Old World

The term "Old World" is used commonly in the West to refer to

Africa, Asia and Europe (Afro-Eurasia or the World Island),
regarded collectively as the part of the world known to its population
before contact with the "New World" (the Americas and
Oceania).[1][2]

Old World
Contents
Etymology
History
Other names
See also
References

Etymology Map of the "Old World" (the 2nd

century Ptolemy world map in a 15th-
century copy)
In the context of archaeology and world history, the term "Old
World" includes those parts of the world which were in (indirect)
cultural contact from the Bronze Age onwards, resulting in the
parallel development of the early civilizations, mostly in the temperate zone between roughly the 45th and
25th parallels, in the area of the Mediterranean, Mesopotamia, Persian plateau, Indian subcontinent and
China.

These regions were connected via the Silk Road trade route, and they have a pronounced Iron Age period
following the Bronze Age. In cultural terms, the Iron Age was accompanied by the so-called Axial Age,
referring to cultural, philosophical and religious developments eventually leading to the emergence of the
historical Western (Hellenism, "classical"), Near Eastern (Zoroastrian and Abrahamic) and Far Eastern
(Hinduism, Buddhism, Jainism, Sikhism, Confucianism, Taoism) cultural spheres.

History
The concept of the three continents in the Old World, viz. Asia, Africa, and Europe, goes back to classical
antiquity. Their boundaries as defined by Ptolemy and other geographers of antiquity were drawn along the
Nile and Don rivers. This definition remained influential throughout the Middle Ages (see T and O map)
and the Early Modern period.

Other names
The mainland of Afro-Eurasia (excluding islands or island groups such as the British Isles, Japan, Sri Lanka,
Madagascar and the Malay Archipelago) has been referred to as the "World Island". The term may have
been coined by Sir Halford John Mackinder in The Geographical Pivot of History.[3]
The equivalent of the Old World had names in some of its ancient cultures, including Midgard in Germanic
cosmology and Oikoumene among the Greeks.

See also
Eurocentrism
Afro-Eurasia

References
1. "Old World" (http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/old-world?show=2&t=1417643287).
Merriam-Webster Dictionary.
2. "New world" (http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/new%20world). Merriam-Webster
Dictionary.
3. See Francis P. Sempa, "Mackinder's World." (http://www.unc.edu/depts/diplomat/AD_Issues/a
mdipl_14/sempa_mac2.html) American Diplomacy (UNC.edu). Retrieved 8 September 2018.

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