Western Europe and Africa

Would western and central Europe be as developed as sub-Saharan Africa if it weren't for the Romans? Particularly the Germanic peoples, since they failed to invent anything of note prior to Roman conquest. According to Tacitus, they even lacked agriculture, which puts them on the same level as the least developed Africans.

Yes.

Because the Celticucks were coming home from fighting in Greece/Diadochoi/Rome that they were beginning to have ideas. Population centers were already popping up and Celtic tribes in the continent were gathering in huge confederacies.

Problem was, Rome's power was also growing.

>they even lacked agriculture
no they didn't. even roman propaganda never claimed that.

So you be sayin that path dependence doesn't exist? We could discuss how much cultural influence Romans had, but it is impossible to know what the removal of Romans lead to.

Dude, Tacitus was absolutely full of shit. Their is tons of archaeological and archaeobotanical evidence of agriculture in Western and Central Europe. Tacitus never even visited these places . his discription of Germans is mostly constructed as a barbarian opposing image to the civilesed Romans.

>"They are not devoted to agriculture, and the greater portion of their food consists of milk, cheese, and flesh."

It was from Bello Gallico, my bad.

>when history confirms my nationalistic primitivism

Fuck yeah, everybody look at that, we wuz!

>When history doesn't confirm my nationalistic primitivism

Dude, historian X is absolutely full of shit.

Sure thing.

and where does it say that they LACKED it? if i remember correctly one verse in that very same text states that they did farm crops but rather brew it to beer than bread.

I'm not even germanic though, so nice argument.

and where did i say i trust any ancient 'historian' on their word

If a butterfly clapping its wings can alledgedly influence a hurricane, how can one predict what a removal of one civilization will do? Imagine that all the interactions with Rome and the causality of those interactions are gone

Imagine that other interactions will be made and thus other casuality. But we do not know the new interactions, nor what it will lead to.

I think these kind of topics are wack.

>tfw you will never be a snownigger.
>tfw it will never be PC and fashionable for Asian first-world SJW's to defend you.
>tfw bleached.com will never be a thing.

>that they LACKED it

"Not devoted to" is the proper way of saying that they lacked it. They lacked it, as far as he was concerned. He didn't meet or hear of a single Germanic tribe who had agriculture, and he met plenty of Germanic tribes.

turns out scientific progress is rather predictable, so the analogy doesn't hold

No.

It's false to assume Central Africa is the way it is because it lacked some sort of civilization near by.

Central Africa is the way it is because of the environmental factors and food production limitation of human populations in Africa

Central Africa has the highest concentration of viruses and diseases in the World as far as I'm aware of. It is (now) a region of equatorial forestlands that's main inhabitants are yam paraculturists who mainly inhabit the fringes between forest and grasslands.

The agrarian history of Central Africa is even more recent no more than two and a half thousand years or so. With the expansion of southeast Asian Banana Sahelians were able to abandon ill suited grain cultivation and become what are in essence pioneer settlers.

Being that they were in the heartland of Tsetse and Swine Fever the only animal to bring were goats; specific varieties that adapted to the disease load by dwarfing and were/are rather scrawny.

By creating a symbiotic relationship with paracultivator and hunting pygmies these agrarian people's etched out a living in the highly infertile and frame soils of the inner forests. Expanding cultivation, abandoning swiddens and creating mosaic ecologist that diversified and provided environments that increased the production and expansion of major food sources.

These conditions created political and social structures wildly different than found in Europe. Even without these "civilizations" these northerly people's would have a different trajectory.

Also I wouldn't say "least developed"

no it isn't. it's way of saying that they are not that efficient or willing to do it as much as they could.

>turns out scientific progress is rather predictable, so the analogy doesn't hold
This is why STEMlords should not be allowed to comment on history. Nignogs are prone to positivism.

Sure thing. Read a book you brainlet.

Can you explain, I'll be interested. What scientific progress are we talking of? Also think of this: why weren't there any civilizations in North-America or (temperate) Australia?

maybe one of you should post the actual latin text so we know you're not arguing about the exact interpretation of a bad translation

no.

Probably not. Remove Rome from the picture and Europe would still be in contact with other Mediterranean cultures. Even if you isolated them from the Mediterranean entirely, it's likely that civilization would have eventually emerged on its own around the Medieval Warm Period, especially if they invented the heavy plow. It would definitely be much less developed though, maybe more comparable to West Africa than Central Africa.

Central Africa isn't all the same. The highlands around the Great lake region have very productive land, lack tsetse flies and today support large populations. There's no reason civilization couldn't arise there, and 19th century explorers did find complex chiefdom there. But it was isolated from other civilization and was colonised by agriculturalists too late for anything to emerge.

But you're still right overall, most of the region isn't comparable to Europe.

The Iberians and gauls had complex societies, the Iberians in particular had three different writing systems and complex trading and cities, they were desunited as fuck but even then they clientele and leader worship system permited large collection of polis to gather around a single leader (+50 in some cases). The Tartessians/Turdetanians were an unified kingdom than was trading with Greeks and Phoenicians/carthago since before Rome was funded and was quite advanced, plenty of cities from those times are still inhabitated (Seville or Cartagena, than was carthago nova).

Except they didn't lack agriculture. They raised cattle, sheep, and grew grain along with vegetables and tuberous crops.

>Would western and central Europe be as developed as sub-Saharan Africa if it weren't for the Romans?

They had invented chain-mail before being conquered by Roman's didn't they?

I believe 200 BC Celts were more advanced than Sub-Saharan Africans back in the age of European Colonisation

Then highlands had Buganda and Watusi basically.

They were densely populated banana growing societies clinging to the few quite small fertile highland regions in Central Africa.

Also I wouldn't say "lack tsetse" it was there it was just much more minimal and tsetse tolerant breeds could handle the mosquitos.

Buganda was in contact with the Swahili Coast but it was too late in colonial era Africa to see how they could have developed.

>hey had invented chain-mail before being conquered by Roman's didn't they?

Nope, it believe it was a Roman invention. They stole it from the dead Romans tho, that's why it's found in burials afaik.

Romans got their armor and weapons from the Celts. Chain mail, gladius and scutum were all picked up from the Gallic invaders in northern Italy.

Also, ever find it funny that almost all the technical words referring to carts and wagons in Latin are all Celtic loanwords?

Ah, sorry. Gladius was picked up from Celts in Spain. My bad.

Maybe

The exact origins of it is debatable, but it is believed to be descendant of a short sword used by the spanish celts

you believe wrong