Climate change may have triggered past dark ages
Study says centuries-long cold droughts caused famine, wars and fall of Mediterranean societies
A cold, dry spell that lasted hundreds of years may have driven the collapse of eastern Mediterranean civilisations in the 13th century BC, researchers in France said.
In the Late Bronze Age, powerful kingdoms spanned lands that are now Egypt, Greece, Cyprus, Syria, Turkey, Israel and the Palestinian territories, but they collapsed suddenly around 1200BC.
Archeologists have long debated the reasons behind their fall, often citing economic factors. But in the past few years, more research has come to light indicating that natural factors, including a wintry drought, may have dried up agriculture, caused famine and brought about wars.
The latest findings, published in the open-access journal PLoS One, are based on an analysis of sediment from an ancient lake in southeastern Cyprus by lead researcher David Kaniewski of the University of Paul Sabatier in Toulouse.
Kaniewski found evidence of a 300-year drought beginning around 3,200 years ago in pollen grains derived from sediments of the Larnaca Salt Lake complex.
Changes in carbon isotopes and local plant species suggest that the series of four lakes were once a sea harbour at the heart of trade routes in the region, offering a new piece of the puzzle that suggests a history of environmental changes drove the region into a dark age.
"This climate shift caused crop failures, death and famine, which precipitated or hastened socio-economic crises and forced regional human migrations at the end of the Late Bronze Age in the Eastern Mediterranean and southwest Asia," the study said.