[SunkenCiv]

• [earlier on FR] Ancient DNA shows European wipe-out of early Americans
• [external link] The dark side of religion: how ritual human sacrifice helped create unequal societies
• [external link] Researchers link climate changes, Pueblo social disruption

[Da Coyote]

What??

They depleted resources and ruined things?

Without petrochemicals, SUVs, and suberbs?

Without capitalism, and the nasty old USA?

Nope, gotta be a lie.

[SunkenCiv]

Climate change rocked cradles of civilisation [9/07/2006]

The early civilisations of Egypt, Mesopotamia, South Asia, China and northern South America were founded between 6000 and 4000 years ago when global climate changes, driven by natural fluctuations in the Earth's orbit, caused a weakening of monsoon systems resulting in increasingly arid conditions. These first large urban, state-level societies emerged because diminishing resources forced previously transient people into close proximity in areas where water, pasture and productive land was still available.