Re:'Empires of the Steppes' by Kenneth W. Harl Review
by thriftwy on Tuesday October 10, 2023 @10:32AM
(#37832612)
Such raids will also happen annually. Why not? They led to large chunk of most fertile lands of Eurasia[1] ( not having any permanent population way into the second millenium. They absolutely treat peasants as a resource and they will over-hunt it.
If you live under the defense of forest, you can still settle there and lose 1-3% of population every decade or so because you're good at hiding. If you are trying to live in the steppe, you will be over-raided and scattered.
> In this fashion they were not unlike malaria and tsetse fly.
Nomadic raids on settled communities turn out to involve a population loss of about 1-3%. A medieval war will probably cost 10-20% of the population caught in the fighting grounds (and do remember that warfare is endemic in Medieval Europe). Malaria killed about 20-30% of the attempted settlers.