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00:00Some 3,000 years ago, there was a flourishing world in the eastern Mediterranean.
00:10Cities prospered, trade and culture were at their peak.
00:14And then, almost overnight, nearly all these cities disappeared.
00:23What happened at the end of Del Gronze?
00:26This is one of the greatest mysteries that continue to trouble us.
00:30It is one of the most challenging events in the history of mankind.
00:36Something catastrophic, something unimaginable.
00:39It looks like history switched off the lights.
00:43For many years, the finger of blame was pointed at some mysterious invaders,
00:49identified as the sea people on the walls of an Egyptian temple.
00:53Here, the pharaoh, Ramses III, recounts how he alone had survived their attacks,
01:01whilst all the other great cities were lost.
01:05They were extraordinarily strong, devastating people that pillaged, raped, looted and devastated
01:13the entire eastern Mediterranean.
01:15But recent research casts doubt on this theory.
01:28In the last program, we discovered that the sea people were probably not invaders, but migrants.
01:34Not the cause of the Bronze Age collapse, but the result of some catastrophic events.
01:40The analytic toolbox that we have in archaeology nowadays has revolutionized our understanding of the past.
01:46And the latest investigations into what may have happened at that time are uncovering a shocking truth.
01:55We could be facing a similar fate today.
01:57The collapse of the Bronze Age and the immediate aftermath is far more relevant to today than many people might think.
02:15So if the sea people were fleeing a disaster, what were they escaping?
02:20In the last program, we saw the first evidence suggesting that there might have been a widespread drought at that time.
02:31But drought and famine were not unique to the final years of the Bronze Age.
02:37Is there any evidence that this drought was worse than any other before?
02:42A great deal of research has been done in the last few years, and the findings are astonishing.
02:55Deep in the heart of Jerusalem lies a cavern more than 200 metres across known as Atarat Cave.
03:05Those that venture down there are rewarded with an amazing view of stalactites and other cave formations.
03:12These are the largest famous formations.
03:22Yoav Negev, head of the Israeli Caving Association, is fascinated by these formations.
03:28Not only for their beauty, but also their importance as a source of information.
03:34Stalagmites are made of calcite
03:43that is deposited by water dripping from the ceiling.
03:48When it rains, water enters the cave
03:51and dissolves the limestone surrounding it,
03:54resulting in the deposition of calcite on the cave floor.
04:00This process forms layers in the stalagmite
04:03with each layer representing a different time period.
04:08This stalagmite is cut in the middle
04:10so we can open it and see what it is made of.
04:17And what you can see here, it's pretty heavy,
04:20that these are like the growth rings of the stalagmite.
04:24The centre of the stalagmite is the beginning
04:27when this stalagmite was a baby stalagmite.
04:30The youngest part of the stalagmite is actually the external part.
04:33By analysing the isotopic composition and thickness of these growth rings,
04:40scientists can determine how much rain fell during that time period.
04:45A large ring, for example,
04:47would indicate a period of high precipitation.
04:50In this way, teams across the eastern Mediterranean
04:54teams have managed to put together a 150,000-year record of rainfall.
05:01And the results are illuminating.
05:04Those isotopes show that in that period,
05:07between the Late Bronze Age and the beginning of the Iron Age,
05:11there was no growth in the stalagmite.
05:13From that we can understand this period was a drought period.
05:20It's apparent that at the end of the Bronze Age,
05:23around 1200 BC,
05:25and in the years afterwards,
05:27annual precipitation was exceptionally low.
05:30And the evidence is not just in the caves.
05:41This work is backed up by studies on mud cores,
05:45undertaken by research teams all over the eastern Mediterranean.
05:49These cores reveal the levels of pollen in the air
05:54at the time the mud was laid down,
05:57so researchers can reconstruct past vegetation and climatic conditions.
06:03In Israel, archaeobotanist Daphne Langet has been studying some cores
06:11taken from beneath the Sea of Galilee in the Dead Sea,
06:15which suggests there was a dramatic fall in crop cultivation at just this time.
06:25We were able to count for each sample hundreds of pollen grains.
06:30What is unique about pollen is that each plant produces its own unique pollen form,
06:36so it serves like its identity card or its fingerprint.
06:40And in addition, pollen is the most durable organic substance in nature,
06:46so it can be preserved for hundreds of thousands of years.
06:55By measuring the quantity of the radioactive isotope carbon-14
06:59in the sediment,
07:01they are able to date each sample and determine the types of vegetation
07:06that existed during a particular period.
07:10And what they identified in the Late Bronze Age were low percentages of tree pollen,
07:16such as oaks, pistachio and olives,
07:20together with high ratios of herbs and small shrubs.
07:24This means that at that time, drier climate conditions existed in that area.
07:33Based on the pollen assemblages, we were able to reveal that these very dry conditions
07:40lasted for about 150 years, starting at 1250 BC.
07:45It is a situation that is difficult to handle.
07:54It would undoubtedly have had a devastating effect on the population of the region.
07:59It is a situation that is difficult to do.
08:00It is a situation that is difficult to do.
08:02It is a situation that is difficult to do.
08:05Intrigued by all these new discoveries,
08:08archaeologist Israel Finkelstein began studying the cattle that were present in this area,
08:14as well as the crops that were growing in that period.
08:17This is Megiddo, a critical junction of trading routes in the Bronze Age.
08:25And in 1200 BC, this whole area known as Canaan was part of the Egyptian Empire.
08:33Remarkably, it seems that the Egyptians were introducing new farming methods here to cope with the drought.
08:40When Israel examined the cattle bones discovered on site,
08:48he observed that not only was there an increase in the number of cows in this period,
08:53but they were reaching old age before dying.
08:59So the meaning is that they kept the animals for a long time,
09:02and usually the meaning of this is that they used these animals to plough.
09:07So this is important. It's not only animals for consumption.
09:14These cows were being used to plough crops rather than for meat.
09:19What's more, he also noticed an increase in the number of sickle blades used for cutting crops.
09:27There is also growth in sickle blades,
09:31hinting that there is an expansion of agriculture and especially expansion of cereal agriculture.
09:36I'm speaking about dry farming, that is to say mainly wheat and barley.
09:43Dry farming relies on natural rainfall to water crops,
09:47and both wheat and barley can survive with little or no irrigation.
09:51So it seems the Egyptians in charge here were increasing the production of these grains in order to try and cope with the crisis.
10:04And there was something else interesting about the cattle.
10:07We carried out ancient DNA study and we noticed that there is something peculiar.
10:14First of all, of introduction of cattle, probably from Egypt, the zebu.
10:20And secondly, breeding of the local cattle with the zebu.
10:28And the zebu cattle is a strong animal which is more resilient to extreme climate, to extreme conditions.
10:39And we think that this was done on purpose in the late one day.
10:44So they were also breeding hardier cows.
10:48If they had the time to do that, it suggests this must have been a very long drought.
10:53What we might now call climate change.
11:06What's extraordinary is that it seems that the Egyptians may have been trying to increase grain production
11:12around the more fertile parts of their empire,
11:15because they were also experiencing drought at home.
11:24Often referred to as the bread basket of the ancient world,
11:28Egypt was known for its regular and reliable flooding of the Nile.
11:34But new research conducted in the Nile Valley suggests that Egypt too was suffering.
11:45It's been a very difficult time.
11:46Research scientist Nick Mariner and his team have been working across all the countries
11:51affected by the drought, including Egypt.
11:57We're using an auger to take a call to study the evolution of the Nile's ancient environments
12:03and its waterscapes.
12:07They can analyse the pollen and other finds in the layers of sediment,
12:11such as fossils or freshwater shells, to understand how the climate varied in ancient times.
12:20So we can use this call to go back thousands of years to see what was happening during the Bronze Age,
12:24what the climate was like, what human societies were doing in this area,
12:29and how they were affected by climate change.
12:33Their results suggest that not only was Egypt suffering from drought at this time,
12:38but that it lasted even longer than proposed by the researchers in Israel.
12:46We have evidence for a significant decline in Nile levels and Nile discharge spanning more
12:51than 6,500 kilometres from the sources of the Nile at Lake Victoria right down to the Nile Delta.
12:57This period lasted for around 300 years.
13:02This drop in the Nile appears to have started during the reign of Ramses III,
13:06the pharaoh who fought the sea people.
13:11This is an exceptionally long period of drought that we could describe as being a mega drought,
13:16and would have significantly affected Bronze Age societies.
13:26A drought lasting a year or two, or even ten years,
13:30doesn't necessarily mean that a society will fall.
13:36But a mega drought, lasting more than a hundred years,
13:40simply does not allow the inhabitants any respite.
13:47When the drought finally ends, some of the affected societies may have survived,
13:52but others may no longer exist, despite all their efforts to deal with it.
14:04A remarkable story seems to be coming together.
14:09A huge, devastating drought caused many different people to take to the sea in search of new lands,
14:15as well as the islands, sometimes destroying the cities of the existing inhabitants.
14:22The result was a widespread collapse.
14:27But the drought lasted 300 years.
14:30Was there a specific event that occurred suddenly around 1200 BC
14:35that led to the chaos at that time?
14:39It seems there could still be a missing piece of the puzzle.
14:43Some sudden event that caused people to flee.
14:55One obvious possibility is a volcanic eruption.
14:58The Mediterranean has many volcanoes and the eruption of the island of Santorini in 1640 BC
15:10is known to have caused an earlier decline in the Minoan civilisation.
15:18But there is nothing to suggest that Santorini exploded again.
15:28But recently, archaeologists in Egypt stumbled on some stunning new evidence for one more factor
15:38in the events that overcame the people of the Bronze Age.
15:44Until a few years ago, the famous colossi of Memnon were all that remained of the largest temple
15:51ever built in ancient Egypt, the Mortuary Temple of Amenhotep III.
15:56When we came here, we thought it was a large field.
16:01It was indeed a large field preceded by these two colossal statues.
16:07Nobody, except very specialised people, knew that beyond the Memnon there was a vast,
16:14and there were the ruins of a very, very large temple.
16:19This temple, known as Qom el-Hatan, was the pinnacle of construction in Egypt's new kingdom.
16:26But at some point in history, the building was completely destroyed by an earthquake.
16:35All except the famous colossi of Amenhotep III, which had once flanked the main gate.
16:41Over the last few decades, archaeologist Hurig Sirusian has been attempting to resurrect this temple,
16:56excavating and re-erecting whatever stonework is left.
17:00It's been a Herculean task.
17:08It's been a Herculean task.
17:12In the process of all the reconstruction,
17:14Hurig has been working with a team from the Armenian Institute of Geological Sciences
17:31to try and establish when exactly this destructive earthquake occurred.
17:36The leading the team is Ara Avagyan. He's found clear evidence of a massive earthquake throughout the site.
17:44These huge blocks are displaced with respect to each other.
17:50You see, vertically and horizontally, we have a displacement.
17:56But here, we have another thing much more important.
18:01When we have an earthquake, we have a passing wave.
18:05It's like waves in the water.
18:08What we see here, all this block tilted few degrees to the south, like this.
18:15Here, we see all this block tilted few degrees to the north, like this.
18:25And you see this row of blocks?
18:28Again, they tilted to the south.
18:31So we have some kind of wave here.
18:34And in some places, we have a man-made mortar folded like this.
18:44Exactly the same wave.
18:47You see the wave?
18:50Like this, like this.
18:52So such a deformation can be explained only by earthquake.
19:04To try and pinpoint the date of the earthquake, Ara has been looking for evidence of liquefaction.
19:13This can occur when soil is shaken in a large earthquake and begins to behave like a liquid,
19:20leading to extensive damage to any structures built there.
19:23So here, we have a very beautiful manifestation of liquefaction.
19:32We have a thin archaeological layer.
19:35And after the earthquake happened, we have like plume injection of sandy layer, OK?
19:44It destroyed archaeological layer.
19:46You see some fraction of archaeological layer here.
19:49The team found several examples of this liquefaction layer, evidence of a massive earthquake.
19:58And in these layers, they found shards of pottery.
20:02It is pottery, it is pottery, it is pottery, it is pottery, it is pottery.
20:05This, this.
20:07Radiocarbon dating of the pottery indicated that this destruction occurred around 1200 BC.
20:15But the date was vague.
20:17The style of the pottery itself, however, was more precise.
20:22So this is one of the pots we found under the fallen colossi.
20:27And these are shards.
20:30This pot, we showed it to a specialist in pottery, who said 1200 BC, within a few years.
20:44So this is one of the most important things that we found in the world.
20:47A massive earthquake seems to have happened in 1200 BC.
20:54And shortly afterwards, Ramses III was fighting the sea people.
21:00Could there be a link?
21:05Was this earthquake the trigger for the events which followed and the widespread collapse of the known world?
21:14It was a very difficult time.
21:16It was a very difficult time.
21:17It was a very difficult time.
21:18It was a very difficult time.
21:19It was a very difficult time.
21:24While the Armenian geologists were in Egypt, they sought permission to look at several other nearby temples.
21:32These included the famous Rameseum, where Ramses II's giant head lies broken on the ground.
21:39And nearby Karnak, where they found extensive earthquake damage, including another fallen statue of Ramses.
21:54They concluded that many other temples in Luxor had been damaged in the same earthquake in 1200 BC.
22:00And if this earthquake might have been a trigger for the collapse which followed,
22:07it was important to know exactly how widespread it was.
22:11It was important to know exactly how it was.
22:21To determine the extent, Hurig and Ara travelled throughout Egypt, looking for evidence of earthquakes and attempting to date them.
22:32The damage in a funerary chapel at Gebel El Silsila is particularly striking.
22:41Here, a statue of three seated figures has been split, with a separation of one metre between its two halves.
22:54We are in the middle of an open crack.
23:00These were three persons seated near each other and now they are split.
23:05It is fantastic to see this statue split in two parts and displaced during this shock.
23:15You can be sure that it is earthquake.
23:19Based on the direction of the cracks, Ara and Hurig think this could have been the same earthquake
23:25that destroyed Kolm el-Hatan, the mortuary temple of Amenhotep III, and the other sites in Luxor.
23:32Might its effects have been felt even further afield?
23:44They travel down to Abu Simbel in the south to investigate.
23:50Commissioned by Ramses II, this iconic rock-cut temple is considered to be one of the most impressive
23:57remaining examples of ancient Egyptian architecture and engineering.
24:04Although this entire temple was razed when the Aswan Dam was built,
24:09it was preserved exactly as it was, complete with any damage.
24:16And it doesn't take them long to find a suspicious crack.
24:19It is new forming crack.
24:23Mm-hmm.
24:24Crack forming after carving this wall.
24:28Yes.
24:28And because we have a small step, we have a small shift.
24:32Yes.
24:33The blocks are shifted with respect to each other.
24:37And such a thing in geology we call also fault.
24:41It's a micro fault.
24:42We have a shift here.
24:44We can't expect this without shaking.
24:47I see.
24:48Clear demonstration, yeah.
24:52They find similar cracks throughout the temple.
24:57The earthquake even seems to have brought down the upper half
25:01of one of the seated colossi of Ramses II.
25:04It is obvious that the monument hit by earthquake.
25:12Yes.
25:12And there is earthquake input of this collapse.
25:16It is sure.
25:17Maybe this earthquake and earthquake that we discover in the site of Khomele Tam,
25:24it's the same.
25:26It is probable.
25:27So far, from Abu Simbel to Saqqara, the length of Egypt,
25:40they found evidence of a massive earthquake,
25:44or perhaps a series of earthquakes at much the same time.
25:48Egypt, it seems, was flattened in 1200 BC.
26:03So could these earthquakes have been even more widespread beyond Egypt?
26:09Might they have played a role in what happened in Greece?
26:12In Mycenae, excavators have now found evidence of earthquake destruction.
26:22Collapsed buildings, even crushed bodies.
26:27In this doorway was found the skeleton of a woman who was killed when the house collapsed around her.
26:33In fact, these photographs show that she was struck by a rock that shattered her skull.
26:39She was pretty much killed instantly.
26:41She's not the only body that we have here from the earthquake that hit the site.
26:46There's another house a couple of hundred meters away,
26:48where an entire family was crushed when their house came down around them.
26:53So in addition to everything else that might have happened, invaders, famine, drought,
26:59we have to factor in earthquakes as well.
27:01And bodies have also been found by excavators at other Greek sites.
27:11Anthropologist Marilena Hovalopoulou has been studying some of the remains.
27:20In the last few decades, several anthropologists unearthed at least 16 skeletons
27:26who they believe died from earthquakes that took place in Greece around 1200 BC.
27:31Here we have an example of a skeleton who was found at Cadmium,
27:36belonged to a young woman, 20 to 25 years old,
27:39and she was believed to have died during an earthquake that took place at that time.
27:44She had several injuries to her skull, but this one over here,
27:47that we can see in the middle of her cranial vault, is believed to have been the fatal one.
27:51This fracture is thought to have been caused by a falling roof beam.
27:58Here we have another skeleton that belongs to a young woman as well.
28:01We're not sure whether she died during an earthquake or not,
28:04but she also had injuries to her skull,
28:07and a very similar fracture in the middle of the cranial vault as well.
28:14There can be no doubt that Greece suffered from earthquakes around this time.
28:17And Eric believes that in some cases, they may have been responsible for the destruction of entire cities,
28:27including the site of Tiryns.
28:31I think this is destroyed by an earthquake at the end of the Late Bronze Age, 1200 BC,
28:36and life essentially comes to an end. There are some survivors, there are people living in the lower city,
28:42but for all intents and purposes, life comes to an end here.
28:47There are people living in the middle of the day.
28:54Eric thinks it would have been possible for a storm of earthquakes over a period of 50 years,
29:00from about 1225 to 1175 BC, to cause such devastating destruction across the eastern Mediterranean,
29:09that society would have found it very difficult to recover.
29:12There's something that are known as earthquake sequences or earthquake storms.
29:19And this is simply, when you have an earthquake and it doesn't release the pressure, all of the pressure in the fault zone,
29:26you'll have another earthquake soon thereafter, maybe days, maybe weeks, maybe a year, but there will be another earthquake.
29:33And if that earthquake does not release the rest of the pressure, you'll have another earthquake, and another, and another.
29:40In fact, usually, we need to unzip the fault line, as we say, and that can take up to 50 years and a number of earthquakes.
29:49And then the sequence starts all over again.
29:52The Mediterranean is full of fault zones, as the recent earthquakes in Turkey and Syria have shown,
30:01and the Bronze Age world may well have been a victim of this unzipping.
30:05If we take a look at the map here, there are active fault zones everywhere.
30:14We've got one coming down the side of Greece and Crete, coming around to Cyprus.
30:19There's another one that goes across the top of Turkey.
30:21It's the North Anatolian fault line.
30:23And of course, we've got the Dead Sea fault that comes up, forming the Dead Sea in Lake Tiberias.
30:29Now, if we superimpose a map of all the sites that are destroyed at the end of the Late Bronze Age,
30:36we can see that many of them are right next to an active fault zone.
30:40So we have here, I think, between about 1225 to 1175 BC, we have an earthquake storm
30:48in the Aegean and eastern Mediterranean.
30:51And that may tell us why a lot of these sites are destroyed.
30:55Such an earthquake storm would undoubtedly have devastated many cities
31:02and left others vulnerable to attack.
31:10Right across ancient sites in the eastern Mediterranean,
31:14what is clearly earthquake damage is visible.
31:21It can even be found at the famous Lion's Gate at Hattusa.
31:25At Hattusa, we have earthquake evidence at several of the monumental Hittite buildings.
31:36This here, the Lion's Gate, is a very particular good example,
31:41where we have cracks in the major blocks.
31:44This crack here, which is going zigzag through the tower, indicates how the facade has been ripped off the
31:53main structure and moved forward a little bit.
31:56The upper part also, of course, came with it, and that would have cracked this block here,
32:02just right in the middle, in a way that no human would be able to do.
32:09So this is not the impact of any attack or whatsoever, but that is the impact of Mother Nature with an earthquake.
32:17Coming in the middle of a devastating drought, it's easy to see how this earthquake storm could
32:26have triggered the widespread collapse of the whole interconnected system of the Bronze Age.
32:31causing people, the sea people, to set out in their thousands, in search of new homes.
32:45So was the earthquake storm the final link in a disastrous chain of events that led to the collapse of the Bronze Age world?
33:01Even today, earthquakes are frequently followed by the spread of disease,
33:05as water supplies and drains are destroyed.
33:12And disease may well have been an additional factor in the disruption.
33:18When there are these collapses of civilisation, it is more than possible that disease plays a role in it.
33:24Sometimes it is sort of the catalyst, but more often than not, when there are so many things going on,
33:30particularly problems in terms of food, you have populations that are more vulnerable to any kind of disease that might be around.
33:38And so you will have the young and very old dying off, as well as this affecting other members of society.
33:48The Covid-19 pandemic has shown us just how devastating its effects can be,
33:53and how vulnerable we are in an interconnected world, just as they were then.
34:03Diseases are often hard to identify in the archaeological record,
34:08but research suggests that at least 10 could have been implicated in the Bronze Age collapse,
34:14including smallpox, typhoid and malaria.
34:18This is the tomb of Ramses V, and his death reveals that smallpox was in Egypt shortly after these events.
34:34King Ramses V had little pustules all over his face, we know from his mummy,
34:39and then when we carried out tests, we found out he actually died of smallpox.
34:44We have several texts that talk about how he was not buried immediately upon his death,
34:52but in fact 16 months later. And this is a very odd thing, because generally,
34:57within 70 days of your death, you were supposed to be buried. We also know that several tombs were
35:04being cut for other relatives, suggesting that everyone died at the same time unexpectedly,
35:10and also the workers who had cut these tombs were given a whole month's leave at the expense of the state,
35:17which has led some scholars to think that maybe this was the first example of quarantine.
35:22It sounds suspiciously like they were facing a widespread epidemic.
35:33Smallpox doesn't just appear as a single case, and if the pharaoh and his family had it,
35:39we can assume it was sweeping through the population, rich and poor alike.
35:43Smallpox doesn't just appear as a plague.
35:50Without vaccines or antibiotics, the spread of infectious diseases would have been disastrous.
36:00According to experts, there is nothing like a severe plague to deliver a fatal blow to an empire.
36:07So do we at last have the answer to what happened to end the Bronze Age civilisation so abruptly?
36:26All these interconnected societies were first laid low by a period of mega drought.
36:33It caused widespread famine and migration of people,
36:40and were then finished off by an earthquake storm,
36:45followed by an epidemic of infectious disease.
36:53Faced with such a series of disasters, the leaders of the day would have been unable to provide for
36:59their populations, and social and political collapse might easily have ensued.
37:07The Sea People may not in fact have been the only ones attacking cities throughout the Mediterranean.
37:15In the last days of Mycenae, about 1200 BC, the cities destroyed.
37:20Who did it? Big question. Is it invaders from outside?
37:24Is it an internal uprising? Are the 99% rising up against the 1%?
37:30The system they had in place may have been susceptible to such things.
37:34You have the king at the top, the Wanox, and then you have stratified society,
37:39taking advantage of the lower classes.
37:41It's possible that Mycenae's eventual destruction was not the result of an external invasion,
37:52but rather caused by internal conflicts within the city.
37:59This political collapse could also explain the riddle of what happened at Hattusa,
38:04and other cities too.
38:07The local resentment, I think, would have been a large factor in this.
38:10Now we can imagine you're toiling away in the fields,
38:13you're sending your agricultural production to the palace,
38:16you are not invited or included to any of the fun and festivity,
38:20even if it's religious in nature, within the walls of Hattusa.
38:24So there would have been a real social divide between the haves and have-nots, let's say,
38:30ripe for some sort of uprising.
38:34An internal rebellion may well have been the knockout blow responsible for the Hittite state
38:41collapsing and vanishing from history.
38:46And though Egypt survived, evidence of political and social unrest can even be found here.
38:53Following Ramses III's victory over the sea people, we find the first labour strike in recorded history.
39:03The reign of Ramses III was not just marked by the chaos with the sea peoples,
39:07sea peoples, but in fact it was when we had the first sit-in strike in history,
39:12when all of the workers who were working in the Valley of the Kings had not been paid by the king.
39:16So they put down their tools, marched off and had a sit-in at the temple.
39:22And they kept doing this until they finally got paid.
39:26The strike ended up going on for months and marked the beginning of Egypt's decline in power and influence.
39:35This is all tied into why there was so much chaos during this time period.
39:40Because, of course, if you're busy being pillaged, you don't have time for people to raise crops and
39:46carry out agriculture. And also, if you're fighting, you need to supply your army.
39:51And so you can't supply the rest of your country. So really, there was a lot of knock-on effects
39:56with the battles with the sea people and possibly also other things going on with climate changing
40:02and low Niles being present, which means that the Egyptians did not have the usual huge stockpile
40:09of grain that they would have in normal times.
40:15This near-complete social and political collapse would likely have increased the flood of
40:21different people who were forced to flee in search of somewhere new to live.
40:28Each group may have been moving or leaving or invading for a different reason. Some may have been
40:36invaders. Some may have been migrants. Some may have been refugees.
40:41As these victims of a string of disasters crossed the Mediterranean, they were seen as invading sea
40:50people. But it's clear that at least some of them were not warriors. They were families.
40:58Refugees seeking a better life in a new land.
41:01I would say that the equivalent in the modern era would be the refugees fleeing the civil war in Syria
41:12and moving over to Greece and such.
41:14After years of research, theories and mystery, we finally appear to have a solution as to what
41:23caused the collapse of the great civilisations of the Bronze Age.
41:29But it's perhaps wrong to think of the answer as a string of disasters, one thing after another.
41:35I think that's too simple. It's too simplistic. Life, as we know it, is much more messy.
41:45And so I don't think I see this as a linear progression. I see it more as overlapping.
41:51I think it's just this whole smorgasbord, if you will, of catastrophic events.
41:58What I see this as is a perfect storm. It is a perfect storm of catastrophes, of calamities.
42:05And that's what leads to the collapse.
42:11Perhaps the inhabitants could have survived one disaster, such as an earthquake or a drought.
42:18But they could not endure the combined effects of multiple catastrophes all occurring together.
42:24They could have survived one another. Climate change causing drought and famine.
42:30Earthquakes and disease. Migrations and war. Internal rebellions.
42:36And the collapse of their supply chains.
42:40It was all too much to bear at once.
42:43And led to the interconnected civilisations collapsing like dominoes.
42:47What followed has been called a dark age.
42:55For a while, diplomatic and trade relations were nearly non-existent.
42:59And art, architecture and general quality of life all suffered in comparison with the bronze age.
43:09But of course, it wasn't the end of everything.
43:12In fact, it was the catalyst for a new age. An age in which iron replaced bronze as the metal of choice.
43:22It was a period of transformation and development, which in time gave rise to the civilisations we know today.
43:321200 BC was undoubtedly a pivotal point in history.
43:36The thing that has me worried and losing sleep at night is a lot of the factors that I see that contributed to the collapse of the late bronze age are around again today.
43:49You can just tick off the boxes. You know, climate change, yes. Earthquakes, yes.
43:54Invaders, yes. Drought, famine, migration. I mean, they're all there.
44:00Perhaps the past is more relevant than we might like to think.
44:07Climate was a prime mover in the process. Climate was the centerpiece in the whole thing.
44:13Of course, it brought about other processes, people moving, destruction of cities, collapse of empires and so on.
44:21But the beginning was the climate.
44:26History is very cyclical, so maybe we will wind up repeating what happened at the end of the bronze age.
44:32Or maybe we can do something to stop it. I think instead of just talking about doing things about climate change, if we actually do it, then we might stand a chance.
44:44Most societies in the history of humankind have collapsed.
44:48And it would be hubristic to think that we're not going to.
44:52I definitely think it's not a matter of if we collapse, but when we collapse.
44:58And when we do then, what are we prepared to do?
45:01Either to try and stop it before it happens, or afterward, how are we going to be resilient?
45:07How are we going to get back up?
45:12Uncovering the story of the bronze age collapse has shown how the survival of any civilization
45:18may mean learning to deal with the threats before it's too late.
45:48We've got a plan.
45:49God, God.
46:03God.
46:06I'm.
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