Lack of technological progress in late Roman Empire

[SigniferOne]

Indeed, the evidence continues piling in. There is this Hierapolis sawmill, then there is the Barbegal mill waterfall, and Ausonius' machinery in Mosella. Then the oft-disregarded evidence started to be noticed of once again, such as the description in Vitruvius and Pliny's descriptions of mechanical trip-hammers operating all over Italy. Some scholars such as Lynn White have expended a great deal of vituperance and bias in making an argument for medieval ingenuity and Classical stagnation, and in his essay on medieval technology White famously noted Ausonius' description of Roman machinery only to offhandedly dismiss it as generally unimportant.