Quote from: KenHRThat's the one.  But as John pointed out (and I forgot...I should just keep my mouth shut more often), it's not speaking of the Bronze Age that Zachary seems to have in mind.

Well your point was still a valid point in response to the argument that iron would cause trade to stop.  But it's interesting what gets included in the "Bronze Age" sometimes.  Depending on whether your focus is the Aegean, Egypt, Mesopotamia, Northern Europe, the Shang, the Indus Valley, etc. the "Bronze Age" in question can have a very different feel.  My personal take, influence by Michael Wood's show, is very Aegean and Eastern Mediterranean influenced, and has a Mycenaean, Minoan, and Hittite flavor.  Some people go for a more pre-Roman Northern European feeling while others focus on the grand architecture civilizations of Mesopotamia and Egypt.  Then there are the Shang, which I wish I had more information on.  That's part of what makes the Bronze Age so cool.  There is a lot of variety in there.

Quote from: John MorrowWell your point was still a valid point in response to the argument that iron would cause trade to stop.  But it's interesting what gets included in the "Bronze Age" sometimes.  Depending on whether your focus is the Aegean, Egypt, Mesopotamia, Northern Europe, the Shang, the Indus Valley, etc. the "Bronze Age" in question can have a very different feel.  My personal take, influence by Michael Wood's show, is very Aegean and Eastern Mediterranean influenced, and has a Mycenaean, Minoan, and Hittite flavor.  Some people go for a more pre-Roman Northern European feeling while others focus on the grand architecture civilizations of Mesopotamia and Egypt.  Then there are the Shang, which I wish I had more information on.  That's part of what makes the Bronze Age so cool.  There is a lot of variety in there.

Bang on.  That variety give you that feel, almost Conan-esque.  There's a mystery as to what that civilization across the sea/mountain range/desert looks like...

BTW - just wanted to say - who the fuck are you people? You're fucking brilliant, the lot of you...

Quote from: Elliot WilenWow, I'd never heard that theory of iron per se causing a reduction in trade. Is that your own hypothesis, Rob?

No I read it several books about Ancient History. Note the situation is more that trade readjusts. Long range trade is the hardiest hit. As the centuries continue and the recovery from the barbarian invasion speeds up new long range trade routes are formed around different products.

Quote from: Elliot Wilenbut it'd still be nice to see where the idea came from and if it has any champions in scholarship.)

I will try to find it. It wasn't on the web but in several of my history book I collected over the years. My impression was that the discovery of iron wasn't one of thes cause of the dark age but rather it prolonged the recovery because it removed the primary driver for long range trade. Cultures became more "local"

It was my understanding that because bronze is such a useful material that it was worth hauling large quantities of tin great distances. That it dwarfed the other products, mostly luxury, in long distance trade.

Quote from: KenHRI have an archaeological survey by Peter S Wells entitled Villages, Towns and Cities, which investigates the changes that occurred during the transition to the Iron Age in Europe.  My memory is spotty (I haven't cracked the book for about 8 years or so), but I remember that there was quite a growth of trade centers and population concentration during the early Iron Age.

You have to be careful about what you mean by "Europe". North of the Mediterranean Littoral the indigenous people made the leap from a Neolithic culture to the Iron Age without an intervening Bronze Age.

Quote from: John MorrowMy reason for mentioning that was that the reason why there are so many theories like that one about the end Late Bronze Age is because nobody really knows the answer

My impression from reading about the time is that the leading theories it was invasion of barbarians combined with natural disaster particularly the Thera explosion. That recovery was delayed due to that fact that use of iron became widespread. The use of iron made the demand for long distance trade much less due to the fact that bronze was no longer the only choice for a useful metal to make tools with. Without the scale of bronze age long distance trade cultures became more insular.

Quote from: John MorrowI suppose I should add a recommendation for Between the Rivers by Harry Turtledove, a Bronze Age quasi-fantasy (the gods are real) that some people find a bit quirky but I found pretty interesting and worth mining for ideas.  The names and details also show that Turtledove has a pretty good grasp of the source material (e.g., I think he uses the terms wannax and lawagetas which are Mycenaean terms).

I second this. This was an excellent read.

QuoteNorth of the Mediterranean Littoral the indigenous people made the leap from a Neolithic culture to the Iron Age without an intervening Bronze Age.

I don't think that's true, it may just be more a matter of selection bias as archeologists' attention shifts from the Aegean to north-central Europe when the study of the former starts to be dominated more by historians.

See this section in Wikipedia. The Urnfield/Hallstatt transition from Bronze Age to Iron Age in Central Europe is something I remember from college archeology class.

One thing to emphasize if it hasn't been already: the definition of Bronze Age outside of the Aegean/Near East is problematic because it refers to a technology, not a time period, and also carries implications of social development. So the Bronze Age in different regions occurs at different times, depending on your perspective.

Quote from: John MorrowThat's part of what makes the Bronze Age so cool.  There is a lot of variety in there.

I will add that you need to remember that this is the beginning of human civilization. That while some ideas spread from an origin point (notably Mesopotamia) Every civilization of the time was trying out things for the first time. So you had a incredible variety of things happening.

Plus another thing is that all of this was not occurring in an empty world. Surrounding these bronze age civilization were a another equally huge variety of neolithic cultures. Remember that human development is like a spectrum. While these neolithic cultures were primarily defined by their use of stone tools doesn't mean they were all brute cavemen people. They had a culture that in someway were as developed as any of the ancient civilizations.

Another thing is that much of their artifacts were of wood, hide and other perishable materials. What we seeof ancient times is slanted towards cultures that left durable artifacts behind.

The primary difference between Bronze age world, and the Neolithic world was that the agricultural revolution allowed a greater concentration of people with more organization. With fertile grounds for an exchange of ideas locally and sometimes internationally.

Point of clarification here, the Neolithic is generally associated with the agricultural revolution, so farms and villages--but also pastoral nomads--basically replace small bands of hunters & gatherers.

Urbanization postdates agriculture by thousands of years, and for some reason, not entirely clear, it roughly coincides with (or shortly follows) the beginning of metal technology. One possible connection is that metals were the first "status symbols" the pursuit of which led to social hierarchy...but urbanization was also a product of the development of economic activities that benefitted from large-scale organization, such as long-distance trade (possibly connected to metallurgy) and irrigation-based agriculture.

(Edit: by thousands of years I mean that agriculture starts maybe 9000 BC while the first cities are around the 4th millenium BC, along with the Bronze Age in the Near East & Mesopotamia.)

Quote from: estarI will add that you need to remember that this is the beginning of human civilization.

Well, it depends on how you define "civilsation".  The Bronze Age is a broad period that represents a great leap forward in human civilisation, but certainly not the beginning.  Your point regarding Mesopotamia is well taken. As the ideas and accomplishments of civilsation spread, though, an increasing number of peripheral groups began to assimilate them, neatly skipping many of the early stages of development.  Meanwhile, some cultures were establishing true innovations for the first time known.

!i!

In an archeological context, civilization = urbanization.

Jericho was a pre-Bronze Age "city", a very unusual case.

Quote from: estarMy impression from reading about the time is that the leading theories it was invasion of barbarians combined with natural disaster particularly the Thera explosion.

The Thera explosion happened several hundred years before the end of the Late Bronze Age so I'm skeptical about that as an explanation, too.  Like I said, there is a lot of speculation because there is very little hard evidence of what actually caused it.  Another theory on Wikipedia blames it on the deforestation of Cyprus, Robert Drews blames it on changes in warfare and the Naue Type II sword infantry, Tom Slattery blames disease, others blame weather or the breakdown of Hittite society.  About all they know for sure is that "Sea People" were attacking settlements along the coast, and nobody is even sure if they were Mycenaeans or some other ethnic group or why they were on a rampage.

Quote from: estarThat recovery was delayed due to that fact that use of iron became widespread. The use of iron made the demand for long distance trade much less due to the fact that bronze was no longer the only choice for a useful metal to make tools with. Without the scale of bronze age long distance trade cultures became more insular.

It's an interesting theory but I don't personally find it very compelling.  Like I said, bronze was still being used extensively during the Classical period in Greece in hoplite armor and weaponry so there was still a demand for it and likely was all along.

My own guess is that the end of the Bronze Age was caused by a combination of various factors with no one definitive cause.  And while the loss of Thera was a huge blow to the Minoans (I like the idea of Thera as "The Hong Kong  of the Bronze Age Mediterranean" and do think it was the model for Atlantis), I don't think it caused the end of the Bronze Age or the following Dark Age.

Quote from: estarI will add that you need to remember that this is the beginning of human civilization. That while some ideas spread from an origin point (notably Mesopotamia) Every civilization of the time was trying out things for the first time. So you had a incredible variety of things happening.

Sure, and some of those solutions were surprisingly modern, especially when compared to what came immediately afterward.

Quote from: estarPlus another thing is that all of this was not occurring in an empty world. Surrounding these bronze age civilization were a another equally huge variety of neolithic cultures. Remember that human development is like a spectrum. While these neolithic cultures were primarily defined by their use of stone tools doesn't mean they were all brute cavemen people. They had a culture that in someway were as developed as any of the ancient civilizations.

Well, there is a fairly famous fresco depicting Mycenaeans fighting barbarians that shows the barbarians as skin-wearing savages right out of a Hollywood caveman movie.

But I do think that the "points of light" is an exaggeration and the lands were actually pretty full of people.  I'm probably going to get gasps of horror for saying this but if you remove the cheese and anachronisms, I think that Hercules and Xena (and in particular Xena) actually do a pretty decent job of getting the feel right in that regard.

Quote from: estarAnother thing is that much of their artifacts were of wood, hide and other perishable materials. What we seeof ancient times is slanted towards cultures that left durable artifacts behind.

True, but that doesn't mean that they don't find wood or the evidence of it, not only the wooden objects found in King Tut's tomb, for example, but also what's carved into stone reliefs and what's inventoried in clay tablets, including the administrative tablets of Mycenaean sites written in Linear B.

And sometimes the other materials were better.  For example, the Mycenaean boar's tusk helmet is actually a pretty amazing invention.

Quote from: estarThe primary difference between Bronze age world, and the Neolithic world was that the agricultural revolution allowed a greater concentration of people with more organization. With fertile grounds for an exchange of ideas locally and sometimes internationally.

The key to organization is that it gives you a food surplus and that's what you need for things like an aristocracy, trade missions, and dedicated craft workers.  Most ancient societies could get up to about 5-10% of their people away from dedicated food production, but that wasn't easy and required organization.  If you are dealing with subsistence living, you aren't going to have the same sort of social stratification, specialization, and ability to create or trade for luxury goods.

If you want some more novel recommendations: Henry Treece's book The Golden Strangers is a good bloodthirsty look at the clash of a Neolithic English village with bronze-using people. Also, his books Jason, Oedipus and Electra are set in a primitive Bronze Age Greece. Great stuff.