Why did no complex agriculture, native crafts, or major industry emerge here just like in Sub-Saharan Africa despite being sandwiched between European, Chinese, and Middle Eastern civilization with constant back and forth trade directly through Central Asia?
crazy weather
>>18478685>Plant something too early Cold wave strikes for one day and kills everything >Plant something too lateGet nothing in return by the time fall hitsNot mentioning all nomads that will rape and pillage your village for no reason since time immemorial
>>18478862Southern Russia is one of the most fertile regions in the world, and yet with the exception of a few trade cities built on the Volga Delta (Mostly inhabited by Jews, Persians, Armenians, Greeks, and Italians) the locals held rigidly to their pastoral livelihoods and shunned complex architecture, agriculture, or industry of any kind.
Farming on the steppes is fucked, brutal nightmare difficulty. Also 0 natural defences for ten thousand miles so some band of horse riders from wherever will come rape and pillage your settlements. Good example is the Liao dynasty, they were horse riders who carved off a chunk from the top of China and started setting up setting up Chinese style cities and farms throughout the steppes they controlled. They were really fucking scary but then the rulers got kind of retarded and the mongols buttfucked them.
It's a giant prarie, and cannot resist the mounted horseman. I can only imagine how hellish the Great Plains of America would have been had the Indians had horses all along.
>>18478896fertile soil is just one of the factors require for an agrarian society, it alone does not produces it
>>18478685Well it did for a start, but second these things penetrated less into South-West Africa, because it was isolated. All the parts of Africa that were connected to Mediterranean or Indian Ocean did develop agriculture, native crafts, and major industry. The hunter gathers are concentrated on the side of Africa that faces South America and is cut off due to trade winds.
>>18480901So anyway why was the steppe more primitive than Africa despite being right next to China and Europe?
>>18480648Imagine if the Mongols, once they controlled China and had access to ships, made it to North America.
