Recently, I came across a great article about the findings of an ancient lake which showed a great drought during the end of the Bronze Age. It is an event which has many people discussing what really did happen to bring that age to an end. Some suggested the emergence of a great sea peoples, some say it was volcanoes and earthquakes. It could have been the lack of materials to build any more. A shipwreck was also discovered recently showing a cargo full of tin necessary for the bronze age. Geologically the composition showed that it came from a long way away and far from the Mycenean city states. This suggests that they were running out of materials and couldn’t sustain their civilization.
My theory is that they were under a great drought. It is true that volcanos can have a devastating effect on a local area. The islands of Crete and Samos have been completely flattened and rebuilt. The Minoans were once great and then wiped out by a volcano/earthquake combination. It weakened them for a Mycenean invasion, but that one event did not affect a whole region. Something had to have affected the whole Mediterranean region to bring about the end of the Bronze Age.
It occurred to me while I was reading the article on pollen collected from Sea of Galilee, Cypress, Anatolia, Syria, and Nile River Delta of other great droughts recorded by the land. The pollen count collected revealed that this whole region underwent a great drought during this time. Many regions have undergone disasters for up to ten years and bounced back with a little rain or proper cultivation. It has been proven that a generation may lose the use of the land and move a few miles over to reestablish itself like the city states along the Nile. However, this was an entire region from Greece and Anatolia to the plains of Syria and Canaan even stretching down to Egypt. Then I remembered reading about tree rings along the Colorado River.
So, what does this have to do with tree rings in Arizona? While we do not have a written history of what happened from 800-1200 AD in the Southwest region of the United States, it is written in the land. Tree rings from Arizona and New Mexico show a great drought period during this time. How do we know the extent of this drought? There is also evidence in Fallen Leaf Lake in California of a forest underwater. When a local group got together to research it, they found that the trees were from another drought which caused the lake to dry up. The lake was dried up for so long that an entire forest grew up before it was covered again with water. The time frame corresponds to when there was a drought in Arizona and New Mexico. The drought was so great that they think it was a determining factor in the movement of the great civilization at Chaco Canyon. There is evidence that the people there moved on when the land was so dry that they couldn’t grow their crops.
Here are two regions of the world that encompass large portions of land. There is evidence of great civilizations in both regions, but they underwent a dark ages period with no written record of that time. The trees revealed a several drought that encompassed more than two generations. It would have caused conflict over the resources and forced people to move away. That alone would have caused the evidence of warfare and it might explain the Sea peoples. It took centuries before the Mediterranean Region built itself back up.
While we may never have all the answers, it is interesting to know that even when we have a period lost to time such as the Greek dark ages or the moving on of the civilization at Chaco where no recorded history is available…the land tells us some of the story. We can trace what happened by tree rings, plant pollen, and even bat guano in some cases to see the patterns of the land. It is also true that when resources became limited, there are struggles over the remaining resources. All of these seemed to be in play at the end of the Bronze Age, but it is just possible that something like a Mega-drought was the catalyst.
About the Creator
Jennifer Allen
Hello. I like writing about interesting and unique facts about science and history like four-tusked Mastodons and droughts from the Bronze Age. Check out my website at historyscorner.weebly.com
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