| AUTHORS | Dominik Fleitmann (1,2), Hai Cheng (3,4), Aleksey Sadekov (5), Lawrence Edwards (4), Ozan Mert Göktürk (6), Okan Tüysüz (7) |
| AFFILIATIONS | - Department of Archaeology, School of Archaeology, Geography and Environmental Sciences, University of Reading, Reading, United Kingdom
- Centre for Past Climate Change (CPCC), University of Reading, Reading, United Kingdom
- Institute of Global Environmental Change, Xi’an Jiaotong Univeristy, Xi’an, China
- Department of Earth Sciences, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, Minnesota, USA
- Department of Earth Sciences, University of Cambridge, Cambridge, United Kingdom
- Department of Meteorology, Faculty of Aeronautics and Space Sciences, Ondokuz May?s University, Samsun, Turkey
- Eurasia Institute of Earth Sciences, Istanbul Technical University, Istanbul, Turkey
|
| ABSTRACT | ARCHAEOLOGICAL FINDS AND DOCUMENTARY SOURCES FROM THE EASTERN MEDITERRANEAN PROVIDE CLEAR EVIDENCE FOR A WIDESPREAD SOCIETAL COLLAPSE AND GENERAL CULTURAL DECLINE BETWEEN THE 13TH AND 11TH CENTURIES BCE (“BRONZE AGE COLLAPSE”). THE CENTURIES FOLLOWING THIS COLLAPSE ARE CHARACTERIZED BY LOW POPULATION LEVELS, THE SO-CALLED ”GREEK DARK AGES”. RECENTLY PUBLISHED PALEOCLIMATE RECONSTRUCTIONS BASED ON TERRESTRIAL SEDIMENT SEQUENCES SUGGEST THAT THESE DRAMATIC CULTURAL CHANGES WERE TRIGGERED BY A MARKED INCREASE IN ARIDITY. HOWEVER, THE EXACT TIMING AND NATURE OF THIS CLIMATIC TRANSITION REMAINS POORLY CONSTRAINED DUE TO CHRONOLOGICAL UNCERTAINTIES AND LOW TEMPORAL RESOLUTION OF THE CURRENTLY AVAILABLE PALAEOCLIMATE RECONSTRUCTIONS FROM THE EASTERN MEDITERRANEAN. BASED ON OUR ONGOING RESEARCH ON PRECISELY-DATED STALAGMITES COLLECTED FROM SEVERAL CAVES IN TURKEY (E.G., SOFULAR, KOCAIN, UZUNTARLA, OVACIK AND YENESU CAVES) AND OMAN (QUNF CAVE), WE PRESENT SEVERAL NEW HIGHLY-RESOLVED (1-10 YEARS) MULTI-PROXY RECORDS (OXYGEN AND CARBON ISOTOPES AND TRACE ELEMENTS) COVERING THE LATE BRONZE/IRON AGE TRANSITION IN THE EASTERN MEDITERRANEAN IN UNPRECEDENTED DETAIL. THE RECORDS SHOW STRONG EVIDENCE THAT THE MAJOR CLIMATIC TRANSITION OCCURRED AT AROUND 1000 BCE AND THEREFORE SIGNIFICANTLY LATER THAN THE INVASIONS OF THE SEA PEOPLE AT AROUND 1200 BCE, SUGGESTING THAT CLIMATE WAS NOT THE SOLE FACTOR FOR THEIR EXPANSION AT THE END OF THE LATE BRONZE AGE. |