The site of Tell Qarqur in northwest Syria was occupied for nearly 10,000 years. The debris that people left behind accumulated into a human-made mound known as a tell. Archaeologists have determined that 4,200 years ago, at a time when cities and civilizations were collapsing in the Middle East, Tell Qarqur actually grew. [CREDIT: Photo courtesy Tell Qarqur Expedition]
Perhaps they were survivalists....sorta the Tea Partiers of that era. They saw what was coming, stocked up and defended themselves against the zombies.
“Location, location, location” - at least that’s what my real estate agent told me.
All life begins and ends with water supplies. Community life is especially subject to sometimes fragile water supplies.
Looking at the picture of the sere landscape about the Tel you can see why6 there is no flourishing city now.
I think I’m about to see the same thing in Texas if this damn drought doesn’t break. I remember in the 50s when years of drought brought S. Texas to ruin. You could drive for miles and not see anything green in the fields and cattle had to be fed on prickly pear cactus to keep them alive.
It would explain why they were growing while all others were vanishing.
I’m guessing lower taxes and less government regulation...
;>)
it’s interesting that there were two collapses of civilization in that area, the first one 4200 years ago, about 2200 bc when the Indus vally and the Old kingdom of Egypt collapsed, and later in 1200 bc when the “bronze age” Aegean collapse occured.
This first one has scenes of starvation and laments written in Egyptian tombs about it, and some archeological suggestions that it was due to drought.
The second is well known, and although many think it was due to Thera/Santorini volcano, it was actually later, after the Trojan war and after Ramses, and there are Egyptian reports of “sea people” that preceeded the third intermediate period in Egypt.
They are still squabbling about what caused the second intermediate period, when the Hyksos took over Egypt.
