9 ms·

1177 BC – The Year Civilization Collapsed [video]

280 points by dmlhllnd 10y ago

ajb 10y ago
For those who don't want to watch the video, its about this book: http://www.npr.org/books/titles/341580791/1177-b-c-the-year-civilization-collapsed http://www.npr.org/books/titles/341580791/1177-b-c-the-year-...
etqwzutewzu 10y ago
tl;dw please?
- kowdermeister 10y ago
  - 8 civilizations collapsed - Cause unknown - Don't trust sea people :)
  - kowdermeister 10y ago
    + 1: don't build major cities on fault lines.
    - arethuza 10y ago
      Although you may want to consider incorporating a fault scarp into your city defences: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lion_Gate https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lion_Gate
    - AndrewKemendo 10y ago
      Someone should have told David Burnham before he built SF.
      - Pica_soO 10y ago
        I wonder, if a catastrophe is to be expected, is it cynical, to create replacement infrastructure (sewage, waterpiping, streets, electricity) at a safer location nearby and once the disaster strikes to reroute the refugee streams too that location?
        kowdermeister 10y ago
        I'd call that responsible instead of cynical. If you know in advance that an asteroid is about to hit Earth, except the exact location you'd do the same. In the case of SF, an entire continent is approaching very-very-very slowly.
- arethuza 10y ago
  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Late_Bronze_Age_collapse https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Late_Bronze_Age_collapse
- sonium 10y ago
  'its complicated'
- internaut 10y ago
  Beware of the Sea People. For more real horror stories read "The Collapse of Complex Civilizations" The Ik is the shortest example of what can only be called Lovecraftian History. What makes this material scary is that it might not be the past.
  - DonaldFisk 10y ago
    Do you mean The Collapse of Complex Societies by Joseph Tainter?
    - internaut 10y ago
      Yes. Watch out for sea people. Possible fish-frog hybrids belonging to the Esoteric Order of Dagon.
- Nokinside 10y ago
  To add to what others said: The cultural collapse was so total that with writing systems disappeared. Greek had to develop reading and writing again.
  - merpnderp 10y ago
    What percentage of the population was actually literate? <1%?
- dugditches 10y ago
  We don't know why bronze era collapsed He suggests that not one thing, but a series of disasters one after the other caused it. The reasons: Sea People(invaders/raiders) Famine Drought Earth Quake 'Storms' Since the societies were 'globalized' and reliant on one another, these disasters happening one after another, caused domino effect.
- haalcion3 10y ago
  You should watch in full. It was really nice. Summary: * It is assumed that there was no single reason for the "collapse of civilization" (in Aegean, Eastern Mediterrean, Eygpt, and Near East) between ~1200-1000 BC. At the time, it seems there were droughts, famines, earthquakes, invaders, and rebellions; havoc was caused, international trade routes cut, and many cities were destroyed. * Parallels drawn at end to modern society with exception of the migration and/or invasion of "sea people" (actually people from several areas). * Eric then at end says that he's not in a position to provide advice for what we should do, but seems to suggest that when history runs its course, it is likely that good things come from the destruction, citing the Alphabet and monotheism as coming after the 1200-1000 BC collapse (end Bronze Age) and fresh growth coming after a large forest fire. I think the forest fire at the end could have been left out. While I like the optimism he was trying to relay, I think that some could take it is a reason for actively trying to light the powder keg by causing further destabilization in order to bring about a renewal. Also, the problem with comparing the dark ages then to what would happen today is that they weren't that bad: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greek_Dark_Ages https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greek_Dark_Ages Trade was not relied on as much as it is now for food, material to build shelter, fuel for transportation, etc. Many countries today could not become self-sufficient without a great deal of death and disease if trade routes were cut off. And, our civilization is more at risk because we rely on electronics and electricity. If a large portion of the electronic equipment were rendered unusable by a well-coordinated set of strong EMP's/nukes going off (unlikely), a very large coronal mass ejection (more likely), or cyberattack on the electrical grid (most likely), that would disable our water, food production, hospitals, and heating/cooling. Few have the resources they need to survive or even physical books to teach themselves anything that would be useful (plants in their area that are safe to eat, how to build weapons and hunt, how to find fresh water, remedies for disease using local plants). Many have not made social connections with neighbors. Note: EMP/CME cannot be mitigated by storing an extra phone or computer in a Faraday cage, even if you were to have a few bikes to generate electricity for it. What are you going to do with it other than use a text editor to store recipes for roasted squirrel and dandelion stew? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_storm_of_1859 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_storm_of_1859 http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-3838433/The-DOOMSDAY-plan-EU-prepares-dark-scenario-cyber-attacks-devastate-power-communication-networks.html http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-3838433/The-D... http://www.federaltimes.com/articles/emerging-focus-on-cyber-threats-to-energy-infrastructure http://www.federaltimes.com/articles/emerging-focus-on-cyber...
arethuza 10y ago
I inherited a fascination with this time period from my father who acquired it from an Oxbridge educated colleague in the RAF during WW2 - who took copies of Homer on their adventures. My fascination was fed by the excellent 1980s BBC series "In Search of the Trojan War" with Michael Wood, which covers some of the same topics: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CkbUQKyie_w&list=PLH2l6uzC4UEVdmfoR1awrHKEJFIsbcdu6 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CkbUQKyie_w&list=PLH2l6uzC4U... [NB Warning of nipples].
random_upvoter 10y ago
Cline also did a wonderful series of audio lectures on the archaeology of Troy. (The Modern Scholar: Archaeology and the Iliad: The Trojan War in Homer and History)
dmoo 10y ago
Also the In Our Time Podcast http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b07fl5bh http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b07fl5bh
wfeui3 10y ago
Oriental Institute youtube channel has some great videos.
adrianratnapala 10y ago
I like the "it's complicated" theory, but it also a bit of a cop-out. Can we not have a meta-theory? Here are three candidates: 1) Climate change. Doesn't directly cause famines because people adapt; but the adaptation might be e.g to become wondering marauders. Thus war, destruction famine etc. 2) Technological change. Iron-working upset existing power balances. The political results were different in different places but in the end there was a whole lot of war and chaos. 3) Luck. History is complicated and random things happen at all scales. Including total collapses of civilisations. In each of these, the proximate causes of destruction are a complicated networks of events. But there are higher level explanations behind them. Are these more general explanations testable? Are there good arguments for or against any of them?
- DonaldFisk 10y ago
  Joseph Tainter's theory (The Collapse of Complex Societies) is even more general. Societies collapse when "continued investment in complexity as a problem-solving strategy yields a declining marginal return". The idea is that initially, solutions to problems are found and society becomes more complex as a result, but the benefit of the solutions exceeds the cost of the complexity. But as the society develops, the benefit in the form of solutions to problems become smaller and the cost of servicing the additional complexity becomes larger, until the cost exceeds the benefit. Then things break down and society is forced to become a lot simpler.
  - pantalaimon 10y ago
    It scares me a bit that this very much describes the current situation
    - jacquesm 10y ago
      It shouldn't overly scare you: It required a complex society to produce someone like Tainter, so it isn't proof of imminent dark ages, merely that to be able to posit a theory like this you'd have to be alive roughly now. Just like the future isn't equally distributed we're now so mobile that you could likely outrun a collapse of your society if you saw it coming. You're going to have to give up some creature comforts though, and possible more than just a few.
maxerickson 10y ago
What about disease? Also, the displacement of god-kings by divine creators?
deleted 10y ago
[deleted]
tankenmate 10y ago
With the mention of drought and famine in the Levant possibly leading to internal rebellion it makes you think of modern day Syria.[0] [0] http://www.npr.org/2013/09/08/220438728/how-could-a-drought-spark-a-civil-war http://www.npr.org/2013/09/08/220438728/how-could-a-drought-...
deleted 10y ago
[deleted]
wkafou 10y ago
The analogy of ISIS and sea people is spot on.However, we can safely say the ISIS was an outcome from a chaotic situation in the first place ; not caused by famine or climate change perhaps but much more sinister reasons.
- deleted 10y ago
  [deleted]
KhalilK 10y ago
Unfortunately I can't recommend the book. It's a fascinating subject, but ... Much/most of the book is devoted to what various Eastern Mediterranean civilizations were like before the Collapse of the Late Bronze Age. It's useful as an introduction so that you can get some idea of what collapsed, but it shouldn't be most of the book. The treatment of the collapse itself is fairly shallow. I know the collapse is still mysterious and comparatively little is known about it, but that's why a book like this should be so interesting. Surely there is enough information to fill a comparatively short book like this. The ever mysterious Sea People's are mentioned of course, but other than noting that they weren't just one group and that the Egyptians defeated one group of invaders he says little. There is the usual "they may have been from here, or perhaps there" but it doesn't go into much detail about the different theories. The possible causes of the collapse aren't discussed much either. Basically it says "stuff fell apart and here are some examples". I know that much of this stuff is far from settled but discussing the evidence and arguments for various theories is a good approach. Talking about how new civilizations arose after the collapse would have been interesting too; much more than endless detail about pre-collapse civilizations like the Minoans.
- deleted 10y ago
  [deleted]
- xtiansimon 10y ago
  > "...much more than endless detail about pre-collapse civilizations like the Minoans." Funny you should say that, because the author does in the book (by your description) what he describes happening in a systems collapse scenario: [describing a systems collapse, 48:10] "It usually takes about a century, there's usually a dark age that happens right afterward. And when they're coming out of that dark age they start immortalizing the great period ... before them."
- OvidNaso 10y ago
  Take my opinion with a grain of salt because I put this books down after only 100 pages or so, but it seemed to exemplify my main gripe with many/most popular science/non-fiction publications these days...padding. Many authors seem to have a great ~150 page thesis, but publishers push hard that best sellers are 400-600 pages.
xtiansimon 10y ago
Great video. Thank you for posting. Not a scholar of ancient history nor anthropology, so I'm inclined to gloss over the social mechanisms. What is fascinating to me is the application of "systems collapse" theory. I'm thinking of two contexts. On the one hand there are complex systems; Systems too large for humans to comprehend in total. This inclines us towards abstraction, dimension reduction and model-theoretic approaches which only simulate effects. While on the other hand we have sudden collapse of complex systems. Popular examples which come to mind include Malcolm Gladwell's "Tipping Point", cascade failure (ex. Collapse of the World Trade Center, multiple organ failure). Now I can add 1177 BC to my list of examples.
YeGoblynQueenne 10y ago
I bet I'm far from the only one who wants an RPG supplement for adventuring in that era.
peter303 10y ago
Horses and iron weapons. Neither are mentioned in the Iliad, just before this period. And it is documented when the Egyptions learned these technologies in the New Kingdom after being pummeled by more capable barbarians.
nemo1618 10y ago
Is this the same period cited by Julian Jaynes in his theory of the bicameral mind? http://www.meltingasphalt.com/hallucinated-gods/ http://www.meltingasphalt.com/hallucinated-gods/
jchernan 10y ago
Thank you for posting, I really enjoyed this video. What books or videos would you recommend to gain general knowledge about history from the Bronze Age to the fall of the Roman empire?
aorth 10y ago
Love it! Reminds me of Dan Carlin's "Kings of Kings" series in his Hardcore History podcast. The world was fascinating back then. Even the names of people/places were epic: Ninevah, the Elamites, the Assyrians, Ahura Mazda, Marduk, etc! So epic! http://www.dancarlin.com/hardcore-history-56-kings-of-kings/ http://www.dancarlin.com/hardcore-history-56-kings-of-kings/

280 points by dmlhllnd 10y ago

ajb 10y ago

For those who don't want to watch the video, its about this book: http://www.npr.org/books/titles/341580791/1177-b-c-the-year-civilization-collapsed http://www.npr.org/books/titles/341580791/1177-b-c-the-year-...

etqwzutewzu 10y ago

tl;dw please?

kowdermeister 10y ago
- 8 civilizations collapsed - Cause unknown - Don't trust sea people :)
- kowdermeister 10y ago
  + 1: don't build major cities on fault lines.
  - arethuza 10y ago
    Although you may want to consider incorporating a fault scarp into your city defences: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lion_Gate https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lion_Gate
  - AndrewKemendo 10y ago
    Someone should have told David Burnham before he built SF.
    - Pica_soO 10y ago
      I wonder, if a catastrophe is to be expected, is it cynical, to create replacement infrastructure (sewage, waterpiping, streets, electricity) at a safer location nearby and once the disaster strikes to reroute the refugee streams too that location?
      - kowdermeister 10y ago
        I'd call that responsible instead of cynical. If you know in advance that an asteroid is about to hit Earth, except the exact location you'd do the same. In the case of SF, an entire continent is approaching very-very-very slowly.
arethuza 10y ago
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Late_Bronze_Age_collapse https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Late_Bronze_Age_collapse
sonium 10y ago
'its complicated'
internaut 10y ago
Beware of the Sea People. For more real horror stories read "The Collapse of Complex Civilizations" The Ik is the shortest example of what can only be called Lovecraftian History. What makes this material scary is that it might not be the past.
- DonaldFisk 10y ago
  Do you mean The Collapse of Complex Societies by Joseph Tainter?
  - internaut 10y ago
    Yes. Watch out for sea people. Possible fish-frog hybrids belonging to the Esoteric Order of Dagon.
Nokinside 10y ago
To add to what others said: The cultural collapse was so total that with writing systems disappeared. Greek had to develop reading and writing again.
- merpnderp 10y ago
  What percentage of the population was actually literate? <1%?
dugditches 10y ago
We don't know why bronze era collapsed He suggests that not one thing, but a series of disasters one after the other caused it. The reasons: Sea People(invaders/raiders) Famine Drought Earth Quake 'Storms' Since the societies were 'globalized' and reliant on one another, these disasters happening one after another, caused domino effect.
haalcion3 10y ago
You should watch in full. It was really nice. Summary: * It is assumed that there was no single reason for the "collapse of civilization" (in Aegean, Eastern Mediterrean, Eygpt, and Near East) between ~1200-1000 BC. At the time, it seems there were droughts, famines, earthquakes, invaders, and rebellions; havoc was caused, international trade routes cut, and many cities were destroyed. * Parallels drawn at end to modern society with exception of the migration and/or invasion of "sea people" (actually people from several areas). * Eric then at end says that he's not in a position to provide advice for what we should do, but seems to suggest that when history runs its course, it is likely that good things come from the destruction, citing the Alphabet and monotheism as coming after the 1200-1000 BC collapse (end Bronze Age) and fresh growth coming after a large forest fire. I think the forest fire at the end could have been left out. While I like the optimism he was trying to relay, I think that some could take it is a reason for actively trying to light the powder keg by causing further destabilization in order to bring about a renewal. Also, the problem with comparing the dark ages then to what would happen today is that they weren't that bad: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greek_Dark_Ages https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greek_Dark_Ages Trade was not relied on as much as it is now for food, material to build shelter, fuel for transportation, etc. Many countries today could not become self-sufficient without a great deal of death and disease if trade routes were cut off. And, our civilization is more at risk because we rely on electronics and electricity. If a large portion of the electronic equipment were rendered unusable by a well-coordinated set of strong EMP's/nukes going off (unlikely), a very large coronal mass ejection (more likely), or cyberattack on the electrical grid (most likely), that would disable our water, food production, hospitals, and heating/cooling. Few have the resources they need to survive or even physical books to teach themselves anything that would be useful (plants in their area that are safe to eat, how to build weapons and hunt, how to find fresh water, remedies for disease using local plants). Many have not made social connections with neighbors. Note: EMP/CME cannot be mitigated by storing an extra phone or computer in a Faraday cage, even if you were to have a few bikes to generate electricity for it. What are you going to do with it other than use a text editor to store recipes for roasted squirrel and dandelion stew? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_storm_of_1859 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_storm_of_1859 http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-3838433/The-DOOMSDAY-plan-EU-prepares-dark-scenario-cyber-attacks-devastate-power-communication-networks.html http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-3838433/The-D... http://www.federaltimes.com/articles/emerging-focus-on-cyber-threats-to-energy-infrastructure http://www.federaltimes.com/articles/emerging-focus-on-cyber...

arethuza 10y ago

I inherited a fascination with this time period from my father who acquired it from an Oxbridge educated colleague in the RAF during WW2 - who took copies of Homer on their adventures. My fascination was fed by the excellent 1980s BBC series "In Search of the Trojan War" with Michael Wood, which covers some of the same topics: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CkbUQKyie_w&list=PLH2l6uzC4UEVdmfoR1awrHKEJFIsbcdu6 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CkbUQKyie_w&list=PLH2l6uzC4U... [NB Warning of nipples].

random_upvoter 10y ago

Cline also did a wonderful series of audio lectures on the archaeology of Troy. (The Modern Scholar: Archaeology and the Iliad: The Trojan War in Homer and History)

dmoo 10y ago

Also the In Our Time Podcast http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b07fl5bh http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b07fl5bh

wfeui3 10y ago

Oriental Institute youtube channel has some great videos.

adrianratnapala 10y ago

I like the "it's complicated" theory, but it also a bit of a cop-out. Can we not have a meta-theory? Here are three candidates: 1) Climate change. Doesn't directly cause famines because people adapt; but the adaptation might be e.g to become wondering marauders. Thus war, destruction famine etc. 2) Technological change. Iron-working upset existing power balances. The political results were different in different places but in the end there was a whole lot of war and chaos. 3) Luck. History is complicated and random things happen at all scales. Including total collapses of civilisations. In each of these, the proximate causes of destruction are a complicated networks of events. But there are higher level explanations behind them. Are these more general explanations testable? Are there good arguments for or against any of them?

DonaldFisk 10y ago
Joseph Tainter's theory (The Collapse of Complex Societies) is even more general. Societies collapse when "continued investment in complexity as a problem-solving strategy yields a declining marginal return". The idea is that initially, solutions to problems are found and society becomes more complex as a result, but the benefit of the solutions exceeds the cost of the complexity. But as the society develops, the benefit in the form of solutions to problems become smaller and the cost of servicing the additional complexity becomes larger, until the cost exceeds the benefit. Then things break down and society is forced to become a lot simpler.
- pantalaimon 10y ago
  It scares me a bit that this very much describes the current situation
  - jacquesm 10y ago
    It shouldn't overly scare you: It required a complex society to produce someone like Tainter, so it isn't proof of imminent dark ages, merely that to be able to posit a theory like this you'd have to be alive roughly now. Just like the future isn't equally distributed we're now so mobile that you could likely outrun a collapse of your society if you saw it coming. You're going to have to give up some creature comforts though, and possible more than just a few.

maxerickson 10y ago

What about disease? Also, the displacement of god-kings by divine creators?

deleted 10y ago

[deleted]

tankenmate 10y ago

With the mention of drought and famine in the Levant possibly leading to internal rebellion it makes you think of modern day Syria.[0] [0] http://www.npr.org/2013/09/08/220438728/how-could-a-drought-spark-a-civil-war http://www.npr.org/2013/09/08/220438728/how-could-a-drought-...

deleted 10y ago

[deleted]

wkafou 10y ago

The analogy of ISIS and sea people is spot on.However, we can safely say the ISIS was an outcome from a chaotic situation in the first place ; not caused by famine or climate change perhaps but much more sinister reasons.

deleted 10y ago
[deleted]

KhalilK 10y ago

Unfortunately I can't recommend the book. It's a fascinating subject, but ... Much/most of the book is devoted to what various Eastern Mediterranean civilizations were like before the Collapse of the Late Bronze Age. It's useful as an introduction so that you can get some idea of what collapsed, but it shouldn't be most of the book. The treatment of the collapse itself is fairly shallow. I know the collapse is still mysterious and comparatively little is known about it, but that's why a book like this should be so interesting. Surely there is enough information to fill a comparatively short book like this. The ever mysterious Sea People's are mentioned of course, but other than noting that they weren't just one group and that the Egyptians defeated one group of invaders he says little. There is the usual "they may have been from here, or perhaps there" but it doesn't go into much detail about the different theories. The possible causes of the collapse aren't discussed much either. Basically it says "stuff fell apart and here are some examples". I know that much of this stuff is far from settled but discussing the evidence and arguments for various theories is a good approach. Talking about how new civilizations arose after the collapse would have been interesting too; much more than endless detail about pre-collapse civilizations like the Minoans.

deleted 10y ago
[deleted]
xtiansimon 10y ago
> "...much more than endless detail about pre-collapse civilizations like the Minoans." Funny you should say that, because the author does in the book (by your description) what he describes happening in a systems collapse scenario: [describing a systems collapse, 48:10] "It usually takes about a century, there's usually a dark age that happens right afterward. And when they're coming out of that dark age they start immortalizing the great period ... before them."
OvidNaso 10y ago
Take my opinion with a grain of salt because I put this books down after only 100 pages or so, but it seemed to exemplify my main gripe with many/most popular science/non-fiction publications these days...padding. Many authors seem to have a great ~150 page thesis, but publishers push hard that best sellers are 400-600 pages.

xtiansimon 10y ago

Great video. Thank you for posting. Not a scholar of ancient history nor anthropology, so I'm inclined to gloss over the social mechanisms. What is fascinating to me is the application of "systems collapse" theory. I'm thinking of two contexts. On the one hand there are complex systems; Systems too large for humans to comprehend in total. This inclines us towards abstraction, dimension reduction and model-theoretic approaches which only simulate effects. While on the other hand we have sudden collapse of complex systems. Popular examples which come to mind include Malcolm Gladwell's "Tipping Point", cascade failure (ex. Collapse of the World Trade Center, multiple organ failure). Now I can add 1177 BC to my list of examples.

YeGoblynQueenne 10y ago

I bet I'm far from the only one who wants an RPG supplement for adventuring in that era.

peter303 10y ago

Horses and iron weapons. Neither are mentioned in the Iliad, just before this period. And it is documented when the Egyptions learned these technologies in the New Kingdom after being pummeled by more capable barbarians.

nemo1618 10y ago

Is this the same period cited by Julian Jaynes in his theory of the bicameral mind? http://www.meltingasphalt.com/hallucinated-gods/ http://www.meltingasphalt.com/hallucinated-gods/

jchernan 10y ago

Thank you for posting, I really enjoyed this video. What books or videos would you recommend to gain general knowledge about history from the Bronze Age to the fall of the Roman empire?

aorth 10y ago

Love it! Reminds me of Dan Carlin's "Kings of Kings" series in his Hardcore History podcast. The world was fascinating back then. Even the names of people/places were epic: Ninevah, the Elamites, the Assyrians, Ahura Mazda, Marduk, etc! So epic! http://www.dancarlin.com/hardcore-history-56-kings-of-kings/ http://www.dancarlin.com/hardcore-history-56-kings-of-kings/