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Journal ArticleDOI

Crisis in Context: The End of the Late Bronze Age in the Eastern Mediterranean

TL;DR: The authors reviewed the current state of the archaeological and historical evidence and considered the coherence of climatic explanations and overprecise chronologies in attempting to place the "crisis" in context.
Abstract: Explanations for the Late Bronze Age crisis and collapse in the eastern Mediterranean are legion: migrations, predations by external forces, political struggles within dominant polities or system collapse among them, inequalities between centers and peripheries, climatic change and natural disasters, disease/plague. There has never been any overarching explanation to account for all the changes within and beyond the eastern Mediterranean, some of which occurred at different times from the mid to late 13th throughout the 12th centuries B.C.E. The ambiguity of the evidence—material, textual, climatic, chronological—and the differing contexts involved across the central-eastern Mediterranean make it difficult to disentangle background noise from boundary conditions and to distinguish cause from effect. Can we identify the protagonists of the crisis and related events? How useful are recent explanations that focus on climate and/or chronology in providing a better understanding of the crisis? This article reviews the current state of the archaeological and historical evidence and considers the coherence of climatic explanations and overprecise chronologies in attempting to place the “crisis” in context. There is no final solution: the human-induced Late Bronze Age “collapse” presents multiple material, social, and cultural realities that demand continuing, and collaborative, archaeological, historical, and scientific attention and interpretation. This article is available as open access on (AJA Online).
Citations
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Book
24 Jan 2017
TL;DR: The "Four Horsemen" of leveling-mass-mobilization warfare, transformative revolutions, state collapse, and catastrophic plagues-have repeatedly destroyed the fortunes of the rich as discussed by the authors.
Abstract: Are mass violence and catastrophes the only forces that can seriously decrease economic inequality? To judge by thousands of years of history, the answer is yes. Tracing the global history of inequality from the Stone Age to today, Walter Scheidel shows that it never dies peacefully. The Great Leveler is the first book to chart the crucial role of violent shocks in reducing inequality over the full sweep of human history around the world. The "Four Horsemen" of leveling-mass-mobilization warfare, transformative revolutions, state collapse, and catastrophic plagues-have repeatedly destroyed the fortunes of the rich. Today, the violence that reduced inequality in the past seems to have diminished, and that is a good thing. But it casts serious doubt on the prospects for a more equal future. An essential contribution to the debate about inequality, The Great Leveler provides important new insights about why inequality is so persistent-and why it is unlikely to decline anytime soon.

278 citations

Journal ArticleDOI
28 Oct 2016-Science
TL;DR: In the Mediterranean basin, recent pollen-based reconstructions of climate and ecosystem variability over the past 10,000 years provide insights regarding the implications of warming thresholds for biodiversity and land-use potential and scenarios of climate-driven future change in land ecosystems are compared.
Abstract: The United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change Paris Agreement of December 2015 aims to maintain the global average warming well below 2°C above the preindustrial level In the Mediterranean basin, recent pollen-based reconstructions of climate and ecosystem variability over the past 10,000 years provide insights regarding the implications of warming thresholds for biodiversity and land-use potential We compare scenarios of climate-driven future change in land ecosystems with reconstructed ecosystem dynamics during the past 10,000 years Only a 15°C warming scenario permits ecosystems to remain within the Holocene variability At or above 2°C of warming, climatic change will generate Mediterranean land ecosystem changes that are unmatched in the Holocene, a period characterized by recurring precipitation deficits rather than temperature anomalies

202 citations

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: Several ways in which a consilience between the historical sciences and the natural sciences, including attention to even distant historical pasts, can deepen contemporary understanding of environmental change and its effects on human societies are suggested.
Abstract: History and archaeology have a well-established engagement with issues of premodern societal development and the interaction between physical and cultural environments; together, they offer a holistic view that can generate insights into the nature of cultural resilience and adaptation, as well as responses to catastrophe. Grasping the challenges that climate change presents and evolving appropriate policies that promote and support mitigation and adaptation requires not only an understanding of the science and the contemporary politics, but also an understanding of the history of the societies affected and in particular of their cultural logic. But whereas archaeologists have developed productive links with the paleosciences, historians have, on the whole, remained muted voices in the debate until recently. Here, we suggest several ways in which a consilience between the historical sciences and the natural sciences, including attention to even distant historical pasts, can deepen contemporary understanding of environmental change and its effects on human societies.

109 citations

Journal ArticleDOI
27 Dec 2017-PLOS ONE
TL;DR: The δ18O record shows generally wetter conditions at the time when the Palace of Nestor at Pylos was destroyed, but a brief period of drier conditions around 3200 yrs BP may have disrupted the Mycenaean agricultural system that at thetime was likely operating close to its limit.
Abstract: This paper offers new high-resolution oxygen and carbon isotope data from Stalagmite S1 from Mavri Trypa Cave, SW Peloponnese. Our data provide the climate background to the destruction of the near ...

84 citations

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: The Making of the Middle Sea: A History of the Mediterranean From the Beginning to the Emergence of the Classical World by Cyprian Broodbank as discussed by the authors is an excellent book for Mediterranean history.
Abstract: The Making of the Middle Sea: A History of the Mediterranean From the Beginning to the Emergence of the Classical World. By Cyprian Broodbank. Oxford University Press, New York and Oxford. 2013. IS...

84 citations

References
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Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: In this paper, Heaton, AG Hogg, KA Hughen, KF Kaiser, B Kromer, SW Manning, RW Reimer, DA Richards, JR Southon, S Talamo, CSM Turney, J van der Plicht, CE Weyhenmeyer
Abstract: Additional co-authors: TJ Heaton, AG Hogg, KA Hughen, KF Kaiser, B Kromer, SW Manning, RW Reimer, DA Richards, JR Southon, S Talamo, CSM Turney, J van der Plicht, CE Weyhenmeyer

13,605 citations

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: In this paper, an examination of similar to50 globally distributed paleoclimate records reveals as many as six periods of significant rapid climate change during the time periods 9000-8000, 6000-5000, 4200-3800, 3500-2500, 1200-1000, and 600-150 cal yr B.P.

2,255 citations

Journal ArticleDOI
05 Nov 2004-Science
TL;DR: Using gridded drought reconstructions that cover most of the western United States over the past 1200 years, it is shown that this drought pales in comparison to an earlier period of elevated aridity and epic drought in AD 900 to 1300, an interval broadly consistent with the Medieval Warm Period.
Abstract: The western United States is experiencing a severe multiyear drought that is unprecedented in some hydroclimatic records. Using gridded drought reconstructions that cover most of the western United States over the past 1200 years, we show that this drought pales in comparison to an earlier period of elevated aridity and epic drought in AD 900 to 1300, an interval broadly consistent with the Medieval Warm Period. If elevated aridity in the western United States is a natural response to climate warming, then any trend toward warmer temperatures in the future could lead to a serious long-term increase in aridity over western North America.

1,524 citations


"Crisis in Context: The End of the L..." refers background in this paper

  • ...99 Cook et al. 2004, 2010. 100 Buckley et al. 2010. 101 Cf., e.g., historical period studies ranging from the classic of Le Roy Ladurie (1971) through, more recently, White 2011; Parker 2013....

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  • ...99 Cook et al. 2004, 2010....

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Journal ArticleDOI
04 Feb 2011-Science
TL;DR: Reconstruction of tree ring–based reconstructions of central European summer precipitation and temperature variability over the past 2500 years may provide a basis for counteracting the recent political and fiscal reluctance to mitigate projected climate change.
Abstract: Climate variations influenced the agricultural productivity, health risk, and conflict level of preindustrial societies. Discrimination between environmental and anthropogenic impacts on past civilizations, however, remains difficult because of the paucity of high-resolution paleoclimatic evidence. We present tree ring-based reconstructions of central European summer precipitation and temperature variability over the past 2500 years. Recent warming is unprecedented, but modern hydroclimatic variations may have at times been exceeded in magnitude and duration. Wet and warm summers occurred during periods of Roman and medieval prosperity. Increased climate variability from ~250 to 600 C.E. coincided with the demise of the western Roman Empire and the turmoil of the Migration Period. Such historical data may provide a basis for counteracting the recent political and fiscal reluctance to mitigate projected climate change.

1,081 citations

Journal ArticleDOI
23 Apr 2010-Science
TL;DR: The Monsoon Asia Drought Atlas (MADA), a seasonally resolved gridded spatial reconstruction of Asian monsoon drought and pluvials over the past millennium, derived from a network of tree-ring chronologies, provides a long-term context for recent monsoon variability that is critically needed for climate modeling, prediction, and attribution.
Abstract: The Asian monsoon system affects more than half of humanity worldwide, yet the dynamical processes that govern its complex spatiotemporal variability are not sufficiently understood to model and predict its behavior, due in part to inadequate long-term climate observations. Here we present the Monsoon Asia Drought Atlas (MADA), a seasonally resolved gridded spatial reconstruction of Asian monsoon drought and pluvials over the past millennium, derived from a network of tree-ring chronologies. MADA provides the spatiotemporal details of known historic monsoon failures and reveals the occurrence, severity, and fingerprint of previously unknown monsoon megadroughts and their close linkages to large-scale patterns of tropical Indo-Pacific sea surface temperatures. MADA thus provides a long-term context for recent monsoon variability that is critically needed for climate modeling, prediction, and attribution.

991 citations


Additional excerpts

  • ...99 Cook et al. 2004, 2010....

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