Posted on 11/25/2014 5:49:56 AM PST by SunkenCiv
"Our evidence shows definitively that the population decline in this period cannot have been caused by climate change," says Ian Armit, Professor of Archaeology at the University of Bradford, and lead author of the study.
Graeme Swindles, Associate Professor of Earth System Dynamics at the University of Leeds, added, "We found clear evidence for a rapid change in climate to much wetter conditions, which we were able to precisely pinpoint to 750BC using statistical methods."
According to Professor Armit, social and economic stress is more likely to be the cause of the sudden and widespread fall in numbers. Communities producing bronze needed to trade over very large distances to obtain copper and tin. Control of these networks enabled the growth of complex, hierarchical societies dominated by a warrior elite. As iron production took over, these networks collapsed, leading to widespread conflict and social collapse. It may be these unstable social conditions, rather than climate change, that led to the population collapse at the end of the Bronze Age.
According to Katharina Becker, Lecturer in the Department of Archaeology at UCC, the Late Bronze Age is usually seen as a time of plenty, in contrast to an impoverished Early Iron Age. "Our results show that the rich Bronze Age artefact record does not provide the full picture and that crisis began earlier than previously thought," she says.
"Although climate change was not directly responsible for the collapse it is likely that the poor climatic conditions would have affected farming," adds Professor Armit. "This would have been particularly difficult for vulnerable communities, preventing population recovery for several centuries."
The findings have significance for modern day climate change debates which, argues Professor Armit, are often too quick to link historical climate events with changes in population.
(Excerpt) Read more at popular-archaeology.com ...
Bureaucracy keeps everything running smoothly, until something changes.
Then it leads the society into a death-spiral of avoidance.
Probably unfunded pensions does it. ;’)
The advantage of iron is that iron ore is very abundant. There is flipping iron ore everywhere. Bronze was better but you needed tin to mix with your copper. Tin is relatively rare and (AFAWK) was only mined two places in great abundance, in Briton and around the Black Sea.
If it was tin he would have an argument. But copper was common in the Old World. They would be stupid to travel that far for something that was available in their own backyards.
Thanks.
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