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Cultural Change in the Aegean c.2200BC

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Third Millennium BC Climate Change and Old World Collapse

Part of the book series: NATO ASI Series ((ASII,volume 49))

Abstract

In the Aegean a wave of collapse and change in the later third millennium BC has long been recognised in the archaeological record (Forsén 1992). In general terms, a date for these events c.2200BC is feasible given conventional interpretations and chronologies (Manning 1995a; Warren and Hankey 1989). This offers the potential hypothesis of contemporaneity with the c.2200BC climate change event in the Near East (Weiss et al. 1993). The question is whether, on a detailed and independent analysis, the precise date of c.2200BC is correct for episodes of change in the Aegean? The problem is the lack of high-resolution data. Modern, high-quality, radiocarbon series are rare (dendrochronology does not yet apply), and connections with the historical Near East and Egypt are problematic, or non-existent, at this time. Further, we must consider the major anomaly: Crete. There is no similar collapse on Crete, and, indeed, significant developments appear from around this same time on the island, and the state-level Old Palace civilisation emerges c.2000BC. An explanation couched in terms of prestige goods economies, control of resources (monopolisation, exclusivity), and geographic location on the periphery of multiple world-systems is offered (following Manning 1995b).

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  1. Department of Archaeology, University of Reading, PO Box 218, Whiteknights, Reading, RG6 6AA, UK

    Sturt W. Manning

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  1. Department of Geology, Istanbul Technical University, 80626, AyazaÄŸa, Istanbul, Turkey

    H. Nüzhet Dalfes

  2. Lamont Doherty Earth Observatory, Columbia University, 10964, Palisades, New York, USA

    George Kukla

  3. Departments of Anthropology and New Eastern Languages and Civilizations, Yale University, 06520, New Haven, Connecticut, USA

    Harvey Weiss

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Manning, S.W. (1997). Cultural Change in the Aegean c.2200BC. In: Dalfes, H.N., Kukla, G., Weiss, H. (eds) Third Millennium BC Climate Change and Old World Collapse. NATO ASI Series, vol 49. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-60616-8_6

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