Tap to unmute
1177 B.C.: When Civilization Collapsed | Eric Cline
Вставка
- Опубліковано 18 кві 2020
- Consider this, optimists. All the societies in the world can collapse simultaneously. It has happened before.
In the 12th century BCE the great Bronze Age civilizations of the Mediterranean-all of them-suddenly fell apart. Their empires evaporated, their cities emptied out, their technologies disappeared, and famine ruled. Mycenae, Minos, Assyria, Hittites, Canaan, Cyprus-all gone. Even Egypt fell into a steep decline. The Bronze Age was over.
The event should live in history as one of the great cautionary tales, but it hasn’t because its causes were considered a mystery. How can we know what to be cautious of? Eric Cline has taken on on the mystery. An archaeologist-historian at George Washington University, he is the author of "1177 B.C.: The Year Civilization Collapsed." The failure, he suggests, was systemic. The highly complex, richly interconnected system of the world tipped all at once into chaos.
"1177 B.C.: When Civilization Collapsed" was given on January 11, 02016 as part of Long Now's Seminar series. The series was started in 02003 to build a compelling body of ideas about long-term thinking from some of the world's leading thinkers. The Seminars take place in San Francisco and are curated and hosted by Stewart Brand. To follow the talks, you can:
Subscribe to our podcasts: longnow.org/seminars/podcast
Explore the full series: longnow.org/seminars
More ideas on long-term thinking: blog.longnow.org
The Long Now Foundation is a non-profit dedicated to fostering long-term thinking and responsibility. Our projects include a 10,000 Year Clock, endangered language preservation, thousand year+ data storage, and Long Bets, an arena for accountable predictions.
Become a Long Now member to support this series, join our community, and connect with our ongoing work to explore and deepen long-term thinking: longnow.org/membership
Like us on Facebook: longnow
Follow us on Twitter: longnow
Subscribe to our channel: / longnow 
Наука та технологія
Wow. Dr. Cline was my professor for Greek History 18 years ago at George Washington University. It was one of the hardest classes I ever took. Dr. Cline offered me no quarter; either I learned a ton of history or I failed. I studied my ass off, got an A on the final, and earned the most difficult 'C' I'd ever receive. It is great watching him now and knowing that I was learning from one of the preeminent experts on this time period in the academic world.
god...i would give anything to allowed a D- in a greek history class taught by Dr. Cline...
Was it worth it?
Hiccum Blurpaedius Wtf is Bob Dole? ... Meanwhile I happened to read on. I gather Bob Dole was a good republican. Hold my beer! I go and fetch my gun ...
@Gábor Erik Of course not. That is not the way of knowledge. """Educational""" system is garbage.
Dr Cline is one of a few Lecturers that are able to keep my interest throughout the entire lecture. His ever-changing tone and interesting facts mixed with a bit of dry humor make it an easy listen. I wish I had more teachers like this while in school.
He sprinkled some jokes into a misleading presentation
Just having an amateur interest in history and retired railway conductor I found this info very relevant to our human activity today. I think the video shown at the beginning was probably the same in 1200 BC. Just different technology. Your use of modern analogy, including jokes, and common language made this lecture a pleasure. Thank you.
I was employed on the Santa Fe Railway formed by a man in 1869 , Cyrus K. Holiday, who had a vision of trade with Asia. That vision is still a main stay of what we now call intermodal freight traffic or trade. The Santa Fe completed it’s transcontinental link from Chicago to LA and California ports by 1888. Now the BNSF Ry calls the Santa Fe mainline the southern “Transcon”. However, a large portion of the freight is now carried in containers adapted to be loaded onto large container ships on both east & west coast of the U.S. Some of the freight is trans-global, in that containers are off loaded on one coast onto trains. Then transported across the US and reloaded onto container ships too large to navigate the Panama Canal. Then transported to either Europe, Africa and Asia and visa-versa. It forced the railway systems to modernize and the Santa Fe had that vision to have the infrastructure to adapt to the change and increase in freight traffic. They were a bit slow to pick up the ball, but were way ahead of other railway companies in moving priority freight trains on their passenger mainlines much more efficiently. BNSF take over just boosted the investment needed to speed the mainline up even more on the Santa Fe route.
So how much evidence has archeology uncovered to show an evolution of methods of transporting raw material and high value trade items? The tin from Afghanistan would have been a tough trip with heavy loads to meet the demand to make bronze. Camels? Carts? Elephants? Were trade routes trampled down hard and leaving a permanent impression in the earth, then paved over by Roman road system? We can only guess, 🤔 I guess?
Early 2K, I remember leaving CA by car using 10 and seeing freight cars after freight cars heading into California and on the sides was printed "CHINA." Many family members from Los Lunas and Belen area in NM worked for SFRR, and by the late 30s had moved permanently to CA with the job.
V
tldr
Did you ever run over an alien?
@Brian Freel well sadly it depends on your definition of an alien. Unfortunately there were a few Hispanic freight riders who literally “fell thru the cracks”.
One incident involved an apparent Hispanic male riding the empty part of the cars that carried the shipping containers. I’d guess he got so tired he fell thru the space between to cross bracing in the floor to the track while the train was traveling 60-70 MPH. I wasn’t a member of the crew and it was hard to determine the cause after the fact as there was no way to know to determine the facts. I never heard any result of the BNSF investigation.
Thanks for asking.
A phenomenal lecture! Dr. Cline is so well versed in the subject that he's able to describe it smoothly and succinctly. A true expert and an academic treasure.
Just starting the lecture but that sounds like a paid review...
@AJ EveryoneLmao was thinking the same thing
@AJ Everyonenot at all. Eric Cline is not only accurate and factual. As others say an expert in his field but he's also fun to listen to. Unlike half to most of my professors as an undergrad
I was a history major, Middle Eastern and North African studies, and I keep coming back to this lecture. There’s so much incredible information here. Unfortunately, it helps us to understand where we’re headed.
Agreed. We should always: Look back to the past and find a resolution for securing a new unknown future!
I think, biblically, we can also see where we are headed. We can change trajectory, if we really want to
@R C no.
Possibly. But there are so many things that are SO unlike anything that existed in other eras of time, that you really can't conclude that history will repeat itself, even if it is similar in many ways to events that have played out many times before. We could be headed for a societal collapse, or what may well prove to be a minor inconvenience to the bringing about of an ultra optimistic transhumanist future. Only time will tell.
Fascinating lecture, thanks to Eric Cline for putting it together and the Long Now Foundation for hosting it. I especially found the earthquake sequence to be interesting as I had not heard of this before in the context of the late bronze age collapse. Not sure yet if it's in his book but I had the thought that earthquakes would have wrought havoc on the un-reinforced masonry and mud-brick walls that the cites of these civilizations depended on for protection. This would have helped the sea peoples (or any other invaders in that period) to undermine, batter down or otherwise assault those settlements. I bet someone could write a paper just on that, and I would love to read it.
Earthquakes still destroying adobe brick buildings in Mexico.
Cline is a rare academic, one that can make complicated themes understandable. At the same time make it fun, engaging and makes you want to investigate more.
Academics used to be a dime a dozen, when I was still too young for College. Now they are harder to find.
Meh. So much of the western historical narrative leaves for more questions than answers, and very dubious at best. For example, up until the mid 1800s, you have many references to the Tartarian empire, including existence on maps of that era, and then it is largely erased from the modern narrative. The Tartarian maps include domain over large parts of what is now Russia and also North America. The language spoken is often said to be an early form of Magyar (currently known now as Hungarian) language. You find in the Americas, evidence of Magyar language spoken by many so-called "first nation" people, who also say, "we aren't the first". What else, also early Spanish maps predating 1850s show the Aztecs had a range from what is today, Salt Lake City to Mexico City. If you look at maps of early American languages spoken, that's exactly what you find. Yet the modern, institutionally supported narrative doesn't follow the facts, but spit out constant spun-up conjecture. Then you have megalithic sites with technology that doesn't match the current narrative, including anthropological findings that support "native mythology" but not "Western" chronological narratives. The explanation? Also, shy is the Smithsonian more secretive than the NSA?
@Eric Keith yup, All major cities in NA were are probly tartarian. We couldnt rebuild those parliment buildings, cathedrals etc if we tried.
Nevermind the secrecy behind space program and disaster cycles one of which is coming up in 20 yrs SuspiciousObservers yt channel
This was fascinating! Eric Cline was very clear, and engaging. I was hesitant when I saw the length of this lecture, but -- totally worth every second! Thank you!
It’s nice to watch something longer than 10 minutes
Thank you, Long Now Foundation. Great presentation! Did read some of Mr. Cline's book. It is a serious book. His fun humor comes across in his lecturing. I think the details of ancient civilization are so interesting, even more interesting than the theories about it. The high points of his view on the fall of the ancient nations caught in a perfect storm of challenges are much more accessible in this talk compared to the very densely written book.
I read his book, and I wish I had had this narrative before I read it. I have worked on scientific literacy projects, and teaching storytelling is an underrated approach to helping people hang theories and evidence together. As much as I love methods, I think they may need to be a secondary priority in sharing STEM with the general public.
So amazing and entertaining!!!! Mr. Eric Cline has the power of teach his knowledge in a manner that you forget he's been talking for an hour. I could listen to him an entire day without thinking of anything else. Such an interesting topic and also how important it is for us at the present times. Incredible and passionate presentation, didactic and clear.
Yes, but I did get a bit tired of every question being answered "all of the above" or "both". :-) Now, I have to admit that's an honest and sometimes correct answer. But more often, in the real world, when you have 5 things supporting something that falls, there's one thing that caused or started it. So the best answer is "we don't know yet which one."
This was excellent. You can tell someone is a true master of their trade or area of expertise when they can explain the material so simply and elegantly. Bravo.
Outstanding presentation and discussion. Nice to see academics keeping an open mind and acknowledging when we don't know what we don't know. And a great take on the practicalities of iron vs. bronze. "How sharp is an iron vs. a bronze dagger?" "Does it matter when it goes into you?" Iron is better, obviously, but it's much harder to produce (higher temperatures, alloys, etc.), and so you wouldn't necessarily want to use it if bronze gives you the 90% solution. But if tin becomes impossible to find...
Bronze is more economical and affordable than iron - iron's strength only becomes noticeable when used for weapons. The upgrade from bronze to iron/steel would be an obvious military upgrade.
Don't bring a bronze weapon to an iron weapon fight.
wow, thank you Eric Cline ... and everyone else on camera. This was a breath of fresh air. None of you is "full of yourselves". You are humble, intellectual, succinct, and accessible. Just want to let y'all know it is recognized and appreciated.
I was just in the Thessaloniki museum 2 days ago and the most recent archeological research reveals that the 'dark age' theory - at least in Greece - may be incorrect. Although the monumental/palacial cities may have been destroyed, new polis sprang up on the ruins almost immediately. Macedonian Greece was not as affected as was previously thought, and certainly didn't suffer a 'dark age'.
I believe and have heard elsewhere that late Bronze Age bronze was actually superior or a bit harder than early Iron Age iron. Also you don’t change the base metal of society over night and change doesn’t happen everywhere at once. It would filter around the known world over time. Just think that iron was mined or picked up at one place and processed nearby. That area would be using that iron in everyday life first probably because it’s what they have and it doesn’t require import. This would make it cheaper. Then you wouldn’t export this stuff till you have enough of an excess. Then this gets exported. Small excesses get exported to close places since the freight charges and difficulties would be covered by small export quantities. Once the close market is satisfied then you e port further and further. This has iron filtering across the lands as excess production brings down the price. Then low prices means further transport becomes easier and cheaper. Remember your competing with bronze which has a single source for tin a long way away and freight must have been prohibitive.
I thought king tuts dagger was meteoric iron? Testing and all.
This was an absolutely amazing lecture! And I believe he has pointed out very clearly issues that we are currently facing today.
@Steven David Stoffers normalization of risk
…. Anything specific?
Fascinating to hear Professor Cline talk. When I visit places I also often think I wonder how this placed looked X-thousand years ago and what will come her in the future? Thank you for sharing this on UAclips.
Most of the times those places were more advanced before the cataclysms
What I really, really love about this video is that it made me finally understand archeology, and how close it is to forensic science!
Except that forensics is so incomplete and scattered that's when the extrapolation makes it an art form. History is still written by the winners to project the story they prefer.
Except Canan was actually Palestine, Syria, and Jordan. Not Israel, Syria and Jordan.
@Ralph Baric PhD yyuûy hi
Archaeology
A really fascinating history lecture indeed! Thank you professor Eric Cline!
What a fascinating lecture by Dr. Cline. Lots to think about and consider. Thank you!
Thoroughly enjoyed Eric Clines clear & concise narration & style of delivery in context, melding patterns of the past covered by a larger footprint of the present, hence envisioning the distinct possibilities for our future as an interconnected interdependent global civilization. The recent destruction of existing ruins from the ancient past in a recent wave of destruction by in
The late bronze age collapse is fascinating, such a brilliant lecture by Dr Cline.
Great lecture! Not a big history fan but this was incredible!!!
Regarding the discussion on iron versus bronze..as a sculptor who pours both bronze and iron regularly I can say that the difference back then was surely the melting temperature..1850F for bronze and 2650F for iron..in ancient times there was no way to cast iron and get to that temp..it was smelted into what was called a bloom and heated red hot and pounded into useful shapes..but not melted..that would take centuries to engineer..also brass was rare because the boiling point of zinc is so close to its melting point that
zinc was rarely isolated to create brass..also i really enjoyed this video..cheers...
there are surprising early 'blast furnaces' found that can make crude cast iron but yeah the blast furnaces that would give high quality iron and not cast iron were middle ages not what we think of as the iron age but that is the real iron age
I have no doubt they would have developed the double bellows eventually but they also had an economy revolving around bronze and an upper class invested in it. Think of the push back from big oil or coal and the conservative class over alternative energy even though it's become cheaper.
@CRIMINAL 76 academia won't go near that pillar, just as they avoid most
of India. Check out Praveen Mohan
The iron dagger in King Tut's tomb derives with high certainty from an iron meteorite. A recent study using X-ray fluorescence (XRF) spectrometry determined that Tutankhamun’s dagger was made with iron containing nearly 11 percent nickel and traces of cobalt: a characteristic of extraterrestrial iron found in many of the iron meteorites that have rained down on Earth for billions of years.
A great lesson for us, today. The thought, the delivery, and the imagery are unforgettable. Pity few of our "Leaders" seem capable of learning from history.
Well, nobody at all seems capable of learning from history for some reason. Every time there is a war we all say 'never again', famous last words.
We need to elect better educated more caring people. We need to stop considering their wallets when running for office; having money obviously DOES NOT make good politicians, certainly not great ones.
This was really fascinating, I was so engrossed I didn’t notice the time and was surprised when he finished. The sign of a great speaker is when you don’t believe it finished so quickly because it is so interesting. I could have listened for another hour, such a brilliant explanation. Thank you, I will watch out for more topics from this channel.
Really enjoyable. The scholarly but engaging way Eric presented this fascinating episode of our history was fantastic
43:20 Thanks for clarifying that story regarding the clay tablets not supposedly sent out in time and were found still in the kiln when the city fell. I've seen it (unknowingly or lazily) repeated elsewhere when they talk about the bronze age collapse.
I had a class with Professor Cline a few years ago, as you can tell he is a fantastic lecturer. Also has a collection of wonderfully thematic ties.
Where does he get them? I took a fun screen shot.
Ask 'the Professor' if he has ever heard of the Cyprus Tree 10:10
I'm concerned for his wife. If he rolled on top of her she'd go through the mattress like French fries
wat
I love watching someone teach this subject who thinks this is as much fun to learn about as I do. 🥰
This is a gifted man. You can be sure he has influenced many young minds. What a great role model.
Love learning...
Thank you Mr. Cline! This lecture was amazing!
I thoroughly enjoyed this lecture! So fascinating and well-presented! Thank you!
Are you his friend? 😂
What a wonderful lecture, and great question session afterwards. Well done!
He makes the old cultures come alive, sublime!
A truly fantastic lecture. Many thanks, Professor.
1177 BC? There are videos on YT that say 536AD is actually the worst year.
Thank you for sharing your wonderful knowledge with us. Fascinating way to spend a wet, windy and cold morning beside the Atlantic Ocean in Galway.
As a student of Astrology I have been on a quest to find Gaelic names for the planets and stars.
I believe the Cananites might hold the key as their name sounds like the Gaelic word ‘ceannai’ which means trader. They probably would be part of the sea people who came to stay in Ireland.
I’d love to learn more, however it would make sense that we had our own language for something as necessary as the stars prior to the Roman/Latin.
I’d love to hear what you would have to say about our heritage. Thank you again for taking on your inspirational journey into the ancient past☸️
1:24:55 "Motel of the Mysteries"!! I remember Reader's Digest did an excerpt from that story back in the 80's or so, and it really stuck with me...never expected somebody to bring it up! It was brilliant. They "discovered" that the "ancient burial site" (motel) was surrounded by outward-facing guardians to protect and defend the tomb, with names like "Firebird", "Falcon" and so on... 😂
By far one of the greatest talks, I never wanted it to end. Just absolutely astounding.
Second time I’ve watched this video. I’m really into this era just as a hobby and the idea of such long lead times for messages and the trust that they were legitimately from the person that it said they were from amazes me. So I purchased your book right now from Apple iBooks.
This guy is awesome. He gives credit to so many other people. You rarely see this and instead see speakers usually give credit to themselves for everything. And he's humorous and makes this story so interesting. Society is lucky to have this person around.
Absolutely fascinating lecture by Dr. Cline. I'd love to read his proposed 'what if' alternate history book.
@SueDenim Citation needed
This must be the most viewed video about archeology on YT, 2.3 million people at least opened it. Not surprising, this man is amazing!
Given I've only heard about Bronze Age Collapse here and there and had no idea it happened before that and until now it was this mysterious event, I'm glad this exist.
It was quite explanatory.
Thank you modern age global knowledge network 😌
'Simultaneously' is a relative term. The time span he talks about is around three hundred years, and also that the civilizations bounce back in another few centuries or even decades in altered forms (since a lot of their knowledge and culture does disappear)
Globalization has been going on since the first explorers and trading vessels set out across the sea. It happens in fits and starts. Sometimes it slides backwards. But with the inexorable advance of technology, I believe it will ultimately unite the world. Hopefully that united world will serve as a hub of exploration, allowing human presence to expand to worlds beyond.
I have been in the midst of reading this book when I came across this
Very intriguing
I do have to say that the dismissive attitude towards the exodus is a bit puzzling
Because I believe it may be the key component that ties it all together
Especially with such a large displacement of a people group
Trade routes disrupted even halted
Economic collapse of Egypt and the entire region from Egypt to Syria
But that is a discussion for another day
I thoroughly enjoyed watching and learning today from a deep learned scholar and archeologist like Dr Cline
1177 B.C.: When Civilization Collapsed | Eric Cline 1138am 17.5.23 i bet he didnt even know he was on facebook..
Incredible lecture! Thank you professor Cline.
Canan was actually Palestine, Syria, and Jordan. Not Israel, Syria and Jordan.
@Brendan Wood in 1177 it was called Canaan, it wasn’t until the Roman completely destroyed Judah did hadarin name it Syria palaestina
@Rhien It's not Israel. Never was and should not be today. Otherwise, It's my religious belief that god promised my people all the most fertile farmland in the heartland of Ontario. Let's start a bank and print currency. Then we can write books, and create a story to rationalize my people taking the farmland. To avoid certain military destruction we must destroy the surrounding provinces military forces preemptively before they are strong enough to take our land back. In the process we must procure all the fresh water sources and limit their food and medical supplies.
We will take control of the media and high culture so that we can use it to stir up controversy in the surrounding surrogate nations. We can also ally with a global super power like India or China and create another intelligence agency there modeled after our very own original intelligence agency. Using, media, banking, high culture, and intelligence we will control our surrogate nations and expand our once promised land using fear and influence.
Do we have any contacts from the Maxwell family still alive? We may need their services.
@Seán O'Nilbud It's a parody of revisionist Zionism.
It's also spelled "You're"; as in "you are" abbreviated.
Here's the rub though; the reason I keep doing it expecting the same outcome is because that's the outcome I'm aiming to achieve.
Regarding bronze vs iron
The speaker makes a really good point about "a sharp edge is a sharp edge." Don't forget we are talking iron here, not steel. Not to say that carbon didn't get into the iron at all, but people hadn't quite figured out steel yet. So while iron is harder than bronze, it's not like steel.
Like bronze, iron is given to bending as well as requiring frequent sharpening (though less frequently w iron).
Fantastic talk. I learned so much in that hour or so I swore it was a 3 hour talk. So much insight into our present as well.
Great history lecture. Really enjoyed this.
The Tojan war is a fascinating thing because of the cleverness of Homer's epic. This man sung a lie so big, so enthralling that here it is thousands of years later and we have not forgotten the truth. We don't know exactly where the war was fought, that's unimportant, we remember the important aspects. Men of Greece waged a war that lasted for many years and it was so terrible that even when it was over it was not over for the soldiers. They were so scarred by the war that they became lost, unable to truly return home for many years if at all. Thousands of years ago, Homer sung about PTSD... and mocked the very reason why the men paid such a terrible price.
Good lecture, well hosted, good questions! Thank you for sharing.
So this was a great show and I learned a lot and it’s fascinating! Has anybody actually built a systems model based upon any of this to look for how the stressors affected the system. you mentioned a system many times but is anybody actually built a model? that would be very enlightening I think!
Do the letters he read out first match with the drought and earthquakes he describes later? I didn't think so.
Thank you, Dr Cline, for a very informative talk. One question - I understand that around that same time ~3500 years ago), there was a 200 year old draught in the Indus Valley Civilization (IVC). Do you see any similarities between what you mention and the collapse of IVC? Thank you ...... Anil Ketkar
anil bhai ... even now european historians are not interested in anything related to india and indians ... both ramayan and mahabharat have mention of chariot warfare ... chariot warfare may have stretched all the way siberia ... bharatvarsh probably existed by the time of wheel invention ... before chariots how people fought? ... may be by using brute force and stone weapons ... or may be they had learned that it was not worth fighting and people were peaceful ... may be people fought for women but all the rest was considered god's free world
I took The Great Courses by Dr Cline. I'm "just a 77-y-o history dabbler" but he makes history fascinating.
Great talk. This man is superbly well informed and articulate. It was a pleasure to watch.
I've taught for many years and I am so glad to see that good educators such as Dr. Cline use humor to enhance their effectiveness. I always told my students that Jerry Seinfeld was my muse when creating my lectures.
I would love to take a class by this guy. Very engaging and entertaining.
One thing the Professor noted in as missing from the the list of things that caused system collapse in 1177 BC was plague. It is interesting that April 2020 was too early in the pandemic for the Professor to add it to the list of calamities present last year when comparing them with those of 1177 BC.
Plandemic
Indeed. C19 didn't keep young males out of armies or the fields, as it turns out.
Love the talk at the end, about the future of Archeology. A localized collapse with singular function would be survivable.
With trade routes cut, and the supply of new material scarce, add in earthquakes and famine, yeah it would be devastating. People reverting to base instincts?
We just need more Archeologist to get new functional digs.
Who would build their city on an active fault zone?
Who would burn down a food storage in a time of drought?
Totally awesome lecture, btw.
Well San Francisco was twice built on a fault line. The air is electric so you can understand why people would be drawn to it.
This was an awesome watch! Thanks for always putting out such great videos! Can't wait for the next one! Until next time!
I'm glad you liked it.. I see most of the comments from this year see through the bunch of misleading info
Thoroughly fascinating.
If I may, it is not fair the say "the Greek economy collapsed." It is much more accurate to say "the Greek economy was made, by powerful institutions trying to bend Greece tho their respective wills, to collapse." The former Greek finance minister Yanis Varoufakis has explained this in some detail in several of his videos. This may be considered a pedantic point by some, given the broad context of this presentation, but in our time, in the modern context, it seems to me it's a fair point to make.
TBH even though you can draw many parallels from the bronze age to now you can pretty much tick all those boxes for pretty much all periods from last 200 years. And honestly factors such as rebellions and famines/droughts were much worse in the 20th century. I do feel our current system is susceptible to collapse such as the bronze age but pretty much any interconnected period of history is. Massive systems collapses like the bronze age aren't common and also take decades to unfold, normally you need many factors compounding to complete break a system. However, if you reach that break point then it all goes to shit.
Joseph Tainter’s “Collapse of Complex Societies” is one of my all time favorites. Had it as a text in college. Bought several copies through the years.
I wanted a copy back in 2010 when it was very hard to get. Maybe I should get one now.
50 years ago I remember my Dad joking about how future archeologists would look at our ruins and think that Barby Dolls were fertility goddesses and TV sets were religious altars.
Yeah. And when they find CD's, DVDs, or Blue-rays they will see them as tablets and conclude that we were communicating in binary language. 10011100110011...
@Social World Nah, they will just think they are coasters, lol
@BuggaBoo weapons?
Clever chap your dad :) 👏
@dnmurphy48 maybe armor used to mitigate laser guns
Eric doesn't mention the catastrophic volcanic explosion of the island of Santorini in the center of the Mediterranean that likely caused huge title waves that destroyed all the major costal cities and beyond. Definitely a game changer.
Game changer that conflicts with their model! Possibly.
Game changer that conflicts with their model! Possibly.
IF The Bronze age was an advancement in civilization, how do current day archeologists explain the machining of very hard stones( around the world)- in particular, granite from Aswan contained in the Great Pyramid?
The accuracy and surface finish is astounding.
Did he mention the comet of 1486? Any change in our local celestial environment can impact weather. And there is good correlation between comet passes and earthquakes ( there’s a two year window both before and after comet passes where they’ve seen increases in earthquake activity).
Eric Cline is a top rate speaker and presenter. Had me hooked here.
Perhaps the Trojan War in mythology was actually a war against the Trojans who were a sea people. Maybe they even raided Sparta carrying off women, perhaps including the king's wife, and this was a reprisal or a gathering of the Greeks to go after them once and for all and try to make the raids or incursions stop. A lot of mythology often has a non-magical basis in reality.
2 big powers gotta fight
Immediate excuse irrelevant
WW1 would have been kicked off for any useful excuse. The sides were ready to fight
Sea Lives Matter.
The Collapse was also a central concept in Julian Jaynes's book _The Origin of Consciousness in the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind_ in which he blamed it on a catastrophic geological event.
Fantastic lecture and discussion - thanks for this Dr Cline and Long Now Foundation ... so glad I found this youtube channel
What is long now foundation marked with an upside-down x? Ever wondered?
I suppose the highly compelling and consistent chronology which does not include this sudden and mysterious loss of human civilization for hundreds of years at different times is just still not considered by the majority of historians...until Earth cycles of magnetic flips and mini nova of our sun have the massive effects of shifting the planet with oceans water washing over the land masses every cycle that become legends from the few that survive!
Very well researched and presented
This man is an effective educator; he does a really good job of captivating your attention
Fantastic lecture! Was Odysseus in fact "Sea Peoples"? Roaming around the Med for 10 years makes him a suspect :-)
Excellent analysis. I'm seeing things in a different light now. It's filled in a lot of missing problems
I remember that in an undergraduate mythology class the professor postulated that it might have been the Pythagoreans that might have won out over the Athenians, and that Western Civilization might have been on the totalitarian model instead of the democratic model were it not for a few key battles lost instead of won.
Interesting topic and the presentation by Dr. Cline was very engaging. I'm glad this video popped up on my UAclips Home page this day. Wishing everyone an insightful 2023.
I have some questions.
1. Was the famine localized? If yes, where?
2. Was the drought localized? If yes, where?
3. How do you win a war and collapse?
4. Is disease ever considered?
A pandemic affecting young males might fit the bill..
@andrew cobb Uh, no plague. 55:00 onward.
The more I study history the more I realize that nothing really changes.
"The man who forgets his history is destined to relive it."
You won’t be saying that in a few years .
More of Dr. Cline, please.
I think the biggest question for historians is how and why human beings developed over time so we can better understand human beings evolving in the future. Frankly, the role of elites in the past becomes less and less important.
Interesting presentation - and I liked all the historical info, however it is my opinion that if you read headlines from just about any time between now and then they would be filled with similar problems.
I'm wondering if deforestation in the Mediterranean over hundreds of years (or more) prior to the collapse played a big part in the change of local climate; lots of trees had been cut down after bronze axes were developed. That likely would have affected rainfall in that area, plus the domestication of sheep and goats that maintain no regeneration of forests. Early on the areas were covered with forests and shipbuilding was a major enterprise. The cedars of Lebanon, Greece and Cyprus were legendary in early bronze age, but have never re-grown. A lot of the area is remains barren.
Are you aware of the fault lines where all these "cities" were built?
@Tsrif Tsal Yes, he talked about that; its an important factor, but if rainfall substantially reduced across the Mediterranean it would cause mass migration of starving hordes and result in chaos.
As a surfer I just want to step up and be a part of the sea peoples, and casually remark that burning a lot of forests to melt the bronze and hewing the wood to make ships and palaces and houses could have reduced the amount of cover enough to cause a more arid climate over time. The first thing I did on out place in Hawaii was to clear all the junk trees and plant high quality hardwood. We buried all the junk in a huge hole tho. But I did burn a lot of brush. The ash makes good soil additive. Tall grass invaded and made a perfect cover for feral pigs who were a huge nuisance. If there were feral pigs in those days they could have overwhelmed the monoculture farms hugely as they do in Texas and elsewhere nocturnally . In fact in the book I read Odysseus gets his leg scar from a gnarly boar hunt in Ithica. I bet pigs were everywhere.
Spanish carried pigs aboard for food & wherever they landed & set claims with the intent to return, they released those prolific breeders to provide a reliable food supply upon their return.
This was fascinating! Also that added suspense of the falling microphone had me on the edge of my seat till the very end 😆
Most interesting. Eric Caine seems very knowledgeable in a variety of fields, transforms a dry subject into the most interesting of topics and makes a lot of parallels across time periods. Being only an amateur, I would not be able to claim that all or most of his observations are true, but what a wonderful propeller of food for thought! While the thought of the demise of our own civilization or the end of the world is nothing new (Black Plague, fall of Constantinople, the Reformation), it is not clear whether we will live in the world of Mad Max or not and the debate over the causes of climate change is far from over (like Reformation and Counter-Reformation, it might last forever until it becomes irrelevant).
@Seán O'Nilbud Apparently, I've stimulated you enough (opposite of boredom) to respond.
Professor Cline, this particular point in history holds my interest in a profound way; is there any indication how long a day is?
A very enlightening lecture, thank you, it is food for thought.
Drought makes the most sense as the prime factor, because it is broad enough to cause decline region wide, and considering how marginal rain patterns are in the Mediterranean, along the Nile and in Mesopotamia, it doesn't require a very dramatic change in climate to bring ruin to the communities of the region. Earthquakes and other more local disasters could bring collapse to one empire or another and thus feed into the decline of the whole region, but it's unlikely for many of the more localized events to occur at once, to a level that could bring collapse to the entire region.
Without the drought, many of the other factors, like famine, invasion and war, and the breaking of trade routes, may not have happened at all, and would not have been enough in themselves to cause general decline.
I think the earthquakes destroyed their irrigation systems, leading to "drought" and crop failure and famine. Something similar happened to the Mayans. Their cities had vast stone irrigation systems and earthquakes destroyed them. You can see shifts in the channels just like the stone walls and fences in this video. The Mayans abandoned their cities soon after. It's not out of line to think that the Mediterraneans of Antiquity didn't also rely on complicated crop irrigation systems and stone aqueducts driven by gravity. Iron Age Rome did. There's your migration/war.
Not many lecturers can keep me paying attention for 1.5 hours. But what Dr Cline said at the end about not digging till there are better technology, that must be the exact mentality of the Chinese when they refused to open the grave of the first emperor. What wonders will they find inside, I believe it is one of the rare tombs not yet been robbed.
I just love this lecture... And I would hate to take his course. I have awful memory, very picky: I still remember that my history teacher in high school was saying a guy who killed Marco Polo was Lapulapu in a funny way, but can't remember anything else. And it was 20 years ago 🤣😅😭
Interesting. Classical Greece, Persia and early etruscan civilization were all part of the bronze age. So I am having difficulty reconciling this with the claim that the bronze age collapsed a thousand years earlier. Notably it also suggests that "civilization" collapsed at about the same time that writing started, around 1800 BC, which is credited for a huge leap forward in most areas of endeavour. The bronze age, notably, is defined by the use of bronze tools, and Greece and Persia were indeed using bronze tools well into the 3th century BC, when the first iron utensils started to appear.
Indeed a wonderful and thoughtful presentation. Also there could have been changes caused by volcanoes possibly going off and putting ash in the atmosphere causing changes for more "tamed" crops photosynthesis abilities. The weeds; the wild and more adapted genetically species, were more capable and adaptable to survive adversity. Just a thought of things that may be occuring today.
There was once a year without a summer when volcaic erutions put so much ash in the atmosphere that it blocked the sunshine from reaching earth. This caused a period of cold and a decline in food production.
David DuByne of UAclips channel "Adapt 2030" has a wonderful and somewhat frightening theory of changes in the suns energy output that may well change our ability to grow food. The suns magnetic field protects the earth from cosmic rays. Which will cause heating in the earths core. Thos would promote shifting of the earths crust and volcanic activity.
Great changes could indeed be coming our way in the next few years.
Of interest in the area could also be the huge eruption of the Island of Santorini (Thera) around 1646 BC. Seems the area was prone to volcanic activity, and which destroyed the Minoan civilization.