Did Climate Change Bring Down Late Bronze Age Civilizations?

[Music] did climate change bring down late Bronze Age civilizations we're talking about for example the ancient Greeks Marine archaeologists Excavating the Eastern Mediterranean we're talking about the area of Greece are learning how the Bronze Age meinian Egyptian and Anatolian Empires fell Ramin skba R clutching a set of drills scuba divers plunge into the bay near the Gulf of Corinth in Central Greece on the seafloor they punch a 4 and a half meter deep hole into history the divers are expecting to find sediments bits of coral and fish bones but they're hoping the coral will reveal something more evidence of the world of the ancient Mediterranean and clues as to why multiple Empires collapsed here more than 3,000 years ago the divers are part of a scientific team Excavating on land and underwater to investigate why a string of late Bronze Age civilizations toppled the meinian kingdom in Greece the hittite empire in uh uh what is now turkey and the New Kingdom of Egypt each fell around the same time in the 12th century BC that's around the K the time of uh the judges of ancient Israel and King David um so they uh over the past year though the team has drilled nine cores and this month they're looking to open the first of the yet set each core is like gold says Thomas Levy an anthropologist at the University of California San Diego and one of the leaders of the project it's like a page of a book an archive of paleo environmental data and Levy believes the course may help explain how climate change contributed to the rapid downfall of the meinian civilization that's in the area of where we have Sparta the scientists have been working on the project since July 2016 but with at least six months of field research and Analysis to go they've yet to really dig into what they've Unearthed but Levy and his colleagues have already made some tantalizing finds through sonar surveys the scientists have located two ancient beaches now submerged beneath the Mediterranean so obviously there must have been a lot of Earth changes since then they've also discovered an ancient burial site which suggests high ranking Myans lived here in some kind of Coastal Village and Levy hopes to find traces of local trade networks too the project is an interdisciplinary effort bringing together a mix of Social and earth scientists including Marine archaeologists geologists paleobiologists and historians it's one of the handful of similar studies going on around the world in which scientists are seeking to understand how people of the past learn to cope with climate change or failed to do so Beverly Goodman a marine Geo archaeologist at the University of hii in Israel who's not involved in the project has studied how climate change in natural disasters have affected ancient cultures around the world though such events are often destructive she says they do not always lead to the civilization's end and when you have an environmental change or disaster slow or fast some of what happened happens afterwards is a reflection of the state of the society at the time she says some societies are resilient some are not for example an ancient Min civilization being of course that's in the island of cre uh this minone civilization primarily occupied the Greek island of C until disaster struck around 1,645 BC a volcano on nearby santorine erupted causing a massive tsunami which historians believe wiped out the minoan the minoan Society of creit but archaological evidence now suggests that minoan suffered a more gradual decline And Eruption was only the final blow had they had a stronger state or social network Goodman says the Minoans may have responded effectively to the destruction caused by the tsunami and collectively recovered over time Levy and historians of the period think nature may have also contributed to the meinian demise rather than the sudden shock of the volcanic eruption however the Myans faced a gradual grind of natural climate change in the form of a widespread drought previous anthropologists found evidence that surface temperatures in the Eastern Mediterranean Sea cooled rapidly around 1,250 BC which resulted in reduced rainfall and mark the beginning of the drought the drought lasted at least 150 years and possibly as long as four centuries in what is now Syria and Cyprus but to date the key pieces of the puzzle remain elusive over the next few years researchers anticipate finding the answers to key questions the extent of the drought and whether it triggered famine and if it contributed to the spread of disease and let's as I'm reading this let's remember I recently read the story of uh Joseph and his brothers remember his Joseph uh had various dreams and um he was one of the sons of uh Jacob Abraham Isaac and Jacob Jacob had 12 sons one of them was Joseph and his brother Benjamin and uh Joseph was sold as a slave he ended up in Egypt of course none of us know what the final salvation plan of God is but Joseph basically saved his brothers who were the 12 tribes of Israel uh because of the drought that the whole area of the Levant had Israel they didn't have food all these countries were coming to Egypt to buy to buy uh uh by um uh wheat and Joseph foresaw this because God gave him his dream of the the fat cows and the lean cows remember so um yeah so the Bible does tell us that they had a very severe drought at that time uh they didn't have agriculture okay now as they pour over this contents of the course Levy and K collaborators will study the sediment layers for signs of flooding or drought and the organic matter to understand the health of the sea the presence of plant species and the fish that were available the jackpot says Levy will be to uncover artifacts from ancient ports which would reveal that the Myans lacked and needed to import and what they exported but climate woses were only one problem the Myans faced says Eric kleene an anthropologist and archaeologist at George Washington University in Washington DC who was not involved in the project into your mix of famine drought and earthquakes you've also got Invaders the sea people we're talking about the Greeks from the Greek Islands the sea people multiple groups that may have included the Philistines Philistines as we know are from creit it's written in the Old Testament so the sea people multiple groups that may have included the Philistines and homers denans the tribe of Dan repeatedly invaded the Myans little is known about them or where they came from though they may have been environmental refugees of course abandoning land affected by the same drought the Myans were grappling with says Klein it was probably the sea people who cut the trade route says Klein that to me was the final straw of the death Nell like other late Bronze Age medit tranan civilizations the Myans were not self-sufficient they could not survive and they could not not get copper and Tin they needed to make bronze remember they were trading tin from where were they getting tin from yes I heard somebody say Britain yes a British a they got tin from the British aisles they would trade olives raisins dry fruits figs dates uh ceramic pots and uh they would get tin from the British Isles so uh and one of the uh one of the UNC one of the Joseph of St Joseph of ARA Jesus Christ's Uncle who also first of course gave him the the unused new Tomb where Jesus Christ was buried was actually a ship owner and he had trades with the British a was bring back tin now [Music] um so it's probable that the sea people who cut the trade roots to me that to me says Klein was the final straw of the death nail like other late bronze AG medit tranan civilizations the myin were not self-sufficient they couldn't survive they could not get the copper and Tin they needed to make bronze it's likely the drought played a role in the meinian decline but even if so Bridget buckton an archaeologist University of Rhode Island says we should be leery of oversimplifying history and focusing too closely on any one force buckon said in this age of Environmental awareness climate change becomes the lens through which people today interpret the past Levy agrees that the fall of the three my Mediterranean civilizations is likely not solely attributable to climate change my impression is that it will be multicausal I shy away from environmental determination determinism and let's open the course to see what they will tell us he says and this is on hakai magazine uh please leave your comments about this and thank you for your support this is by rammen skot and uh it's very nice to read the Old Testament we get a lot of treasures from there please leave your comments and thank you for your support support my patreon account The Daily Posts our five videos daily and they are totally different from what I have on my YouTube channel thank you so much for your support and that you find all my content so interesting you'll find the patreon 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