Destroyed by drought: ancient trees told how an ancient civilization disappeared

Around 1200 BC, human civilization suffered a terrible decline when several important empires in the Middle East and the eastern Mediterranean were destroyed or shrunk in size almost simultaneously. The event has been dubbed “the collapse of the Bronze Age,” according to The Guardian.

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One of the most powerful was the Hittite Empire, centered in present-day Turkey and encompassing parts of Syria and Iraq.

“There was probably a near-complete crop famine for three years in a row. People likely had enough food supplies to last a year of drought. But when the drought lasted for three consecutive years, people didn’t have food to feed themselves,” said an anthropology professor at the University of Georgia and co-author of the study, Brita. Lorenzen

“This would have led to the collapse of the tax base, the massive flight of a large Hittite army, and possibly a massive movement of people to survive. The Hittites also faced the problem of the lack of a port or other easy means of transportation. Food to this area,” Lorenzen added.

The Hittites, with their capitals in Central Anatolia, were one of the greatest states of the ancient world for five centuries. They became the main geopolitical opponents of Ancient Egypt during their Brilliant New Kingdom.

“At that time, without any of our infrastructure and technologies, the Hittites controlled and ruled a vast territory for centuries despite numerous challenges and threats from their neighbors and assets that were part of their empire, and despite their concentration in the area. “The semi-arid region,” said Stuurt Manning, professor of arts and classical sciences at Cornell University, lead author of the study, published in the journal Nature.

Scholars have long speculated about what led to the fall of the Hittites and the wider collapse that weakened the Egyptians and devastated kingdoms in Greece, Crete, and the Middle East. The hypotheses included war, invasion, and climate change. The new study offers some clarity about the Hittites.

The researchers studied the perennial juniper trees growing in the area at that time and were eventually recruited for the construction of a wooden structure southwest of Ankara around 748 BC. Legend has it that he turned everything he touched into gold.

The trees presented a regional paleoclimate record in two ways: annual tree-ring growth patterns with narrow rings indicating dry conditions; and the ratio of the two forms or isotopes of carbon in the rings indicating the tree’s response to the presence of water.

They found a gradual transition to drier conditions from the 13th century BC. More importantly, both evidence points to three years of severe drought in 1198, 1197 and 1196 BC, which coincided with the known collapse of the empire.

Surrounded by a monumental stone wall with a gate decorated with lions and sphinxes, Hattusa was burned and abandoned. The texts written on clay tablets in cuneiform, which were common in the region, detailing the Hittite society, politics, religion, economy and foreign policy fell silent.

“I think this study really shows the lessons we can learn from history. The climate change that is likely to happen to us in the next century will be much more serious than what the Hittites experienced,” said a Cornell professor of ecology and evolutionary biology. University and study co-author Jed Sparks — Which begs the question: How resilient are we?

Previously Focus He talked about the findings that will help find the lost city of Zippaland.