# The collapse of Bronze Age civilisation



## Brian G Turner (Oct 25, 2013)

Here's an interesting article about the collapse of Bronze Age civilisations across the Mediterranean:
Climate and the Late Bronze Collapse in the Southern Levant - Archaeology News from Past Horizons : Archaeology News from Past Horizons

I'm sure I've seen climate change fingered before as a cause, so it's good to see it described in detail here.

However, I wonder if there's anything from the climate records that explain such a dramatic climate change? Volcanic eruptions, solar cycle, what?


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## svalbard (Oct 26, 2013)

I am not too sure about dates, but wasn't the volcanic eruption on Santorini/Thera around this time. Interestingly the fall of Troy is dated to about this time period. 

Good article.


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## Parson (Oct 26, 2013)

Brian, I loved the article. But I would not think that there would have to be any really strong input from an "outside" source for this kind of climate change. The middle east is at best semi-arid and drought would have to be a regular feature of the climate on any long term scale.


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## Aquilonian (Feb 1, 2014)

Hekla 3 eruption (Iceland) and Bond Event (seems to be a subdivision of the Ice Ages whatever causes them) have been implicated according to the Wikpedia article on Late Bronze Age Collapse.


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## DragonKhan25 (Feb 2, 2014)

svalbard said:


> I am not too sure about dates, but wasn't the volcanic eruption on Santorini/Thera around this time. Interestingly the fall of Troy is dated to about this time period.
> 
> Good article.



The collapse of the Minoans is dated to that period of time. the fall of Troy is dated a couple of hundred years later


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## BAYLOR (Jul 16, 2014)

The Hittite kingdom came to an end during that period.


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## Brian G Turner (Mar 21, 2017)

Just watched a really interesting lecture on YouTube by Dr Eric Cline about this very topic:






In it he underlines environmental change as a major factor that results in a Systems Collapse, but advises against thinking in terms of single causes. He also dismisses the Santorini/Thera Eruption as being 500 years too early.


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## svalbard (Mar 21, 2017)

Just finished watching the lecture. Really good and I will be looking out for his book.


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## Dave (Mar 21, 2017)

The Mediterranean region is still very active geologically. Etna erupted just last weekend. It could be any number of that kind of event that caused tsunami or changes in sea levels. I do think that it would be that kind of local event, and if, by "climate records" you mean temperatures, then the methods of measuring temperature using proxies might be too imprecise on that local scale. However, It is quite a while since I studied paleoclimatology, so if anyone knows about new methods that could give more precise temperatures at that kind of local scale then I'd be very interested in a link.


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## Venusian Broon (Mar 21, 2017)

I'm going a bit out of the scope of the original post, but seeing that lecture posted there made me think of this.

I've been using youtube a lot more to get entertainment, whether pod- or videocast, and I subscribe to these two channels:

The Oriental Institute

Penn Museum

Which have a great deal of fascinating lectures about the ancient world and cultures. Some of it is a bit dry and academic and some of the really early stuff they were clearly still working on sound issues. So be warned.

If anyone else knows of any other channel that does similar content I'd be very interested in finding out!


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## KC York (May 17, 2017)

Thanks for the link to Cline's lecture, @Brian G Turner,  I had not seen that before. I have read his book and it is a pretty fascinating overview of the civilizations in question, and what led to their collapse. It's dry reading, through -- Cline is an academic, not a storyteller, so know that going in. I had to chew it up in bites over the course of nearly a month, when I normally plow through books of that length in a week or less. The lecture is, ironically, a LOT more engaging than his writing!


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## night_wrtr (May 19, 2017)

Venusian Broon said:


> The Oriental Institute
> 
> Penn Museum
> 
> If anyone else knows of any other channel that does similar content I'd be very interested in finding out!



Thanks for sharing these! I just finished watching the lecture on the Battle of Kadesh, which was great because of they way it is presented with original texts and images. 

*Forgive me for the continued sidetrack from the OP* I would add YaleCourses to the list, but it is a wide range of topics, not just history. My main usage of that channel is to watch/listen to Donald Kagan's lectures (24 of them!) on Greece.


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## Dennis E. Taylor (May 19, 2017)

Brian G Turner said:


> In it he underlines environmental change as a major factor that results in a Systems Collapse, but advises against thinking in terms of single causes. He also dismisses the Santorini/Thera Eruption as being 500 years too early.



I remember seeing a science show a while back that blamed it on deforestation, and goat and sheep herding. Srsly. The idea was that they are aggressive browsers, and tend to kill the plants they browse--as opposed to cattle, which just "mow" the lawn. So deforestation is self-explanatory, and reasons for it would be a combination of creating pasture and needing the wood for construction.

Anyway, forests are a major factor in a Mediterranean climate, as they act as water reservoirs, collecting the water when it's cool and sweating it out when it's warm; and protection against erosion. Take away all the trees and ground cover, and you end up with everyone's vision of Afghanistan. No trees, no plants, no rain, basically dirt.

Oh, and increased erosion would mean increased silting of rivers, and consequential obliteration of convenient bays. The show talked about one city in particular (I think it was Greek) where the bay that the city was built on became so silted up that the city was essentially abandoned.

Anyway, it's not "Global Warming" per se, but it is definitely environmental degradation.


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## hej (Oct 8, 2017)

I find societal collapse intriguing.

What with the existence of writing, math, economics and even law, the Bronze Age is rather modern. Please, humor me with this tangent. I hope you will find it generally relevant vis-a-vis collapse.

I have familiarized myself with the Neolithic, and found the Kurgan Hypothesis to be both necessary and insufficient to explain the dominance of the peoples from the Pontic-Caspian steppe over the autochthonous ones in Europe.

I speculate on the problems of the indigenous folk in a few paragraphs in the setting for my stories: Busting Rocks - Stonigsthwaighte - About

In sum, I see the following threats: soil depletion, climate change, depredation, and cultural shifts.

Something massive happened in Europe such that, even by the time of the Bronze Age, the daughter languages of Proto-Indo-European (PIE, which I call Kurgan in my writing), had spread through the lands.

As to what actually went on, well, anthropology can only make suggestions based on scant archeological  evidence and linguistic extrapolation.

That's 'archaeological' for all you British and Anglophiles.


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## Harpo (Oct 17, 2017)

A Centuries-Old Frieze, Newly Deciphered, Tells the Story of the End of the Bronze Age


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## Brian G Turner (Feb 8, 2018)

Some interesting further coverage of the political situation at the time, provided by the BBC as part of the promotion of their Troy mini-series: The fall of Troy: A warning from history


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## svalbard (Feb 8, 2018)

Harpo said:


> A Centuries-Old Frieze, Newly Deciphered, Tells the Story of the End of the Bronze Age



That is fascinating .


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## night_wrtr (Feb 19, 2018)

I just finished reading Eric Cline's book 1177 finally. It is basically his lecture, with lots of footnotes and interesting details that support his main points. If you just want the rundown quickly, his lecture is all you need.  I would still recommend the book if you're like me and enjoy the boring little details that come with it.


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## Venusian Broon (Feb 19, 2018)

night_wrtr said:


> I just finished reading Eric Cline's book 1177 finally. It is basically his lecture, with lots of footnotes and interesting details that support his main points. If you just want the rundown quickly, his lecture is all you need.  I would still recommend the book if you're like me and enjoy the boring little details that come with it.



The little details ain't boring!

I'd say the only flaw was right at the end, 'cause he was waving his hand a bit and saying it was all because of 'Systems Collapse'. I got no real understanding, from a technical point of view, what that meant. But I'm sure he definitely hints that there is such a definition.

I get the main jist - stop thinking about it as being caused by just one thing - but I felt it didn't really scratch even the surface of the subject - even a theoretical example or two of what a real documented systemic collapse entailed - and how it differs from other 'collapses' (if it does, are all collapses Systems Collapse? I mean can you really say any big sweeping change in society or civilisations be pinpointed on one cause?), would have helped.

I know that to do that would probably be going into some technical talk of a different nature and subject, so probably not good for what is really a populist history book on a specific time, but...hey, that's just me. I like details, rigour and logic.


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## night_wrtr (Feb 19, 2018)

Venusian Broon said:


> The little details ain't boring!



I am all on board! I even went through a few (a lot) wiki pages for some of the topics and people he covered to get more depth. I really found Suppiluliuma to be very interesting, and the whole state of affairs with the Hittites.



Venusian Broon said:


> I get the main jist - stop thinking about it as being caused by just one thing - but I felt it didn't really scratch even the surface of the subject - even a theoretical example or two of what a real documented systemic collapse entailed - and how it differs from other 'collapses' (if it does, are all collapses Systems Collapse? I mean can you really say any big sweeping change in society or civilisations be pinpointed on one cause?), would have helped.



Yes, indeed. There was more to be had. It really wasn't a long book - he still had room to elaborate. If you haven't already read it, look up Collapse by Jared Diamond. It uses specific societies and circumstances, and details their fall very well. A wider range than the bronze age, but still a good read.


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## svalbard (Feb 24, 2018)

The Trojan Prince Muksus  mentioned in the above link is referenced in other inscriptions from the time and maybe identified with an Achaen called Mopsus. A bit of freebooter by all accounts which fits nicely with a ''Sea Peoples' theory.


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## svalbard (Feb 24, 2018)

Harpo said:


> A Centuries-Old Frieze, Newly Deciphered, Tells the Story of the End of the Bronze Age



Eberhard  Zangger | Luwian Studies - Academia.edu

A link to the full academic article. If you are a member of academia.edu(it is free to join and worth it) you will be able to download the paper.


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## Brian G Turner (Aug 8, 2018)

I noticed this story come up of a major citadel unearthed in Romania:
Great archeological discovery: 3400-year-old citadel unearthed in Romania - Romania Insider

It got me wondering if there may be any connection - if there was a general migration from the steppes of Asia to the Mediterranean then it would certainly be expected that we should see some evidence of this.

Assuming there's anything in that idea.


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## Venusian Broon (Aug 8, 2018)

Brian G Turner said:


> I noticed this story come up of a major citadel unearthed in Romania:
> Great archeological discovery: 3400-year-old citadel unearthed in Romania - Romania Insider
> 
> It got me wondering if there may be any connection - if there was a general migration from the steppes of Asia to the Mediterranean then it would certainly be expected that we should see some evidence of this.
> ...



Haven't the Steppes always seen a conveyor belt of peoples travelling from it to various points in Western Europe/Turkey/Northern India for as long as we have history? (And by inference for Prehistory too )

As for proving there was a migration I suppose if you could show that the citadel was abandoned (and not destroyed) at around that time, that that might suggest that _something_ made the people give up their fortifications and buildings and move on. 

We know that there were towns and cultures in that area of Eastern Europe from pretty early on - as in 'well before' the date of this citadel! - see the Vinca and Varna cultures for example.


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## Brian G Turner (Aug 8, 2018)

Indeed, there is a lot here that's unknown to me, so I'll keep an eye out and see if anything else comes up that may suggest any possibility of being connected.


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## Brian G Turner (Nov 14, 2018)

Just following up from this, it appears that climate change is blamed for the collapse of the Indus Valley civilization around 1500BC - I thought the dating so close to the Bronze Age Collapse that it definitely warranted attention, supporting the idea that climate change caused problems with crop growth and yields, thus causing the mass migration of peoples: Climate change likely caused migration, demise of ancient Indus Valley civilization


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## thaddeus6th (Nov 14, 2018)

Those bloody Hittites and their coal-fired power stations!

*shakes fist*

Have vague memories of reading the blurb for a book about collapsing European/Middle Eastern/North African civilisations (Egyptians, Hittites, Minoans and, er, some other chaps) around 1477 BC or so. Changing climate has always happened, sometimes with dramatically harmful effects. Not hard to see how crops suddenly being more difficult to harvest or wild storms ruining trading and fishing fleets could push things to the edge. Even 3,000 years after that, two bad harvests in a row would see huge numbers just starve to death.


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## Brian G Turner (Jun 20, 2019)

Okay, I'm reading Cline's 1177 now, and am checking up references as I do so.

He's just mentioned the Santorini eruption, dated to somewhere around 1600-1500 BC, so I checked up the Hekla 3 eruption - which is going to be blamed as a major cause for the collapse of Bronze Age civilizations. 

The first problem is that Wikipedia doesn't mention Hekla 3 in its list of biggest volcanic events in history, certainly not from around 1100BC. Additionally, there's a massive degree in magnitude between the two eruptions:

Hekla 3:
circa 1100BC
Volcanic Explosive Index of 5
7.3 cubic km of rock thrown into the atmosphere. 
Effect on the world: cooled the northern hemisphere for several years afterwards, causing significant climate change that resulted in the collapse of civilizations around the world

Santorini eruption:
circe 1600BC 
Volcanic Explosive Index of 7
60 cubic km of rock thrown into the atmosphere. 
Effect on the world: some impact on the local Minoan civilization

I'm already left scratching my head here - if the Santorini eruption is one of the biggest ever recorded in written history, and was local to the Aegean, then how come an eruption near the Arctic Circle that was ten times smaller cause worse damage? 

Also, my reading is that there was major climate change in Britain around 800BC, but there are no major volcanic events associated with that.

The implication is that if a volcanic eruption is the smoking gun for climate change leading to Bronze Age collapse in the Mediterranean, then there had to be something specifically significant about the smaller eruption much further away.

Alternatively, the eruptions had irrelevant to minor effects on climate change, so that volcanic eruptions are not a smoking gun but a red herring.

I'm also left wondering just how reliable ancient dating currently is - I'm increasingly getting the impression that something is very off-kilter, especially if the Hekla 3 eruption can be blamed for collapse of Mediterranean civilizations around 1100BC, but Northern Europe not be affected by climate change until around 800BC.

Hmm. Just thinking aloud.


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## Venusian Broon (Jun 20, 2019)

Brian G Turner said:


> Okay, I'm reading Cline's 1177 now, and am checking up references as I do so.
> 
> He's just mentioned the Santorini eruption, dated to somewhere around 1600-1500 BC, so I checked up the Hekla 3 eruption - which is going to be blamed as a major cause for the collapse of Bronze Age civilizations.
> 
> ...



I assume then you've not got to the end of the book then 

This might be a spoiler if you want to allow the argument to come to you 'naturally' through your reading, although this is non-fiction....anyway I'll put it in spoiler tags! 



Spoiler: My vague memories of the main argument of the book



His argument is precisely the fact that you cannot point to a *single *cause to explain the Bronze age collapse, but it was a 'system collapse'. The civilisations at the time were highly dependent on each other in complex ways and they were then probably hit by a number of uncorrelated disasters that clearly broke up the established order. 

I think there seems to be some evidence of mass migration of peoples from northern Europe into the Mediterranean (possibly caused by local changes in climatic conditions forcing them to to abandon old territories. Such an event _may _have been instigated by such a volcanic eruption. Or that in itself may have only been a contributing factor for that particular observation.



With regards to the effects of volcanoes....well, it depends doesn't it. What did the volcano produce? Rock is one thing, but how much gas and particulates were put into the atmosphere that would have knock on effects on climate? And where the volcano is should have big influence on how this interacts and where it hits the hardest. Add to that, that the climate is a chaotic system, so even a smaller event leading to, say, cooling in a particular location could have huge ramifications to the entire system. Look at the current warming we are experiencing. The poles are warming much faster than everywhere else and this is impacting the polar jet stream making it more likely to kink south and impact British weather.  

It's a bit like the asteroid hypothesis for causing great extinctions. Yes, you can point to the Chicxulub asteroid as being the best explanation for the cretaceous extinctions, but other bigger 'hits' are not lined up with other extinctions at all. Why? Well, we think that it was because the Chicxulub asteroid hit the sea bed, hence vapourised carbon-rich rock. This ended up in the atmosphere and caused huge climatic fluctuations that would have caused huge species diebacks. Other asteroids having hit silicon rich areas would have had much less impact on that front.


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## Brian G Turner (Jun 20, 2019)

Venusian Broon said:


> This might be a spoiler



Thanks for the clarification - I remember "systems collapse" being mentioned, but I also seem to recall reference to Hekla 3 being blamed as a cause - I may have been mixing up my sources, though. 

EDIT: It looks like it was Wikipedia that put me onto Hekla 3: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Late_Bronze_Age_collapse#Volcanoes


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## Venusian Broon (Jun 20, 2019)

Brian G Turner said:


> Thanks for the clarification - I remember "systems collapse" being mentioned, but I also seem to recall reference to Hekla 3 being blamed as a cause - I may have been mixing up my sources, though.
> 
> EDIT: It looks like it was Wikipedia that put me onto Hekla 3: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Late_Bronze_Age_collapse#Volcanoes


I think there's a tendency amongst us humans for nice neat solutions to problems (myself included)....but the world is mostly grey, not black and white.


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## Ursa major (Jun 20, 2019)

Venusian Broon said:


> but the world is mostly grey


That'll be because of all the volcanic ash....

​


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## thaddeus6th (Jun 20, 2019)

I've not read it, but that systems collapse thingummyjig sounds like a slightly more complex version of Steven Mithen's argument that it was the combination of men hunting and climate change that did for so much megafauna ten to twenty thousand years ago, and that either one factor by itself would've been survivable.


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## Brian G Turner (Jun 26, 2019)

Re; _1177 BC - The Year Civilization Collapsed_ by Eric Cline ended up being somewhat frustrating. He builds up a picture of an interconnected Bronze Age world in the Mediterranean, but in the end he effectively dismisses the collapse as somewhat inevitable due to it being a "complex system". In short, Bronze Age Mediterranean societies had reached such a complex degree of connectedness that it was easily undone by natural challenges.

All in all, I thought he completely dodged the bullet and effectively reframed "I don't know" with "systems collapse, because" - which doesn't actually explain anything.

Something I found especially frustrating is that he mentions climate change as a potential cause, especially severe drought - but then dismisses it as a smoking gun because the region has "always seen droughts". The big question begged is how severe were these droughts by comparison?

The answer, according to his own references, is that the region experienced the worst period of drought of any period during either the Bronze Age or even Iron Age. Well, there's a clear cause for the collapse of trade, society, along with social upheaval and migration. 

On the plus side, the book is rich with references for further research.


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## thaddeus6th (Jun 26, 2019)

Interesting thoughts. I'd considered getting that book but never got around to it.


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## Venusian Broon (Jun 26, 2019)

Brian G Turner said:


> Re; _1177 BC - The Year Civilization Collapsed_ by Eric Cline ended up being somewhat frustrating. He builds up a picture of an interconnected Bronze Age world in the Mediterranean, but in the end he effectively dismisses the collapse as somewhat inevitable due to it being a "complex system". In short, Bronze Age Mediterranean societies had reached such a complex degree of connectedness that it was easily undone by natural challenges.
> 
> All in all, I thought he completely dodged the bullet and effectively reframed "I don't know" with "systems collapse, because" - which doesn't actually explain anything.
> 
> ...


I agree with the frustrating end, I think I mention that in my own summary of it somewhere in this thread.

'System collapse' is brought in, I think he states it's a real thing...yet fails, in my eyes, to posit the mechanics of it and how this relates to the evidence.

However on the other hand I do think he's being intellectually honest at least, in that he's sort of saying 'we don't really know'  .

So I took it as a nice summary of what we know about it and all the various theories that have been suggested.

As for the 'it was the drought that done it'. I don't remember all the evidence, but I'd guess that it can't be that simple, otherwise it would be the leading theory, and that some strands of evidence do not show it being pertinent or a big factor


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## Brian G Turner (Jun 26, 2019)

thaddeus6th said:


> Interesting thoughts. I'd considered getting that book but never got around to it.



It is an interesting book, and Cline is very experienced in the Bronze Age Aegean. He brings a lot of knowledge to the fore and many of his examples of Bronze Age life are illuminating. However, he also underlines how limited a lot of the archaeological record actually is, which makes it especially difficult to draw clear conclusions on local conditions. For me, this is good, because I love mystery.

What I think is really missing from the book is a proper exploration of environment and climate in the past - however, that's simply my personal bias as I find myself increasingly drawn to environmental archaeology (hence my comments, @Venusian Broon ).


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## Venusian Broon (Jun 26, 2019)

Indeed, @Brian G Turner , a fascinating subject. I have read a number of great books on archaeology projects that link up excavations, pollen records, local tree ring analysis and other related fields to try and paint a very detailed picture of a singular site/small region.

I think the problem is, like any discipline, a _proper _understanding of environment and ancient climates is, in itself a whole new rabbit hole to disappear down. And concrete answers are unlikely to be found!


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## Brian G Turner (Jun 29, 2019)

I'm currently reading _Exodus to Arthur_ by Mike Baille, who by all accounts is a leading expert on dendrochronology - the use of tree rings for dating. He also specifically mentions Hekla 3 being a contender for the Bronze Age collapse event as an initial idea.

However - and this is really striking - the couple of archaeology books I've read so far on this completely fail to use environmental science in their considerations.

For example, the Ancient Greeks were pretty good at distinguishing and naming the different winds and weather patterns that effected them. Therefore if there were a sudden and long-lasting change in the weather, my first go-to would be to meteorology and examine which ocean currents and wind patterns might drive such a situation.

Instead, Cline just refers to systems collapse, which is really just re-using the recent archaeology trend of systems analysis to pigeon-hole different aspects of a culture (hence why a lot of books now describe technology, beliefs, trade, gender, etc, as separate topics).

Mike Baille on the other hand - well, an expert in tree rings he may be, but he's sorely lacking the skills for historical analysis and can't seem to distinguish mythology and history. Additionally, when looking at extreme climate events his first go-to is volcanic eruptions - his second is comet strikes!

It's an interesting book, but like the Cline I'm left silently yelling at the text to research the meteorology and climatology, instead of taking them for granted.


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## Venusian Broon (Jun 29, 2019)

Brian G Turner said:


> For example, the Ancient Greeks were pretty good at distinguishing and naming the different winds and weather patterns that effected them. Therefore if there were a sudden and long-lasting change in the weather, my first go-to would be to meteorology and examine which ocean currents and wind patterns might drive such a situation.



I don't really know if the ancient greeks were great at meteorology, but I am pretty sure there no Mycenaean written records of the weather or climate for 1177 BCE or whenever it was. Or any Mycenaean writing at all (at least that we have discovered).  

There was, as Cline points out, Hittite, Egyptian and other peoples records, such as those that inhabited in modern Syria and Babylon. And I guess they really don't mention weather or climate. The Egyptians didn't really rely on rains, but the Nile instead, so it probably wasn't on their minds to comment on such matters. (Or at least they didn't realise that they heavily relied on rains in Ethiopia to feed the river.) 

If a lot of the records at that time were talking about famine or crop failure, then perhaps we'd have a smoking gun re: climate change. I can't remember if there was. (Although not necessarily always true - a country ravaged by long-term war could also succumb to famine, I'd imagine.)

It seemed to me, from my reading, that people today were suggesting that the most intense area of climate disruption, if there was one, was central and north Europe and that caused migrations south. Unfortunately none of the peoples directly impacted by this alleged event can tell us anything as none of their writing (if they had any) has survived. My theory would then go: such migrations caused the collapse of the Mycenaeans and societies in Southern Europe and then these civilisations took to raiding as an alternative to the settled life that had been enjoying before that (and therefore became the sea people). Tin and Bronze trade got heavily disrupted, wealth drops, rebellions against the existing empires from outwith and within intensify. Further cutting trade etc...Bronze age collapse. 

BTW that Greeks took to the sea, traded and also raided (very much like the vikings) is pretty well known for that period. I thoroughly recommend Robin Lane Fox's _Travelling Heros: Greeks and their Myths in the Epic Age of Homer _to get an idea of the sort of societies we are dealing with. It's detailed (a lot on pottery, but then, that's where we get a lot of our evidence.  Some people find it a bit dry, but I think he is putting down all the evidence in a academic manner, and I liked the rigour.) He did a BBC programme on it, that I thought was a very good summary as well, so if you can find that, I'd recommend that too.

Extreme (i.e. quick) climate changes do require, IMO, extreme mechanisms. I don't think you are going to get random 'normal' climate variations to explain big changes. Volcanoes are good. As would be asteroid/comet strikes! 

As for comet strikes...I do remember it as a possible mechanism for explaining the Youngers Dryas. Although there are a number of other theories for it.


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## Brian G Turner (Jun 29, 2019)

Quite true! But I don't see any consideration for climate cycles in these couple of books at all, even though climate change is a major component of each. It's like reading about the history of the Roman Empire, without ever referencing anything about the city of Rome itself (not least changes in Emperor and imperial policy)!

Back to the Bronze Age collapse - I find it interesting that Egypt seems to have suffered the least, especially as it was dependent on the flow of the Nile, which has such a huge drainage basin. That may have helped ensure Egypt remained agriculturally productive enough to stave off famine in the event of a prolonged Mediterranean drought, with the biggest blow being from the interruption of trade.



Venusian Broon said:


> I thoroughly recommend Robin Lane Fox's _Travelling Heros: Greeks and their Myths in the Epic Age of Homer _



Cheers for the heads-up - I remember reading and enjoying his book on Alexander the Great.


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## svalbard (Jun 29, 2019)

Brian G Turner said:


> Back to the Bronze Age collapse - I find it interesting that Egypt seems to have suffered the least, especially as it was dependent on the flow of the Nile, which has such a huge drainage basin. That may have helped ensure Egypt remained agriculturally productive enough to stave off famine in the event of a prolonged Mediterranean drought, with the biggest blow being from the interruption of trade.



Or maybe there is some truth to the Biblical story of Joseph.


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## Venusian Broon (Jun 29, 2019)

Brian G Turner said:


> Back to the Bronze Age collapse - I find it interesting that Egypt seems to have suffered the least, especially as it was dependent on the flow of the Nile, which has such a huge drainage basin. That may have helped ensure Egypt remained agriculturally productive enough to stave off famine in the event of a prolonged Mediterranean drought, with the biggest blow being from the interruption of trade.



Yeah, it's hard for us to think how dependent they were on the flooding of the Nile. And yes, the natural flow of the Nile might not have been not correlated to other climate conditions in other parts of the world. So a drought in the far north may not have impacted it. Of course there were times when the rains in Sudan/Ethiopia failed and there would be terrible famines in Egypt, but they had no idea it was connected to climatic conditions!

Also, I remember reading that Egyptians found their relationship with the Nile so powerful that when they went North and conquered more mountainous regions in the Middle East, their soldiery couldn't (enjoy?) drink the cold, fresh mountain streams of water, but had to warm it up in pans to make it more like Nile water!



Brian G Turner said:


> Cheers for the heads-up - I remember reading and enjoying his book on Alexander the Great.



Yeah, I loved that book too. He was also a consultant for Oliver Stones' film _Alexander. _And you can see a lot of that book in the film, I think. He's also one of Alexanders companions, in one scene, in the Gaugamela battle scenes.

p.s. I don't care what anyone thinks, but I really adore that film. Stone put a lot of effort into it to make it as accurate as possible (within the confines of having an english speaking cast etc... ) , with what we know about Alexander the Great. The battle of Gaugamela as portrayed, is, IMO, at the moment, as close as we're going to get to what ancient warfare really looked like.


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## svalbard (Jun 30, 2019)

Brilliant movie and you can tell Robin Lane Fox had an input. As far as I know he asked for no payment apart from appearing in the movie. Delighted to see someone else actually enjoyed the film.


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## Venusian Broon (Jun 30, 2019)

svalbard said:


> Brilliant movie and you can tell Robin Lane Fox had an input. As far as I know he asked for no payment apart from appearing in the movie. Delighted to see someone else actually enjoyed the film.



I loved the detail that he deliberately cast a lot of northern/Scottish/Irish actors for the Macedonian roles, because at the time the Macedonians were seen as rough northern quasi-barbarian hillfolk by the Greeks.


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## svalbard (Jun 30, 2019)

Yes. I thought it was a great move. I also think Val Kilmer as Philip put in a career best performance.


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## Robert Zwilling (Jul 8, 2019)

Breakdown by slow gradual water damage. It doesn't need to flood to leave lasting damage to the infrastructure. People are more likely to be hurt or killed by falling branches than lightning. We all grew up reminded of the lightning but I don't remember anyone telling me to be aware of falling branches.

Seems like climate change as a reason for ending a civilization is more likely to be drought than flood. Drought that happens in specific regions can impact food production but with today's transportation set up, crops can easily be secured from new locations. Older building styles using more natural materials and smaller constructions might have been more flexible in handling this kind of excessively wet weather.

The problems from the wet weather I've been noticing is the damage done by excessive rainfalls over short periods of time is not being completely repaired. Globally speaking I think the amount of the unrepaired damage is steadily increasing each month. The storms at the end of June beginning of July along the mid and northeast US did substantial damage in limited locations. Houses damaged by trees and flooding. When the rainfall exceeds a certain amount in the vicinity of the New York Grand Central Railroad station the runoff comes out of the ceiling below ground level. One can only wonder about the convoluted route the water must be taking to come out of the ceiling so as to make it look like it is pouring heavy rain inside the station. It's usually just comes down in one spot, don't know if it is the same spot each time, but it has to be causing some kind of damage along the route it takes. 

This past week I noticed on several roads the branches are hanging lower from wind damage from the storms last week. Not low enough to be cut down but low enough so you can see them hanging down. Heavy rainfall in the capital this morning caused roads to flood disrupting traffic because the run off was rising too fast. Each month the runoff rate is steadily increasing, it is not randomly increasing or decreasing as would naturally happen. Fortunately the down pours, while heavier more often, don't last longer than 20 minutes. Even the rate of inch or two an hour is okay if it only lasts 20 minutes. When you get caught in a band that gives that rate for an hour or longer you start to run into problems. The modern developed land and structure alignment was never designed to handle that kind of rainfall on a regular basis. Most houses are not built for the straight line winds and prolonged downpours that are now embedded in most storms. If those hardline storm anomalies keep expanding in size things will only get worse as some of the damage continues to go unrepaired. The end result is continual slow motion damage to the entire infrastructure. 

A stretch of the highway was recently widened and the scenic hillsides formerly filled with seemingly random rock, tree, bush, and gully formations were all cut down, smoothed out, contoured and beautifully landscaped. Looks nice until one of those heavy rainfalls comes and the entire roadway becomes a shallow stream as the overflow runoff is focused on the roadway with no where else to flow. After it runs off down the road everything is fine again. Maybe that's how it was designed with fingers crossed that it wouldn't need to depend on the downward slope that is naturally there.


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## Gordon Doherty (Jul 25, 2019)

Glad I found this topic. I found Cline's book to be a good read, compelling too, albeit lacking a 'clean' answer. However, I found the 'perfect storm' theory of a systems collapse quite plausible. If anything it highlights just how fragile any society is, and especially so when you have several large and superpower-sized civilizations all interdependent on one another via an agricultural and trade-based economy. 
As I understand it, the Hittites were in a parlous position regards tin reserves*, and by the New Kingdom era would have largely been dependent on tin ingots being brought in from the distant east and possibly even from Britain. More, they relied heavily on their Ugaritic vassals to provide them a navy. Those are just two factors, but cut both of those ropes and you effectively starve the Hittite Empire of its military.
Drought, earthquakes and tin shortages aside, the mysterious identity of the 'Sea Peoples' continues to sparkle away, unsolved. I have my own theories, but they are no stronger than those proposed by Cline, Bryce et al. Sometimes it is better not to have the answers, I find - keeps the imagination ticking over 

*Though there are recent finds at the Kestel mines which suggest tin was there in the Hittite heartlands, but they chose not to extract it - or possibly it was too deep/inaccessible for their mining technology.


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