Urban Collapse

From: B.J.PEISER@liverpool-john-moores.ac.uk
To: cambridge-conference@liverpool-john-moores.ac.uk
Date: 04. julij 1997 14:41
Subject: Taurid Demons & Civilization Collapse

Taurid Demons, Climate Change & the Collapse of Mankind's First Urban Civilizations

 

"Davis (1996) has reminded us of Clube and Napier's impact theory, and asked 'Where is the archaeological and geological evidence for the role of their 'Taurid Demons' in human history? The abrupt climate change at 2200 BC, regardless of an improbable impact explanation, situates hemispheric social collapse in a global, but ultimately cosmic, context." [Harvey Weiss: Late Third Millennium Abrupt Climate Change and Social Collapse in West Asia and Egypt. In: H Dalfes, G Kukla, H Weiss (eds.) Third Millennium BC Climate Change and Old World Collapse. Heidelberg/Berlin: Springer Verlag 1997, p. 719/20]

 

During the last two decades, researchers have discovered compelling evidence for abrupt climate change and civilization collapse in addition to sea level changes, catastrophic inundations and widespread seismic activity in many areas of the world at around 2200/2300 BC. Climatological proxy data together with sudden changes in lacustrine, fluvial and aeolian deposits have been detected in the archaeological, geological and climatological records. The most comprehensive survey of this particular climate disaster which coincided with (and most likely caused) the collapse of mankind's first urban civilizations can be found in the above mentioned volume on "Third Millennium BC Climate Change and Old World Collapse." Although there is still considerable disagreement about the "absolute" date of this catastrophe, a growing number of scholars agree that we are indeed dealing with an abrupt natural disaster with devastating effects on civilizations in West Asia, Europe and North Africa, but which was perhaps a global event.

 

When, between 1980 and 1988, the Society for Interdisciplinary Studies (SIS) published Moe Mandelkehr's pioneering research papers on archaeological, geological and climatological evidence for global climate and social catastrophes at around 2300 BC, Moe had gathered more than 350 references to back up his hypothesis with scientific data.

 

Now, almost 20 years later, 40 researchers from around the world have compiled the a.m. volume on the same event(s), analyzing and summarizing some 1700 references on abrupt climate change and social collapse around 4200/4300 BP.

 

In his concluding paper, Prof Harvey Weiss (Yale University) sums up this new picture of "Old World Collapse" which is slowly evolving from recent research findings. I have attached extracts from his paper since it sheds light on the current thinking of one of America's leading Bronze Age specialists.

 

Benny J Peiser

 

P.S. Dr Marie-Agnes Courty, the French geologists and soil expert, who has analyzed the geological and geochemical evidence for the Mesopotamian 3rd Millennium system collapse (see SCIENCE 261:995-1003), will present new research findings regarding this event at Fitzwilliam College next Saturday, 12th July.

Extracts from: Harvey Weiss (1997), Late Third Millennium Abrupt Climate Change and Social Collapse in West Asia and Egypt. In: Dalfes, Kukla, Weiss (eds.) Third Millennium BC Climate Change and Old World Collapse. Heidelberg/Berlin: Springer Verlag 1997, pp. 718-720]

 

"Within the past five years new tools and new data for archaeologists, climatologists, and historians have brought us to the edge of a new era in the study of global and hemispheric climate change and its cultural impacts. The climate of the Holocene, previously assumed static, now displays a surprising dynamism, which has affected the agricultural bases of pre-industrial societies. The list of Holocene climate alterations and their socio-economic effects has rapidly become too complex for brief summary. Any list would need to include, however, the tenth to fourteenth century Medieval Warm Epoch (Hughes and Diaz 1994) that promoted viticulture in England, cereal agriculture in Iceland (Street-Perrot 1994), the collapse of Norse Greenland settlement (McGovern 1990) and the demise of Anasazi agriculture in the Southwest (Fish and Fish 1994).

 

Still earlier, in the Andes, the late 6th century Moche civilization suffered a 30 year drought followed by severe El-Nino flooding; the Moche capital was destroyed, field and irrigation systems swept away, and widespread famine ensued (Shimada et al. 1991). Between 1000 and 1100 AD the Tiwanaku empire collapsed with the deterioration of its regional agricultural systems. Chronic drought, now documented in the Quelccaya ice cap, was too severe and long-lasting for the Tiwanaku agroengineers. And now the first hard data for the role of climate change in the 750- 1000 AD Maya collapse: prolonged drought beginning at ca. 800 AD, a two hundred year period identified as the driest episode of the past 8000 years.

 

The subject of this volume, 2200 BC abrupt climate change, brings the study of Holocene climate dynamics to the Old World and forces reconsideration of Old World climate - culture dynamics within ancient civilizations. One month prior to our publication (Weiss et al. 1993) of the Tell Leilan abrupt climate change study, Sirocko et al. (1993) had identified within the marine sediment record a century scale dust flux event and aridification, ca. 3500 BC. over North Africa and Arabia. The ramifications of this event for Mesopotamian and Egyptian state formation remain to be determined with archaeological studies that can document the event and its social effects "on the ground." The Tell Leilan abrupt climate change study differed from the Sirocko study in that it was "on the ground" both climatically and archaeologically, and had almost half a century of background data, hypotheses, and argumentation within the literatures of Mesopotamian, Palestinian and Egyptian archaeology, as well as the archaeology of the Aegean, central and eastern Europe, the Ukraine and Russia. Hence the challenge of that study and the challenge which subsequent data collection and synthesis presents for traditional epigraphers (sic) historiography of this period, and especially the collapse of Akkad. Traditional third millennium historiography (e.g., Yoffee, 1995; Michalowski, 1993) remains isolated from synchronous developments in adjacent regions and the realities of dynamic soils and landscapes, the economics of imperialized agro-production, and abrupt climate change.

 

The challenges ahead, however, for archaeologists, geoarchaeologists, and climatologists are impressive. As the contributions to this volume make clear, the [quantification] of that which has been identified in various archaeological and natural records is a necessary first step towards the resolution of still conflicting data sets, the full description of the 2200 BC abrupt climate change, and its eventual explanation. Outstanding quantitative issues are the chronology of the beginning of the abrupt climate change as well as for its problematic terminus, geoclimatic processes of wind turbulence, dust deposition, glass shard/tephra/ deposition, aridification, and river flow, across the range of Old World environments during this time frame.

 

Hundreds of years after the event, a cuneiform collection of "prodigies," omen predictions of the collapse of Akkad, preserved the record that "many stars were falling from the sky" (Bjorkman 1973:106). Closer to the event, perhaps as early as 2100 BC, the author of the Curse of Akkad alluded to 'flaming potsherds raining from the sky' (Attinger 1984). Davis (1996) has reminded us of Clube and Napier's impact theory, and asked "Where is the archaeological and geological evidence for the role of their 'Taurid Demons' in human history?" The abrupt climate change at 2200 BC, regardless of an improbable impact explanation, situates hemispheric and social collapse in a global, but ultimately cosmic, context."