What are some ancient technologies developed by the European people?

do you include Greeks as part of the European people? Archimedes developed the screw, the lever, and other tools. Romans developed the Roman arch and aqueducts.

Ah, no, I wouldn’t include the Greek – they are Middle Eastern. Romans, yes!

Greeks are middle eastern?! Eastern Europe at worst…

As far as technology, the corvus from the first punic war was a piece of technology that allowed the Roman navy to board the superior Carthaginian naval vessels. Because Rome was superior on land and Carthage at sea, this technology allowed Rome to even the score on the water.

By the way, I knew of the device but didn’t know it’s name until the questioner helped me think of it. Thanks!

When you say developed is that the true sense of the word in that they created it or can develop means they took an idea and improved/spread it? If the latter is acceptable I’d say the aqueduct was particularly fascinating for socio-anthropological purposes.

Beer!

The vikings developed their seagoing longships. The Bretons developed sail powered ships at about the time the Romans were still using biremes and triremes.

Firearms
War strategy
Capital markets
Darwinism
Science

The Antikythera Mechanism, an ancient computer, probably developed in Greece around 125 B.C.

@ipso Nope. Either the Sumerians or the Chinese.

considering the fact Europe is clearly a Greek word (Ευρώπη), and the fact Greece has been considered a part of that continent since the word Europe was invented, by the Greeks themselves, I would be tempted to scoff at the suggestion the Greeks are “Middle-Eastern”, especially considering they are farther West than Anatolia and the Islamic Eastern Mediterranean States, which are known as the “Near East”. True, Greece was under Ottoman rule a few centuries, but that doesn’t change what continent it’s on, any more than the rule of the British Raj moved India to Europe (though if you’re visiting Leicester, you may have something to say about that harhar =P)

And on with the show:
No, not firearms.
War strategy may have been invented in Europe, but not exclusively at all. Ever hear of Sun Tzu?

helicopter
Streetlighting
democracy
railway (existed long before steam locomotives)

I just wrote out a huge list and then realised you said “ancient” ...ah well, I’ll have to show off about how great the British are another time.

Europe extends from the west coast of Ireland to the Urals in Russia. Greece is in South East Europe.
It was the Romans who developed the water mill
The Romans adapted the “A” frame for use as a crane. These cranes were driven by a windlass operated by manpower. These sort sort of cranes were still in use in the middle ages and helped build the cathedrals. There is still one encased in the spire of Salisbury cathedral in England.

@papayalily – the “European people” did not discover fermentation, that’s the point – but they most certainly developed it!

Or that’s how I read the question anyway; things the Europeans did not invent, but made better. Not sure if that is what was requested.

Horseback riding, if you consider that an invention.

Thanks everyone for your answers!

@jlelandg No, I’m actually working against the things they took and developed, and looking for things they themselves created.

C’mon without the Greeks the Romans have no knowledge. Without the Persians all that knowledge would have been detroyed because the Europeans would have destroyed it. The Europeans invented nothing, they copied.

@thekoukoureport
Wow, I though the Greeks invented a lot of stuff. Where did the ancient Greeks live, again?

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A common simplification is that the Greeks invented stuff and the Romans ‘applied’ it.
The Greeks were seen as theoretical, philosophical, artistic, esoteric, whereas the Romans were practical, successful and powerful, but eventually somewhat vulgar, narrow-minded and decadent.
Of course that’s nothing to do with the peoples, it’s just history.

When we discuss Europe, normally for history sake, not withstanding current borders, England, Germany, Poland, France, Spain, Ireleand. usually come to mind for me. As the Greeks and the Romans had their own empires which stretched far beyond the boundries of their current country, you could call them Asian if you wanted or Persian because both controlled vast empires which stretched around the Mediterranian.

Thats why I have maintained that the Europeans really had no ancient inventions to speak of. Most seemed to have been imported and improved upon. Except for two Items that has allowed Europeans to dominate and grow throughtout the world.

Guns
Steel

A great book to read on the subject is a book titled “Guns, Germs and Steel”

When we discuss Ancient Europe, normally for history sake, not withstanding current borders, Rome and Greece usually come to mind for me everyone.

Also, did you forget that the English, the Germans, the French, the Spanish, the Portuguese, the Dutch, even the Danes had their own empires, which stretched far beyond the boundaries of their current country?

Considering about ¾ of the British Empire lived in India, does this make Britain Asian? Or does it just disqualify all their inventions as “non-European”...?

huh? your argument is absurd. ALSO, Europeans didnt even invent guns and steel ANYWAY.

Yup absurd to think that Ancient Greece was European. That Ancient Rome was European. If thats the case then your question is absurd because everything we know was invented in ancient europe. Because Ancient Europe includded the whole world.

@thekoukoureport
to equate Greece and Rome with “the whole world” is awfully eurocentric of you, you know?

History does not equate Ancient Greece to Ancient Europe. Plain and simple. Or the works done by the Greeks would be called European not Greek, the same applies to the Romans, Notice they are not called Italian? I’m sorry I can not live up to your educational standards, I am after all a product of a public education. But I promise to do better in the future.;)

Englands rule is different from that of The Ancient Greeks In that Englands rule was not contigous like the Greek states or the Roman States. England also did not intergrate the different cultures into its society, it just pilliged the natural resources, so I would have to say that your analogy is incorrect.

However the problem lies in semantics, You say Europe, I say Greek and I stop following before you.

Ok so youre saying the Greeks integrated the cultures of the Iberian and Crimean and Persian and North African and Indian and Afgahn etc. natives into their society? No, they pretty much just lived in trading posts or ruled kingdoms there.

And you call hundreds of isolated independent city-states scattered across the Mediterranean rim and the Aegean islands a “contiguous Empire”?

If Archimedes was an Indian living in the Indo-Greek Kingdom in northern India, I wouldn’t call him, or his inventions, Greek OR European.
But Archimedes was a Greek, from Magna Grecia, which makes his inventions Greek, and clearly European. Magna Grecia being, as it was, Greek, as it is, European.

Besides this point, although Alexander WAS Greek, his Asian Empire was no more Greek than England was French after 1066. We just had a king and ruling class from an until-then relatively inconsequential area of Northern France.

Are you saying Archimedes’ inventions were not European, because there happened to be a Greek trading post in Tunisia, and a Greek-blooded King in India?

The Greeks called the Romans Italian.
The Greeks also called Greece European.
The reason we don’t use the word European instead of Greek is that Greece is just a part of Europe, so we need to differentiate…

Now I’m not denying the fact that the Greeks owed a lot to Near Eastern and Egyptian civilizations, but I’m just saying that that doesn’t mean something invented by a European Greek man, in a European Greek city, is not a Greek European invention.

Now I’m not denying the fact that the Greeks owed a lot to Near Eastern and Egyptian civilizations, but I’m just saying that that doesn’t mean something invented by a European Greek man, in a European Greek city, is not a Greek European invention.

so you argue agaisnt my point then make it for me. thanks

Oh, I thought your point was,

“The Europeans invented nothing” – @thekoukoureport

ipso sorry beer was invented by the Ancient Egyptians
Beer using hops was definitely an European invention!