Charting the evolution of key military technologies over thousands of years

What is it about?

Starting around 3,000 years ago, a wave of innovation began to sweep through human societies around the globe. For the next millennium the continued emergence of new technologies had a dramatic effect on the course of human history. This era saw the advancement of the ability to control horses with bit and bridle, the spread of iron-working techniques that led to hardier and cheaper weapons and armor and new ways of killing from a distance, such as with crossbows and catapults. On the whole, warfare became much more deadly. So what drove this cascade of technological innovation that literally changed the course of history? We found that the major drivers of technological innovation did not have to do with attributes of states themselves, like population size or the sophistication of a governance. Rather, the biggest drivers of innovation appear to be the overall world population at any given time, increasing connectivity among large states – along with the competition that such connections brought – and a few fundamental technological advances that set off a cascade of subsequent innovations.

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Photo by Steve Harvey on Unsplash

Photo by Steve Harvey on Unsplash

Why is it important?

Our findings constitute an important first step towards identifying some of the major long-term drivers of technological evolution in general, and in the domain of military capacity in particular, and finding broad support for previously somewhat speculative theories, there is still much to be done to build on this line of research. Further, the insights gained here and the systematic, quantitative approach to global history developed by the Seshat project provide a roadmap for many important future studies, allowing scholars to delve deeper into not only the critical ‘Military Revolutions’ throughout history, but into the evolution of technology generally.

Perspectives