Get rid of the industrial era

[God of Kings]

This isn't even acknowledging the fact that historians really don't believe that Medieval was an era but more like a historical process wherein states are reformed slowly after governmental and population collapse. We only have so much historical information on Europe and Japan because they happened relatively recently but there is all sorts of evidence that it was a repeating cycle of complex state -> collapse -> feudal states -> complex state. The Egyptian intermediate periods would be good examples of medieval periods for example.

...or the various dynasty changes in China.

 

[Boris Gudenuf]

This isn't even acknowledging the fact that historians really don't believe that Medieval was an era but more like a historical process wherein states are reformed slowly after governmental and population collapse. We only have so much historical information on Europe and Japan because they happened relatively recently but there is all sorts of evidence that it was a repeating cycle of complex state -> collapse -> feudal states -> complex state. The Egyptian intermediate periods would be good examples of medieval periods for example.

"Medieval" anymore, is historically a meaningless noise. It encompasses, on the one hand, simplified civic/political forms with increasing technological sophistication in some fields and a near-revolution in agricultural technologies. Even the 'known' facts about population collapse are coming into question: population certainly went down in Italy, probably went down overall in what is now France and southern England, certainly went UP in what is now Germany, probably/possibly went up in Scandinavia, northern Britain and Ireland. The only thing we are reasonably certain of is that long-range trade dropped precipitously, but even there, there is strong evidence that long-range Communication remained largely intact, in religious, diplomatic, and even personal circles.

And, of course, you're right in that the cycle of State-too-complex > collapse to simplified political entities < increased political complexity and size is not unique to Europe of the 5th to 15th centuries CE. The collapse of the Bronze Age complex societies almost 1400 years earlier saw the same pattern, even resulting in a "Greek Dark Age" followed by the dramatic expansion of Greek colonies and finally the Golden Age of Greek city states, philosophy, etc.