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Pollen Study Points to Drought as Culprit in Bronze Age Mystery (Global Warming in Ancient Times)
NY Times ^ | 10/24/2013 | ISABEL KERSHNER

Posted on 10/26/2013 6:42:44 AM PDT by SeekAndFind

More than 3,200 years ago, life was abuzz in and around what is now this modern-day Israeli metropolis on the shimmering Mediterranean shore.

To the north lay the mighty Hittite empire; to the south, Egypt was thriving under the reign of the great Pharaoh Ramses II. Cyprus was a copper emporium. Greece basked in the opulence of its elite Mycenaean culture, and Ugarit was a bustling port city on the Syrian coast. In the land of Canaan, city states like Hazor and Megiddo flourished under Egyptian hegemony. Vibrant trade along the coast of the eastern Mediterranean connected it all.

Yet within 150 years, according to experts, the old world lay in ruins.

Experts have long pondered the cause of the crisis that led to the collapse of civilization in the Late Bronze Age, and now believe that by studying grains of fossilized pollen they have uncovered the cause.

In a study published Monday in Tel Aviv: Journal of the Institute of Archaeology of Tel Aviv University, researchers say it was drought that led to the collapse in the ancient southern Levant.

Theories have included patterns of warfare, plagues and earthquakes. But while climate change has long been considered a prime factor, only recently have advances in science given researchers the chance to pinpoint the cause and make the case.

The journal reports that an unusually high-resolution analysis of pollen grains taken from sediment beneath the Sea of Galilee and the western shore of the Dead Sea, backed up by a robust chronology of radiocarbon dating, have pinpointed the period of crisis to the years 1250 to 1100 B.C.

(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...


TOPICS: History; Science; Weather
KEYWORDS: 1177bc; 19thdynasty; 25thdynasty; aegean; anatolia; boghazkoy; bronzeage; bronzeagecollapse; canaan; catastrophism; citiesoftheplain; climatechange; cyprus; deadsea; egypt; emilforrer; ericcline; erichcline; globalwarming; globalwarminghoax; godsgravesglyphs; greatriftvalley; greece; hattusa; hattusas; hatzor; hazor; hittite; hittites; israel; letshavejerusalem; medinethabu; mediterranean; megiddo; mycenaeans; paleoclimatology; peleset; peopleofthesea; pereset; ramsesii; ramsesiii; seaofgalilee; seapeople; seapeoples; sodomandgomorrah; syria; telhatzor; ugarit; valleyofsiddim

1 posted on 10/26/2013 6:42:44 AM PDT by SeekAndFind
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To: SeekAndFind

Drought also destroyed the Mayans.


2 posted on 10/26/2013 6:53:31 AM PDT by MrEdd (Heck? Geewhiz Cripes, thats the place where people who don't believe in Gosh think they aint going.)
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To: MrEdd
And drought is caused by:

a) Al Gore
b) advanced technology
c) burning fossil fuels in excess
d) libtard democrats
e) sunspots

3 posted on 10/26/2013 7:14:52 AM PDT by Battle Axe (Repent, for the coming of the Lord is nigh.)
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To: MrEdd
As in a "perfect storm" scenario, several disparate factors coming together at a single moment were probably at work in all cases of societal collapse. A combination of overpopulation, war, drought, over reliance on a single food source destroyed by the drought or a blight, then disease. Throw in a now well established nasty swipe by Mother Nature in the form of the Santorini volcano and tsunami and you have the utter destruction of a civilization (which is usually taken to mean urban living that allows the flourishing of leisure and the arts).

The idea that a couple degrees rise in average temperature alone could bring down a civilization is fantasy. Now, a five degree temperature drop? That could be a real problem.

4 posted on 10/26/2013 7:20:20 AM PDT by katana (Just my opinions)
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To: MrEdd
Knowing what caused or didn't cause global warming then will help us combat global warming today. I know, I know, world temperatures haven't risen in 15 years.
Let's eliminate some causes du jour in this exercise. It wasn't cars, nor coal burning power plants, nor bovine farts. So what is consistent then and now, why that old glowing object in the sky, the sun. It's the sun, stupid!!!
5 posted on 10/26/2013 7:34:33 AM PDT by Kozy (Calling Al Gore)
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To: SeekAndFind; SunkenCiv

I have just gone through the iTunes University Yale Course on Ancient Greece taught by Professor Donald Kagan and the collapse of the Crete and Mycenae cultures was one of the turning points before the rise of Ancient Greece. This is what is great about the ongoing archeology and anthropology studies, to help flesh out the hidden areas of our past.

FYI: Prof.Kagan’s course is free and by his side comments to his class In 2009, he was not in any way a typical Yale Prof, he appears to be rather conservative!
Recommended!


6 posted on 10/26/2013 7:59:45 AM PDT by SES1066 (To expect courteous government is insanity!)
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To: SES1066; Renfield; StayAt HomeMother; Ernest_at_the_Beach; decimon; 1010RD; 21twelve; 24Karet; ...

Thanks SES1066, it's also linked here.

7 posted on 10/26/2013 11:12:13 AM PDT by SunkenCiv (http://www.freerepublic.com/~mestamachine/)
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To: 75thOVI; agrace; aimhigh; Alice in Wonderland; AndrewC; aragorn; aristotleman; Avoiding_Sulla; ...

Thanks SES1066, it's also linked here. One of *those* topics, in this case, another one. :')


8 posted on 10/26/2013 11:17:18 AM PDT by SunkenCiv (http://www.freerepublic.com/~mestamachine/)
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To: SunkenCiv

Knowing what caused or didn’t cause a nation’s demise only satisfies our curiosity. Nothing can be done to stop the climatological changes in our future. We can only learn how to deal with them.

And we don’t need Al Gore’s arrogance and narcissism to aid us. What a dork he is.


9 posted on 10/26/2013 11:26:17 AM PDT by Monkey Face (Wars on drugs & terrorists brought more drugs & terrorists; maybe we can have a war on money & jobs.)
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To: SeekAndFind

I was under the impression that the climate cycle that caused the end of Egypt’s New Kingdom, the Trojan War, etc., was global cooling, not global warming.


10 posted on 10/26/2013 12:32:33 PM PDT by Berosus (I wish I had as much faith in God as liberals have in government.)
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To: Berosus

Drought doesn’t necessarily result from rising temperatures.


11 posted on 10/26/2013 7:03:42 PM PDT by ThanhPhero (Khách sang La Vang hanh huong tham vieng Maria)
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To: ThanhPhero

My remark was referring to the thread’s title. From my own research, I have found there were four periods within recorded history, each lasting for more than a century, when the world’s average temperatures were higher than today, and there were cooler periods between those warming periods. One of the warming periods appears to have ended during the reign of Ramses II, giving us one more reason why the Egyptian economy tanked after he was gone. The most recent warming period was from 800 to 1200 A.D., and helped Europe get out of the Dark Ages.


12 posted on 10/26/2013 8:10:41 PM PDT by Berosus (I wish I had as much faith in God as liberals have in government.)
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To: ThanhPhero

Bond Event.


13 posted on 10/26/2013 8:13:34 PM PDT by Black Agnes
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To: SeekAndFind

So did they have HUMMERS back then?”


14 posted on 10/27/2013 10:56:11 PM PDT by JSteff (It was ALL about SCOTUS.. We are DOOMED for several generations. . Who cares? The Dem's do & voted!)
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To: katana; SunkenCiv; blam; All

Santorine was 300 or 400 years before the period under discussion. I am going to check out my Volcano Encyclopedia to see if I can find something else. Of course, volcanoes are not the only possibility.


15 posted on 10/28/2013 12:15:24 AM PDT by gleeaikin
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To: gleeaikin

There was an eruption on Santorini about 200 BC; there was no “supereruption” there in historical times, the caldera is prehistoric, possibly antedating the presence of humans in the area.


16 posted on 10/28/2013 7:03:28 PM PDT by SunkenCiv (http://www.freerepublic.com/~mestamachine/)
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To: katana
So what is consistent then and now, why that old glowing object in the sky, the sun.

So eliminate the Sun! That needs to be Algore's crusade.

17 posted on 10/29/2013 12:07:51 AM PDT by ThanhPhero (Khách sang La Vang hanh huong tham vieng Maria)
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Here's a few choice items from Robert Compton's Guide [i.e., "after Compton"]
Who/What When (B.C.) Peoples of the Sea
Sebennytic Dynasty
(20th = 28th, 29th, 30th)
404-340 p195
Xenophon, the Ten Thousand 401-400 p200
Nepherites est native rule 399-393 p200
Spartan King Agesilaus
successful in Asia Minor
396-395 p39
Corinthian War 395-387 p40
Athenian Iphicrates
introduces warfare innovations
391 p41
King Evagoras of Cyprus
rebels against Artaxerxes II
390 p40
Evagoras defeated 381 p41
Ramses III 379-361 p200
Ramses III revolts against Persia 377-376 p45
Athenian Chabrias destroys Spartan fleet 376 p42
Persia and Greece allied
against Ramses III
374-373 p41
Ramses III battles
Persian satrap Pharnabazus and Greek Iphicrates
374-373 p47
Agesilaus leaves for Egypt 361 p200
Tachos (Ramses IV) 361-355 p81
Nectanebo II (Ramses VI) 355-339 p201
Demosthenes against Philip 351 p201
31st dyn
second Persian domination of Egypt
343-333 p162
Aristotle in Macedonia 343-332 p201
Nectanebo II flees Egypt 339 p160
Alexander succeeds Philip 336 p201
Alexander the Great in Egypt 332 p163
Macedonian dynasty 332-308 p195
Death of Alexander 323 p177
Ptolemy, son of Lagus 323-308 p201
Ptolemy I (Soter) 308-285 p201

18 posted on 11/05/2013 7:01:08 PM PST by SunkenCiv (http://www.freerepublic.com/~mestamachine/)
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