The late bronze age collapse and the early iron age in the levant: the role of climate in cultural disruption (original) (raw)
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A core drilled from the Sea of Galilee was subjected to high resolution pollen analysis for the Bronze and Iron Ages. The detailed pollen diagram (sample/~40 yrs) was used to reconstruct past climate changes and human impact on the vegetation of the Mediterranean zone of the southern Levant. The chronological framework is based on radiocarbon dating of short-lived terrestrial organic material. The results indicate that the driest event throughout the Bronze and Iron Ages occurred ~1250-1100 BCE-at the end of the Late Bronze Age. This arid phase was identified based on a significant decrease in Mediterranean tree values, denoting a reduction in precipitation and the shrinkage of the Mediterranean forest/maquis. The Late Bronze dry event was followed by dramatic recovery in the Iron I, evident in the increased percentages of both Mediterranean trees and cultivated olive trees. Archaeology indicates that the crisis in the eastern Mediterranean at the end of the Late Bronze Age took place during the same period-from the mid-13th century to ca. 1100 BCE. In the Levant the crisis years are represented by destruction of a large number of urban centres, shrinkage of other major sites, hoarding activities and changes in settlement patterns. Textual evidence from several places in the Ancient Near East attests to drought and famine starting in the mid-13th and continuing until the second half of the 12th century. All this helps to better understand the 'Crisis Years' in the eastern Mediterranean at the end of the Late Bronze Age and the quick settlement recovery in the Iron I, especially in the highlands of the Levant.
Tel Aviv, 2013
A core drilled from the Sea of Galilee was subjected to high resolution pollen analysis for the Bronze and Iron Ages. The detailed pollen diagram (sample/~40 yrs) was used to reconstruct past climate changes and human impact on the vegetation of the Mediterranean zone of the southern Levant. The chronological framework is based on radiocarbon dating of short-lived terrestrial organic material. The results indicate that the driest event throughout the Bronze and Iron Ages occurred ~1250–1100 BC—at the end of the Late Bronze Age. This arid phase was identified based on a significant decrease in Mediterranean tree values, denoting a reduction in precipitation and the shrinkage of the Mediterranean forest/maquis. The Late Bronze dry event was followed by dramatic recovery in the Iron I, evident in the increased percentages of both Mediterranean trees and cultivated olive trees. Archaeology indicates that the crisis in the eastern Mediterranean at the end of the Late Bronze Age took place during the same period—from the mid-13th century to ca. 1100 BCE. In the Levant the crisis years are represented by destruction of a large number of urban centres, shrinkage of other major sites, hoarding activities and changes in settlement patterns. Textual evidence from several places in the Ancient Near East attests to drought and famine starting in the mid-13th and continuing until the second half of the 12th century. All this helps to better understand the ‘Crisis Years’ in the eastern Mediterranean at the end of the Late Bronze Age and the quick settlement recovery in the Iron I, especially in the highlands of the Levant.
Climate and the Late Bronze Collapse: New Evidence from the Southern Levant
Tel Aviv, 2013
A core drilled from the Sea of Galilee was subjected to high resolution pollen analysis for the Bronze and Iron Ages. The detailed pollen diagram (sample/~40 yrs) was used to reconstruct past climate changes and human impact on the vegetation of the Mediterranean zone of the southern Levant. The chronological framework is based on radiocarbon dating of short-lived terrestrial organic material. The results indicate that the driest event throughout the Bronze and Iron Ages occurred ~1250-1100 BCE-at the end of the Late Bronze Age. This arid phase was identified based on a significant decrease in Mediterranean tree values, denoting a reduction in precipitation and the shrinkage of the Mediterranean forest/maquis. The Late Bronze dry event was followed by dramatic recovery in the Iron I, evident in the increased percentages of both Mediterranean trees and cultivated olive trees. Archaeology indicates that the crisis in the eastern Mediterranean at the end of the Late Bronze Age took place during the same period-from the mid-13th century to ca. 1100 BCE. In the Levant the crisis years are represented by destruction of a large number of urban centres, shrinkage of other major sites, hoarding activities and changes in settlement patterns. Textual evidence from several places in the Ancient Near East attests to drought and famine starting in the mid-13th and continuing until the second half of the 12th century. All this helps to better understand the 'Crisis Years' in the eastern Mediterranean at the end of the Late Bronze Age and the quick settlement recovery in the Iron I, especially in the highlands of the Levant.
No Collapse: Transmutations of Early Bronze Age Urbanism in the Southern Levant
A sizeable body of writing has accumulated on the collapse of the urban Early Bronze Age (EBA) entities of the southern Levant in the last centuries of the third millennium b.c. Stressing the dramatic difference between the massively walled towns of the Early Bronze III and the pastoral or rural villages, encampments, and cemeteries of the succeeding Intermediate Bronze Age (IBA), climatic, systemic, or cultural prime movers of urban collapse have been sought and named. In this essay, I wish to sidestep the question of urbanism (which I take, for the sake of argument, as given) and focus on the chronological, political, and systemic aspects of collapse: Can the study of relative chronologies and stratigraphies confirm the existence of an integrated urban system prior to collapse? Moreover, is there indeed evidence for a rapid dissolution of all urban polities, or, on the contrary, for other, less dramatic scenarios?
The seven plagues. Catastrophes and destructions in Palestine and Egypt during the pre-classical period. Volcanic eruptions, earthquakes, floods, wars, famines and epidemics in the archaeological record and in Biblical and ancient Egyptian sources: an innovative approach, 2014
In order to “Deepen [...] themes allowing a more precise definition of catastrophic events identified in the archaeological record”, we propose to check how the tools we have today allow identifying and estimating climatic changes, crisis and/or catastrophic events at a regional scale. We must consider first the meaning of the words we use in that kind of research. “Catastrophe” is, by definition, an event that archaeology identifies only by chance when we have no texts. The consequences of a disaster, perceptible by the immediate reaction of the population, – social destabilization, or no consequence – are identifiable only if a finely tuned stratigraphic continuity on an excavated site allows it. When we speak of “climate fluctuation”, we seek to establish what is called an “environmental crisis” in case of fluctuation seen as negative, or, conversely, improvement, positive change (more rarely characterized and studied!). Jean-Paul Bravard asked whether “a retrospective analysis of the environmental crisis is possible? Geosciences researchers aim at identifying environmental descriptors, and then infer the occurrence of a crisis. Crisis is identified ex post several centuries or millennia after its occurrence, without any real possibility of understanding the socio-cultural issues or the social adaptation/reaction to the natural processes. The only identified reality is the recording of physical phenomena whose aggregate product curves out of geological standards defined by the scientific community”1. For us archaeologists, questions are then: “Are we sure that the ʽcrisisʼ was perceived and analyzed as such by ancient societies who have experienced it? Has the crisis produced impacts on society and, if so, what kind of reaction or adaptation? In other words, what is the status of the societal component in the studied process?”. We know that there is no single answer to these questions! Our purpose is to present: 1) the data on which we can now rely on to attempt to construct hypotheses about the nature and intensity of climate crisis; 2) the nature and intensity of settlement patterns variations. It is only in a second step that we can try to examine the relationship between the two sets of observations, in a joint work of archaeology and geosciences.
Quaternary …, 2010
The alluvial deposits near Gibala-Tell Tweini provide a unique record of environmental history and food availability estimates covering the Late Bronze Age and the Early Iron Age. The refined pollen-derived climatic proxy suggests that drier climatic conditions occurred in the Mediterranean belt of Syria from the late 13th/early 12th centuries BC to the 9th century BC. This period corresponds with the time frame of the Late Bronze Age collapse and the subsequent Dark Age. The abrupt climate change at the end of the Late Bronze Age caused region-wide crop failures, leading towards socio-economic crises and unsustainability, forcing regional habitat-tracking. Archaeological data show that the first conflagration of Gibala occurred simultaneously with the destruction of the capital city Ugarit currently dated between 1194 and 1175 BC. Gibala redeveloped shortly after this destruction, with large-scale urbanization visible in two main architectural phases during the Early Iron Age I. The later Iron Age I city was destroyed during a second conflagration, which is radiocarbon-dated at circa 2950 cal yr BP. The data from Gibala-Tell Tweini provide evidence in support of the drought hypothesis as a triggering factor behind the Late Bronze Age collapse in the Eastern Mediterranean.
Cultural Transformations Shaping the end of the Late Bronze Age in the Levant
Proceedings of the 10th International Congress of the Archaeology of the Ancient near East (10th ICAANE), Vienna, 25 April - 29 April 2016, 2018
The Carmel coast showed similar transformations to those noted at Ugarit and on the southern coast of Cyprus. The material culture of Tell Abu Hawam, Tel Nami and Tel Akko underwent detectable changes in the LB IIB phase, already during the 13th century BCE. Certain forms of ceramics, with changes, continued to be produced on Cyprus albeit, not necessarily in the same production centres. The ceramic variations in the coastal areas of the southern Levant (modern Israel), are traceable in inland sites, connected to the coast by terrestrial routes, such as Tel Megiddo, Tel Beth-Shean and Tell es-Sa’idiyeh (Trans-Jordan). This period ended with the final destruction of Ugarit, which coincides with that of Tel Nami and is traditionally ascribed to the beginning of the Iron Age at ca. 1180 BCE. We propose that the transitional period between ca. 1230 and 1180 BCE in the Carmel coast and its hinterland should be defined as Coastal LB IIC.
The Handbook of the Archaeology of the Levant c 8000-332 BCE edited by M. Steiner and A.E. Killebrew, 2014
The end of the Bronze Age ( c. 1200–1130 BCE) witnessed the demise of the Mycenaean palace system and the decline of the Late Bronze Age Hittite and Egyptian Empires, culminating in the collapse of the first ‘Age of Internationalism’ in the eastern Mediterranean. This Late Bronze ‘golden age of heroes’, romantically immortalized in the Iliad , is defined by economic, political, and cultural interconnectivity that was under the control of imperial networks and local royal palaces. Early scholarly treatments attributed the end of this era to a catastrophe or series of disasters—natural or man-made—that destroyed major Late Bronze Age centres. In this scenario, these destructions triggered migrations of displaced peoples, especially populations in the western Aegean. These groups, often referred to by the modern term ‘Sea Peoples’, were held responsible for the devastation of Late Bronze Age settlements further to the east that resulted in a ‘dark age’ lasting centuries— a view that still prevails among some Aegeanists, particularly when dealing with the Levant. Recent studies reveal a far more complex network characterized by multidirectional cultural and socioeconomic interconnections that preceded and coincided with a more protracted demise of the Bronze Age that continued into the 12th century BCE. Continuity, discontinuity, change, appropriation, diffusion, creolization, hybridity, transculturalism, interculturality, catastrophe, collapse, crisis, dislocation, migration, colonization, ethnogenesis, nucleation, reoccupation, abandonment, and a new term I have proposed, Levantinism are all descriptive terms that have been employed to characterize the instability and fluidity of the late 13th–11th centuries as evidenced in the archaeological record and reflected in the economic, political, and social structures of this period of time.