Subject: The Sea People.
From: Mark Odegard
Mark said:
If you want an explanation of the Sea Peoples, the first place to look
is inside the pages of the Iliad. While the events are supposed to take
place in late Mycenaen times, much of the world view is that of the
later times of the Dorians and the so-called Sea Peoples.....
As for what caused this upheaval, a number of reasons are cited. There
really was a HUGE earthquake at the end of Mycenaen times. A change in
the climate has also been suggested, but I've never seen any evidence
presented to support the idea. .....
More likely it's a technological change: the full arrival of the Iron
Age, with a corresponding democratization of warfare. This also seems
to the time when naval warfare first becomes possible. Think of early
Iron Age Vikings using hit and run tactics......
Another very serious factor, and probably the decisive one, was the
fall of the Hittite Empire. Some very old trade relationships,
extending from Sicily and the Gulf of Venice all the way to the
Caucasus were severely disrupted.....
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
----------------------------
Hi Mark
Appreciate your response
You have some interesting ideas about causes behind the Sea Peoples.
I have a few (protracted) comments
I hadn't heard about the "HUGE earthquake at the end of Mycenaen times"
and would like to learn more about it. Do have any data or sources I
can follow up on?
I am one of those people who suspects that climate has had a major role
in the early history of mankind. A couple of years ago I got interested
in the effects climate may have had on man's history and briefly looked
into it, for the Middle East. You are probably right in saying that
there is no absolutely conclusive evidence for it. But in part this is
due to the tentative and incomplete nature of paleoclimatological data
for this period, in the locations of interest at the fine scale (annual
fluctuations). Which is not to say that NO data was available. There
is evidence that northern Africa and the Middle East underwent cold-dry
spells during 3200-2900BCE, 2300-2000BCE, 1750-1600 BCE, 1300-1200BCE
and 600-500BCE. The range does not necessarily indicate the period of
the cold-dry spell, but also the uncertainty in dating.
The first three periods correlate generally with periods of unrest and
major social change in Egypt and Mesopotamia. (Conquest and unification
by Menes; Ist Intermediate Period; Hyksos invasion and 2nd Intermediate
Period: and Sea People's invasion in Egypt and in Mesopotamia: major
irrigation building-rise of Sumerian-expansion of city states; rise of
the Akkadian empire 1st wave invasion of the Amori: and 2nd wave
Amori invasions and possibly Hammarubi's conquests). But there is
nothing really dramatic relating to the last cold-dry spell in Egypt
and the Third Intermediate Period does not fall into a cold-dry period.
The fit is not perfect, and climatic change is not a simple thing
(climate change in the Middle East does not necessarily mean a
concurrent change in southern Europe or Asia, and things like the
Monsoons shift which is suspected here, can be really complicated)
but is strong enough to make me feel certain that climate has had a
significant role in shaping mankind's destiny and was at least one of
the reasons perhaps even the principle reason for the massive
migrations. (But certainly not the only reason).
I would be interested in hearing if there is any reasonable correlation
with these time periods and major migrations in Europe, or not. I
didn't investigate it, and this is my first look at early Indo-European
history/culture/language.
Climatic change most severely effects the marginal areas and peoples.
So northerly, desert and higher elevations and semi-nomadic peoples are
the ones most effected. Time and again, it was the semi-nomadic
people who had the most impact on the established cultures during the
periods of climatic change. They invaded because they were starving.
So I can't point you to a study that shows conclusively that climate
change was the cause behind the massive migration in Eastern
Mediterranean, but I personally feel it probably was. One of the few
"silver linings" coming out of Global warming is better funding for
paleoclimatic studies and maybe there will be more data/studies in the
future If the changes we are causing to the climate doesn't get us
first, and there is no future.
If your interested, the best summary articles I was able to find about
climatic conditions was on the Web. Go to Oak Ridge National Laboratory
(
http://www.ornl.gov/), use their search function and put in -
Jonathan Adams AND climate. There were 30 or so summary articles with
maps dealing with climate conditions. Most of these deal with Holocene
or Quaternary geological periods, but most also get into our time frame
at the end of the articles. The time representation he uses is " ya
=years ago", not BC/AD and is based on C14, which does not exactly
correlated with other time estimates especially the time estimates of
archeologists, so you have to do a little time translation. And the
studies were based primarily on pollen, which does not give precise
climatic data, or distribution. But it is still one of the better
sources I have found.
If Anybody knows any good summary studies etc for climate or for
climate/social impacts for this period and location, I would be real
interested.
Brent