Must-Read: Doug Jones: The world at 1000 BCE

Must-Read:** My view: this map has the Middle East having much less of the 50 million and the Ganges and China coast much more than they likely had in reality:

Doug Jones: The world at 1000 BCE: “The world population is about 50 million…

…The Bantu expansion is just beginning, from a homeland on the present Nigeria/Cameroon border. It will eventually cover most of Africa south of the equator. The expansion is sometimes told as a story of first farmers replacing hunter-gatherers. But, as with the Indo-European expansion, this now looks to be too simple…. The Bantu had something extra – social organization? malaria resistance? – going for them.

Seafarers with roots in the Lapita culture have already reached Western Polynesian – Samoa and Tonga, previously uninhabited. The Olmec are flourishing in Meso-America. A controversial find (the Cascajal block) suggests they are just taking up writing. In China, the Mandate of Heaven has passed from the Shang Dynasty to the Zhou.

In the Near East and Eastern Mediterranean, the Late Bronze Age collapse has opened up space for smaller states. Tyre and other Phoenician city-states are sailing the Mediterranean. Phoenicians using an alphabet that Greeks will eventually adapt. Further south, Philistines and Israelites have been duking it out, with Israelites gaining the upper hand under David (king from 1010 to 970 BCE). The Iron Age conventionally begins now, with the widespread use of iron – more abundant and cheaper than bronze.

On the steppe, horses have long been domesticated, but people are now learning to make effective use of cavalry – fighting in formation and firing volleys from horseback. This is the beginning of 2500 years in which the division between Steppe and Sown will be central to Eurasian history…