Staffan von Arbin at the University of Gothenburg, has succeeded in mapping the origins of its cargo and the probable route of the ship. The study contributes new knowledge about the goods traded in the Middle Ages and the trade routes in that period.
Read more here: https://www.eurekalert.org/news-releases/968872
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Re: The Middle Ages (500 – 1499 AD)

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Fall of Constantinople

The Fall of Constantinople, also known as the Conquest of Constantinople, was the capture of the capital of the Byzantine Empire by the Ottoman Empire. The city fell on 29 May 1453 as part of the culmination of a 53-day siege which had begun on 6 April. The city's collapse marked the end of the Middle Ages.

The attacking Ottoman Army, which significantly outnumbered Constantinople's defenders, was commanded by the 21-year-old Sultan Mehmed II (later nicknamed "the Conqueror"), while the Byzantine army was led by Emperor Constantine XI Palaiologos. After conquering the city, Mehmed II made Constantinople the new Ottoman capital, replacing Adrianople.

The conquest of Constantinople and the fall of the Byzantine Empire was a watershed of the Late Middle Ages, marking the effective end of the last remains of the Roman Empire, a state which began in roughly 27 BC and had lasted nearly 1500 years. Among many modern historians, the Fall of Constantinople is considered the end of the medieval period. The city's fall also stood as a turning point in military history. Since ancient times, cities and castles had depended upon ramparts and walls to repel invaders. The Walls of Constantinople, especially the Theodosian Walls, were some of the most advanced defensive systems in the world at the time. These fortifications were overcome with the use of gunpowder, specifically in the form of large cannons and bombards, heralding a change in siege warfare.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fall_of_Constantinople


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Re: The Middle Ages (500 – 1499 AD)

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Viking Age silver treasure found in Stjørdal municipality
https://phys.org/news/2022-11-viking-ag ... jrdal.html
by Frid Kvalpskarmo Hansen, Norwegian University of Science and TechnologyBirgit Maixner

On December 21, 2021, Pawel Bednarski made the discovery of a lifetime using a metal detector. It was actually a bit of a coincidence that he ventured out on this particular day. The weather had been uncooperative for a while, but the forecast was for a couple of days of better weather. Bednarski decided to take the chance and do a search on a plot of land at the Kongshaug plateau in Stjørdal.

"The first item I found was a small ring that didn't look particularly interesting at first glance. Then another ring appeared—and then a piece of a bangle," Bednarski says.

Eventually he had unearthed a whole trove of small silver objects, including pieces of coins, jewelry and silver wire—all a mere two to seven centimeters below the ground.

"The objects were covered in clay, so it wasn't easy to see what they looked like. It was only when I got home and rinsed off one of the bangle pieces that I realized this was an exciting find," says Bednarski.

Bednarski submitted the artifacts to the county municipality archaeologists, who confirmed that the find was of interest and presumably from the Viking Age.

It was only when researcher and archaeologist Birgit Maixner at the NTNU University Museum was contacted that Pawel found out just how exciting the find was.
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Human Expansion 1,000 Years Ago Linked to Madagascar’s Loss of Large Vertebrate Species
November 4, 2022

Introduction:
(EurekAlert) The island of Madagascar—one of the last large land masses colonized by humans—sits about 250 miles (400 kilometers) off the coast of East Africa. While it’s still regarded as a place of unique biodiversity, Madagascar long ago lost all its large-bodied vertebrates, including giant lemurs, elephant birds, turtles, and hippopotami. A human genetic study reported in the journal Current Biology on November 4 links these losses in time with the first major expansion of humans on the island, around 1,000 years ago.

“This human demographic expansion was simultaneous with a cultural and ecological transition on the island,” says Denis Pierron, French National Centre for Scientific Research (CNRS) researcher in Toulouse, France. “Around the same period, cities appeared in Madagascar and all the vertebrates of more than 10 kilograms disappeared.”

The origins of humans in Madagascar has long been an enigma, Pierron explained. Madagascar is home to 25 million people who speak an Asian language despite the island’s proximity to East Africa. Other groups who speak similar languages live more than 4,000 miles away. The people that live on Madagascar are known to trace their roots back to two small populations: one Bantu-speaking from Africa and another Austronesian-speaking from Asia. But, beyond that, the history remained rather murky.

To retrace the history and understand more about the origin of Malagasy people, a multi-disciplinary consortium launched in 2007 a project known as Madagascar Genetic and Ethnolinguistic (MAGE). Over a 10-year period, Malagasy and international researchers visited more than 250 villages across the country to sample the cultural and genetic human diversity.

In the new study, Pierron and his colleagues took a close look at the human genetic evidence. More specifically, they closely studied how various segments of human chromosomes were shared together with local ancestry information and computer-simulated genetic data. Together, they’ve inferred that the Malagasy ancestral Asian population was isolated on the island for more than 1,000 years with an effective population size of just a few hundred individuals.
Read more here: https://www.eurekalert.org/news-releases/969295

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Saladin Was A Land-Sea Warfare Innovator Of The Middle Ages
by Benjamin Duval
November 16, 2022

Introduction:
(The Drive) Joint land-sea operations were fairly uncommon in the Middle Ages. Rarer still was it for medieval generals to coordinate such actions across hundreds of miles and several months in advance. Almost unheard of was it to plan such complex offensives down to the week, in an attack that depended on speed, surprise, and timing. Yet this is exactly what Saladin did with his remarkable siege of Beirut in 1182.

Saladin is among the best-known generals of the Middle Ages, famous for his overwhelming victory at the Battle of Hattin in 1187, in which he destroyed the Kingdom of Jerusalem’s entire army, and his showdown with Richard the Lionheart and the Third Crusade, which confined their territory to a sliver of coastline for the next hundred years.

Less well-known are Saladin’s earlier exploits against these states. For nearly two decades before Hattin, he conducted a number of campaigns against the three Christian states which controlled the entire eastern shore of the Mediterranean – from north to south, these were the Principality of Antioch, the County of Tripoli, and the Kingdom of Jerusalem. The Crusaders were tough and wily opponents. Although usually outnumbered, they played a superb defensive game, capitalizing on their strengths and refusing to leave an opening that their enemies could exploit. They also made the most of their geographic advantages: their frontiers were protected by imposing coastal mountain ranges, the river Jordan, and formidable deserts. This forced Saladin to experiment with a variety of approaches to land a decisive blow. It was during one such attempt that he launched his attack on Beirut.
Read more here: https://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zone/ ... ddle-ages
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Re: The Middle Ages (500 – 1499 AD)

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First solid scientific evidence that Vikings brought animals to Britain
https://phys.org/news/2023-02-solid-sci ... ought.html
by Durham University
Archaeologists have found what they say is the first solid scientific evidence suggesting that Vikings crossed the North Sea to Britain with dogs and horses.

Research led by Durham University, UK, and the Vrije Universiteit Brussels, Belgium, examined human and animal remains from Britain's only known Viking cremation cemetery at Heath Wood, in Derbyshire.

Scientists looked at strontium isotopes contained within the remains. Strontium is a natural element found in different ratios across the world and provides a geographical fingerprint for human and animal movements.

Their analysis showed that within the context of the archaeology, one human adult and several animals almost certainly came from the Baltic Shield area of Scandinavia, covering Norway and central and northern Sweden, and died soon after arrival in Britain.

The researchers say this suggests that Vikings were not only stealing animals when they arrived in Britain, as accounts from the time describe, but were also transporting animals from Scandinavia, too.
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Re: The Middle Ages (500 – 1499 AD)

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North Sea Empire

The North Sea Empire, also known as the Anglo-Scandinavian Empire, was the personal union of the kingdoms of England, Denmark[a] and Norway for most of the period between 1013 and 1042 towards the end of the Viking Age. This ephemeral Norse-ruled empire was a thalassocracy, its components only connected by and dependent upon the sea.

The first king to unite all three kingdoms was Sweyn Forkbeard, king of Denmark since 986 and of Norway since 1000, when he conquered England in 1013. He died in the following year, and his realm was divided. His son Cnut the Great acquired England in 1016, Denmark in 1018 and Norway in 1028. He died in 1035 and his realm was again divided, but his successor in Denmark, Harthacnut, inherited England in 1040 and ruled it until his death in 1042. At the height of his power, when Cnut ruled all three kingdoms (1028–1035), he was the most powerful ruler in western Europe after the Holy Roman Emperor.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/North_Sea_Empire


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Re: The Middle Ages (500 – 1499 AD)

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Re: The Middle Ages (500 – 1499 AD)

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Wonder how this tech will affect them. Everything is going to change quite a bit.
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