Analyzing ancient pollen grains from Larnaca Salt Lake in Cyprus, scientists concluded that a massive drought caused the collapse of Late Bronze Age civilizations about 3,200 years ago. (David Kaniewski / Geological Survey of Belgium)
By Melissa Pandika This post has been corrected, as indicated below.
August 15, 2013, 7:15 a.m.
Archaeologists have debated for decades over what caused the once-flourishing civilizations along the eastern Mediterranean coast to collapse about 1200 BC. Many scholars have cited warfare, political unrest and natural disaster as factors. But a new study supports the theory that climate change was largely responsible.
Analyzing ancient pollen grains from Cyprus, researchers concluded that a massive drought hit the region about 3,200 years ago. Ancient writings have described crop failures, famines and invasions about the same time, suggesting that the drying trend triggered a chain of events that led to widespread societal collapse of these Late Bronze Age civilizations.
Before their downfall, the Aegeans, Hittites, Egyptians and Syro-Palestinians had formed a complex, economically linked network in the eastern Mediterranean. But about 1200 BC, they “disappeared completely from history,” said Lee Drake, an archaeologist at the University of New Mexico who was not involved in the study.
What led to the large-scale demise of these civilizations has remained “one of the mysteries of the ancient world,” researchers wrote in the journal PLOS One on Wednesday. Archaeologists have proposed several theories, including climate change. But these relied mainly on ancient texts and art.
Recent technological advances have allowed archaeologists to put the climate change theory to the test. In the new study, researchers were able to assemble a record of rainfall for the eastern Mediterranean dating back about 3,500 years.
Researchers first drilled a core about 27 feet long from the bed of the Larnaca Salt Lake on the island of Cyprus — a major center of ancient eastern Mediterranean trade — and used radiocarbon dating to determine the age of each sediment layer.
Then they examined the 84 pollen grains preserved within the core. They identified the tree species each grain came from, producing a time line of the vegetation cover in the region.
They found that lush woodlands gave way to arid grasslands about 3,200 years ago, marking one of “the driest [periods] of the last 5,000 years in the eastern Mediterranean region,” said Joel Guiot, a paleoclimatologist at Aix-Marseille University in France and a study coauthor.
Analysis of marine fossils in the core revealed that the site was once a bustling harbor that eventually dried into a landlocked salt lake, probably disrupting trade and farming. Researchers also recovered less charcoal in more recent sediments, indicating less fire building and, it would stand to reason, fewer people.
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Global Climate Change http://courses.dce.harvard.edu/~envre130
Environmental Justice http://courses.dce.harvard.edu/~envre145
Environment Ethics http://courses.dce.harvard.edu/~envre120
Cyprus International Institute (CII) (Harvard School of Public Health) http://Cyprus-Institute.us
Food-Matters http://Food-Matters.TV
Transition Studies 