Angela
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This is an excellent paper by Malcolm Wiener from Harvard to which I was alerted by a mention in Lazaridis' twitter account.
It explores the role of climate change and plague on the collapse of cultures we often discuss here, including the Bronze Age Aegean cultures and Rome.
See:
https://www.belfercenter.org/sites/default/files/files/publication/TheCollapseofCivilizations.pdf
"Five causesof collapse appear paramount: major episodes of climate change,crises-induced mass migrations, pandemics, dramatic advancesin methods of warfare and transport, and human failings in crisesincluding societal lack of resilience and the madness, incompetence,cultic focus, or ignorance of rulers."
"Around 6200 BC, changes in rainfall patterns (for which a periodic changein the earth’s orbit has been suggested as a possible cause) led, inter alia,to the contraction of the savannah in North Africa, forcing humans tomove to the banks of the Nile for water.2A further period of cold, indicatedby evidence gathered from Greenland ice cores, may have spurredrapid dispersal of migrants along the comparatively warm shores of theMediterranean between about 5,750 and 5,450 BC.3Indeed, all five of theknown great migrations out of Africa appear to correspond with climateevents. Improving climate c. 4600 to 4000 BC spurred Neolithic dispersalfrom western Asia, and was followed during the fourth millennium BC bythe emergence of the first complex civilizations between the Tigris and theEuphrates Rivers in Mesopotamia and in the Indus River valley."
"We come now to the first identifiable climate-related collapse of civilizations,encompassing at least all of West Asia and the Mediterranean worldbetween 2300 and 2000 BC....The megadrought, which caused or intensified major movementsand migrations, some violent in nature, was accompanied by drasticchanges in methods of warfare and transport, most notably the introductionof bronze weapons and sailing vessels, which may have carried notonly invaders but also pathogens to which there was no local resistance. Ofcourse severe food shortages appeared at different times in different places,depending on local conditions, food storage capabilities, societal resilience,and whether major advances in methods of transport and warfare precededor followed the onset or culmination of famine.
In Egypt, there is direct textual evidence of a climate event during theFirst Intermediate Period, c. 2200 to 2050 BC, when the Nile flow sharplydiminished, resulting in famine...The Egyptian Old Kingdom, the age of thepyramids, dissolved."
He goes on to describe the situation in Mesopotamia: "The challenge posed by a changingclimate was first noted in the Upper Khabur region of northernmostSyria, where archaeological sites contain a massive dust level lacking signsof significant human occupation between about 2225 and 2050 BC."
"Texts from Mesopotamia describe the migration of peoples from the westand north, complaining of the absence of rain. After what may have been anattack or attacks by neighboring polities, the once-great capital city at Ur wasoverrun by people from the north seeking food and pasturage. Walls werebuilt in eastern Syria and in Iraq between the Tigris and Euphrates Rivers,known respectively as the Très Long Mur and the Repeller of the Amorites (a people speaking a Northwest Semitic dialect), but the walls failed to haltthe migrants. A text of the succeeding Assyrian Empire speaks of the “17Amorite kings who lived in tents” during the interregnum."
"The collapse of civilizations at this time includes Greece, where the incipientcomplex society of what is known as the Early Bronze II period in thePeloponnese, marked by large buildings such as the House of the Tiles atLerna (named for the innovative use of roof tiles in its architecture) and The Collapse of Civilizationsthe Rundbau at Tiryns, both with evidence of administration in the formof seal impressions and of contacts with sites in Anatolia and elsewhere,disappeared."
"The dramatic differencesin the types of cooking pottery before and after the destructions signala change in the method of food preparation and perhaps of diet as well,indicating a change in population resulting from migrations, including thearrival of people from north-central Greece."
"Accordingly it is possible that in some caseswell-armed attackers or pathogens appeared before the full brunt of thedeteriorating climate was felt, with the climate event providing the coup degrâce,15 or that the climate-induced famine weakened the population priorto the plague. Yersinia pestis infections have been identified as early as theLate Neolithic period around 3000–2500 BC in Eurasia. Actual bubonicplague genomes have recently been identified in the Samara region ofmodern Russia c. 1800 BC, suggesting a possible appearance close to thetime of the climate collapse of 2200–2050 BC.16."
"The arc of upheaval extended to the central and western Mediterranean.The imposing megalithic temple culture of Malta, the relatively advancedCopper Age cultures of Sardinia and Languedoc in southern France, andthe metallurgical culture of Spain exemplified by the major copper-producingsites of Rio Tinto and Los Millares which flourished from about3000 to 2000 BC also came to an end, followed by the apparent arrival ofnewcomers with much less imposing architecture."
"The collapse or major diminution of cultures may open opportunities forothers. Between about 2300 and 2000 BC the Balkan Cetina Culture, withits distinctive tumulus burials, bronze daggers, archery set, and ornatelyimpressed pottery, expanded over both coasts of the Adriatic Sea, includinga site under the much later Altar of Zeus at Olympia, and on into the centralMediterranean, including Malta. Mariners sailed westward from thePeloponnese as well, bringing pottery and other aspects of Early HelladicIII culture to Sicily and Malta."
"In England, the period of monumental 8 The Collapse of Civilizationsbuilding at Stonehenge and Avebury in Wiltshire comes to an end around2300 BC. DNA and strontium isotope analyses suggest an influx of peoplebetween 2500 and 2000 BC from the direction of the Netherlands, bearingBeaker pottery."
Then, "Beginning around 2050 BC, a period of generally good climate lastingalmost a millennium enabled the rise of powerful and prosperous statesfrom Egypt to Assyria to Anatolia to Crete and later mainland Greece."
"The Near East during this period enjoyed the benefits of expanding trade,and in particular the Assyrian trading colony network which stretchedfrom northern Iraq to northern Syria and central Turkey. One of its greatcenters was located at Kültepe Karum-Kanesh in Turkey, where the localruler lived on a hill above a large lower town of Assyrian merchants."
"At the end of the Bronze Age c. 1200 to 1050 BC, the return of adverseclimate appears to have been a significant factor in the collapse of theEgyptian New Kingdom, the Hittite Empire, and the palatial culture ofMycenaean Greece."
"Vectors of collapse other than climate-induced famine were clearly presentin the collapse of civilization at the end of the Bronze Age culminating inthe 13th and 12th century BC. In the last quarter of the 14th century BC,two Hittite emperors in succession died of the plague."
"There is alsoabundant evidence of warfare in general in the Near East and Greece in thelate 13th century BC, and of continuing pirate raids throughout the easternMediterranean, accompanied by some movement of people from theAegean to Cyprus and Canaan by sea, and from Anatolia to the northernLevant by land. The period also saw the appearance of a new and deadlyweapon, the Naue II type sword, plus a complete new military kit, consistingof javelins, round shields, metal greaves, and infantryman corselets.26The new military equipment may have come with mercenary troops fromItaly and possibly the Balkans, along with crude cooking pots very differentfrom Mycenaean pottery."
"The climate improved by c. 800 BC and remained relatively benign ingeneral through the Classical and Hellenistic periods in Greece, with thepossible exception of a period of famine in the late 8th and 7th centuriesBC contributing to the era of Greek colonization eastward toward Turkeyand westward toward Italy, plus two colonies in Africa. This was also theperiod Phoenician expansion to the western Mediterranean, Carthagein particular. A period of particularly temperate climate, known as theRoman Warming (a.k.a. the Roman Climate Optimum), began about 200BC and continued until c. AD 150, thus encompassing the heights of theRoman Republic and Roman Empire. There followed a transitional periodof unsettled but not extremely severe weather c. AD 150 to 450. Romanrulers paid close attention to food supplies during this period, seeking toinstitutionalize resilience. The extant segments of the ancient aqueductsand granaries inspire wonder today. The emperor Septimius Severus, whoruled between AD 193 and 211, took provisioning the city of Rome soseriously that at his death there was enough grain stored to feed its onemillion inhabitants for seven years."
"The connectivity of the Roman Empire, and especially the sheernumbers of ships then traversing the Mediterranean, as well as sailing fromthe Indian Ocean to the Red Sea ports built by the Empire, however, alsobrought the Romans into unfortunate contact with new frontiers of disease.In AD 165, an event known as the Antonine Plague, probably causedby smallpox, swept the Roman world. In AD 249 came another plague ofunknown cause, together with a period of drought, adding to the problemspresented by the continuingly increasing costs of providing armies,fleets for naval battles and transport, highways, aqueducts, granaries, and Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs | Harvard Kennedy School 13sanitation systems, resulting in the onset of political disintegration, leadingto what has been termed the “first fall” of the Roman Empire."
"A drastic slackening of the movement ofthe Atlantic air mass across Europe and beyond produced a major drought,resulting in what has been called a “dust bowl” in Central Asia.29 The crisis inturn led to the invasions of the nomadic pastoralists from Central Asia andEastern Europe known as the Huns, who employed new cavalry tactics usinghorses able to endure hard riding, cold, and hunger, and a new weapon, thecomposite reflex bow, hard to manufacture and use, but deadly in action. TheHuns have aptly been described as “armed climate refugees on horseback.”30At this point disease intervened to save the Roman Empire’s defenders, forthe Huns, and in particular their horses, were felled by malaria-carryingmosquitoes, unknown in the cooler regions to the east and north."
"Theweather-spurred migration of the Huns pressed against the Gothic tribes tothe west and north, who in response moved south into the Roman Empire.After more than a century of recurring battles, interspersed with alliancesand reciprocal betrayals often accompanied by slaughter, Rome itself fell to aGothic assault in AD 410.:
"While the Western Roman Empire collapsed by the beginning of the 5thcentury AD, the Byzantine Eastern Roman Empire revived until the dramaticevents of the Late Antique Little Ice Age of AD 536 to 680. The frigidclimate of the period was due in part to a series of volcanic eruptions inearly AD 536, AD 539–540, and AD 547, a cluster of eruptions unmatchedin the last 3000 years.32 Aerosols from these eruptions partly obscured thesun. AD 536, the year of the first eruption, was known as the year withoutsun, and 539–540 may have been even worse. The 530s and 540s werethe coldest decade since the Ice Age."
It explores the role of climate change and plague on the collapse of cultures we often discuss here, including the Bronze Age Aegean cultures and Rome.
See:
https://www.belfercenter.org/sites/default/files/files/publication/TheCollapseofCivilizations.pdf
"Five causesof collapse appear paramount: major episodes of climate change,crises-induced mass migrations, pandemics, dramatic advancesin methods of warfare and transport, and human failings in crisesincluding societal lack of resilience and the madness, incompetence,cultic focus, or ignorance of rulers."
"Around 6200 BC, changes in rainfall patterns (for which a periodic changein the earth’s orbit has been suggested as a possible cause) led, inter alia,to the contraction of the savannah in North Africa, forcing humans tomove to the banks of the Nile for water.2A further period of cold, indicatedby evidence gathered from Greenland ice cores, may have spurredrapid dispersal of migrants along the comparatively warm shores of theMediterranean between about 5,750 and 5,450 BC.3Indeed, all five of theknown great migrations out of Africa appear to correspond with climateevents. Improving climate c. 4600 to 4000 BC spurred Neolithic dispersalfrom western Asia, and was followed during the fourth millennium BC bythe emergence of the first complex civilizations between the Tigris and theEuphrates Rivers in Mesopotamia and in the Indus River valley."
"We come now to the first identifiable climate-related collapse of civilizations,encompassing at least all of West Asia and the Mediterranean worldbetween 2300 and 2000 BC....The megadrought, which caused or intensified major movementsand migrations, some violent in nature, was accompanied by drasticchanges in methods of warfare and transport, most notably the introductionof bronze weapons and sailing vessels, which may have carried notonly invaders but also pathogens to which there was no local resistance. Ofcourse severe food shortages appeared at different times in different places,depending on local conditions, food storage capabilities, societal resilience,and whether major advances in methods of transport and warfare precededor followed the onset or culmination of famine.
In Egypt, there is direct textual evidence of a climate event during theFirst Intermediate Period, c. 2200 to 2050 BC, when the Nile flow sharplydiminished, resulting in famine...The Egyptian Old Kingdom, the age of thepyramids, dissolved."
He goes on to describe the situation in Mesopotamia: "The challenge posed by a changingclimate was first noted in the Upper Khabur region of northernmostSyria, where archaeological sites contain a massive dust level lacking signsof significant human occupation between about 2225 and 2050 BC."
"Texts from Mesopotamia describe the migration of peoples from the westand north, complaining of the absence of rain. After what may have been anattack or attacks by neighboring polities, the once-great capital city at Ur wasoverrun by people from the north seeking food and pasturage. Walls werebuilt in eastern Syria and in Iraq between the Tigris and Euphrates Rivers,known respectively as the Très Long Mur and the Repeller of the Amorites (a people speaking a Northwest Semitic dialect), but the walls failed to haltthe migrants. A text of the succeeding Assyrian Empire speaks of the “17Amorite kings who lived in tents” during the interregnum."
"The collapse of civilizations at this time includes Greece, where the incipientcomplex society of what is known as the Early Bronze II period in thePeloponnese, marked by large buildings such as the House of the Tiles atLerna (named for the innovative use of roof tiles in its architecture) and The Collapse of Civilizationsthe Rundbau at Tiryns, both with evidence of administration in the formof seal impressions and of contacts with sites in Anatolia and elsewhere,disappeared."
"The dramatic differencesin the types of cooking pottery before and after the destructions signala change in the method of food preparation and perhaps of diet as well,indicating a change in population resulting from migrations, including thearrival of people from north-central Greece."
"Accordingly it is possible that in some caseswell-armed attackers or pathogens appeared before the full brunt of thedeteriorating climate was felt, with the climate event providing the coup degrâce,15 or that the climate-induced famine weakened the population priorto the plague. Yersinia pestis infections have been identified as early as theLate Neolithic period around 3000–2500 BC in Eurasia. Actual bubonicplague genomes have recently been identified in the Samara region ofmodern Russia c. 1800 BC, suggesting a possible appearance close to thetime of the climate collapse of 2200–2050 BC.16."
"The arc of upheaval extended to the central and western Mediterranean.The imposing megalithic temple culture of Malta, the relatively advancedCopper Age cultures of Sardinia and Languedoc in southern France, andthe metallurgical culture of Spain exemplified by the major copper-producingsites of Rio Tinto and Los Millares which flourished from about3000 to 2000 BC also came to an end, followed by the apparent arrival ofnewcomers with much less imposing architecture."
"The collapse or major diminution of cultures may open opportunities forothers. Between about 2300 and 2000 BC the Balkan Cetina Culture, withits distinctive tumulus burials, bronze daggers, archery set, and ornatelyimpressed pottery, expanded over both coasts of the Adriatic Sea, includinga site under the much later Altar of Zeus at Olympia, and on into the centralMediterranean, including Malta. Mariners sailed westward from thePeloponnese as well, bringing pottery and other aspects of Early HelladicIII culture to Sicily and Malta."
"In England, the period of monumental 8 The Collapse of Civilizationsbuilding at Stonehenge and Avebury in Wiltshire comes to an end around2300 BC. DNA and strontium isotope analyses suggest an influx of peoplebetween 2500 and 2000 BC from the direction of the Netherlands, bearingBeaker pottery."
Then, "Beginning around 2050 BC, a period of generally good climate lastingalmost a millennium enabled the rise of powerful and prosperous statesfrom Egypt to Assyria to Anatolia to Crete and later mainland Greece."
"The Near East during this period enjoyed the benefits of expanding trade,and in particular the Assyrian trading colony network which stretchedfrom northern Iraq to northern Syria and central Turkey. One of its greatcenters was located at Kültepe Karum-Kanesh in Turkey, where the localruler lived on a hill above a large lower town of Assyrian merchants."
"At the end of the Bronze Age c. 1200 to 1050 BC, the return of adverseclimate appears to have been a significant factor in the collapse of theEgyptian New Kingdom, the Hittite Empire, and the palatial culture ofMycenaean Greece."
"Vectors of collapse other than climate-induced famine were clearly presentin the collapse of civilization at the end of the Bronze Age culminating inthe 13th and 12th century BC. In the last quarter of the 14th century BC,two Hittite emperors in succession died of the plague."
"There is alsoabundant evidence of warfare in general in the Near East and Greece in thelate 13th century BC, and of continuing pirate raids throughout the easternMediterranean, accompanied by some movement of people from theAegean to Cyprus and Canaan by sea, and from Anatolia to the northernLevant by land. The period also saw the appearance of a new and deadlyweapon, the Naue II type sword, plus a complete new military kit, consistingof javelins, round shields, metal greaves, and infantryman corselets.26The new military equipment may have come with mercenary troops fromItaly and possibly the Balkans, along with crude cooking pots very differentfrom Mycenaean pottery."
"The climate improved by c. 800 BC and remained relatively benign ingeneral through the Classical and Hellenistic periods in Greece, with thepossible exception of a period of famine in the late 8th and 7th centuriesBC contributing to the era of Greek colonization eastward toward Turkeyand westward toward Italy, plus two colonies in Africa. This was also theperiod Phoenician expansion to the western Mediterranean, Carthagein particular. A period of particularly temperate climate, known as theRoman Warming (a.k.a. the Roman Climate Optimum), began about 200BC and continued until c. AD 150, thus encompassing the heights of theRoman Republic and Roman Empire. There followed a transitional periodof unsettled but not extremely severe weather c. AD 150 to 450. Romanrulers paid close attention to food supplies during this period, seeking toinstitutionalize resilience. The extant segments of the ancient aqueductsand granaries inspire wonder today. The emperor Septimius Severus, whoruled between AD 193 and 211, took provisioning the city of Rome soseriously that at his death there was enough grain stored to feed its onemillion inhabitants for seven years."
"The connectivity of the Roman Empire, and especially the sheernumbers of ships then traversing the Mediterranean, as well as sailing fromthe Indian Ocean to the Red Sea ports built by the Empire, however, alsobrought the Romans into unfortunate contact with new frontiers of disease.In AD 165, an event known as the Antonine Plague, probably causedby smallpox, swept the Roman world. In AD 249 came another plague ofunknown cause, together with a period of drought, adding to the problemspresented by the continuingly increasing costs of providing armies,fleets for naval battles and transport, highways, aqueducts, granaries, and Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs | Harvard Kennedy School 13sanitation systems, resulting in the onset of political disintegration, leadingto what has been termed the “first fall” of the Roman Empire."
"A drastic slackening of the movement ofthe Atlantic air mass across Europe and beyond produced a major drought,resulting in what has been called a “dust bowl” in Central Asia.29 The crisis inturn led to the invasions of the nomadic pastoralists from Central Asia andEastern Europe known as the Huns, who employed new cavalry tactics usinghorses able to endure hard riding, cold, and hunger, and a new weapon, thecomposite reflex bow, hard to manufacture and use, but deadly in action. TheHuns have aptly been described as “armed climate refugees on horseback.”30At this point disease intervened to save the Roman Empire’s defenders, forthe Huns, and in particular their horses, were felled by malaria-carryingmosquitoes, unknown in the cooler regions to the east and north."
"Theweather-spurred migration of the Huns pressed against the Gothic tribes tothe west and north, who in response moved south into the Roman Empire.After more than a century of recurring battles, interspersed with alliancesand reciprocal betrayals often accompanied by slaughter, Rome itself fell to aGothic assault in AD 410.:
"While the Western Roman Empire collapsed by the beginning of the 5thcentury AD, the Byzantine Eastern Roman Empire revived until the dramaticevents of the Late Antique Little Ice Age of AD 536 to 680. The frigidclimate of the period was due in part to a series of volcanic eruptions inearly AD 536, AD 539–540, and AD 547, a cluster of eruptions unmatchedin the last 3000 years.32 Aerosols from these eruptions partly obscured thesun. AD 536, the year of the first eruption, was known as the year withoutsun, and 539–540 may have been even worse. The 530s and 540s werethe coldest decade since the Ice Age."
