deciduous woodlands must have appeared relatively unattractive

on account of its peripheral position in relation to many of the

early cultural developments. However the Germans and Slavs
were eventually able to colonise the whole of Eastern Europes
largest lowland zone and initiate economic developments which
emphatically eclipsed the south in Late Medieval and Modern
times. This relative revaluation of the resources of the northern
and southern parts of Eastern Europe could be seen simply as an
accommodation to the emergence of Western Europe as the
centre for innovation and the market that could draw surplus
primary production most easily from areas immediately
adjacent. But it also is evident that the fuel and mineral
endownment in the north was particularly suitable for diffusion
of the Western European industrial revolution with the hard
coal of Moravia and Silesia, the soft coal of Bohemia and
Saxony, an abundance of salt and a useful endowment of iron
ore and other minerals. In the south light industries were more
backward technologically and therefore less competitive, while
the relatively high transport costs to west European markets
reduced the profitability of international trade and encouraged
the persistence of traditional social structures. It is therefore the
access between Eastern and Western Europe that is crucial in