Talk for yourself. I haven’t updated my phalanxes yet !

I am no historian and an absolute noob, but a lover of Greek mythology and would love to see how the fall of Troy fits into all this

One did have the actual rise of Israel and that could not have happened unless Egypt was very much weakened. So, there was a large disruption.

My totally data-free hunch for part of what happened includes a large extensive drought (hints of that in the Bible even) and in addition, the Stepps. Inner Mongolia was continually spawning new tribes which pushed older ones further and rippled into Europe (long before it culminated in the Mongols). I think a drought might have caused a push into Europe which caused a ripple of refugees to cascade down southward hitting a region already in bad shape.

I'm further intrigued by an ISIS analogy. ISIS wasn't all that effective until the unemployed Sunni former members of the Iraqi army decided to join because they were experiencing ethnocide anyhow. Once these military men became fused with the religious fanatic leaders, ISIS became a force that took the world's top militaries to put it down.

My totally data-free hunch for part of what happened includes a large extensive drought (hints of that in the Bible even) and in addition, the Stepps. Inner Mongolia was continually spawning new tribes which pushed older ones further and rippled into Europe (long before it culminated in the Mongols). I think a drought might have caused a push into Europe which caused a ripple of refugees to cascade down southward hitting a region already in bad shape.

This completely ignores the loss of knowledge that was the result of bronze age collapse. Entire regions "forgot" how to write and "forgot" agricultural techniques like irregation, so why couldn't they forget how to make good quality iron?

The rise in iron production and new iron weapons threw the power balance out of wack, too. This is not the only factor, but too many people tend to look for only one factor. Likely there were dozens of factors, some being more important than others in different areas

A true historian among mortals

Israel left Egypt and the Egyptian society collapsed lol

Iron production was known during the bronze age but not its proper heat treatment, so it was very soft and inferior to the bronze of the era. After international trade had broken down and tin was no longer available to make bronze, the price of bronze skyrocketed, necessitating the use of iron. It took a long time for the heat treatment process of iron to be developed to the point where it was superior to bronze. We could say that it was the late bronze age collapse that led to the Iron Age -- the tin shortage necessitated it.

Copper was, but tin was more far flung.

Meta research is an enormous field.

We're generating more science than we have the capacity to decipher as a whole nor dispense in practical nor culturally significant ways. Someone recently made an ai to read thousands of studies and offer a way to access the data on human terms but it wasn't quite successful.

>There’s also no evidence that Northern Europe or Central Europe had developed sailing to the level of sophistication needed.

That is such nonsense. People in Bronze Age Scandinavia, the British Isles and Northern Spain were all seafaring people. Especially in Scandinavia, where they had ships decorating almost every rock art piece one can encounter from those days, had burials in ships, etc.

The Tollense Valley Battle shows that large scale conflict existed in Northern Europe.

Mercenaries from the North went South to gain riches fighting (that's why there's many objects of Northern origin in the Mediterranean and Mediterranean objects as far as modern day England, all in the Bronze Age. Plus, people DID carry Tin from England as far as Cyprus) and then returned home, this is not only attested by material and genetic evidence, but also sources that immediately followed the Greek "Dark Ages".

All this together, I don't see why you see it as "impossible" that the oh-so poor and unsophisticated (/s) Northern and Central Europeans couldn't been part of the Sea Peoples coallition. Especially when the depictions of the horned warriors from Medinet Habu match the various rock art depictions and decorated Menhirs from Scandinavia to Spain and even in Sardinia.

You seem terribly biased on this subject.

Same feeling. The book left me more knowledgeable about things that I didn’t want this book to teach me and none the wiser about what I actually wanted to know.

It's a mystery. But research suggest that on early stages both a period of bad climate (which lead to food shortage) and earthquicks (which destroyed cities) were responsible. Wars followed that.

I'm pretty sure there are some evidence of mass migration from today's northern Italy to Greece, and that's based on pins found along the way. Although it's possible those cloth pins were just being traded.

The "IT" is the mistery. It probably was a combination of climate change (which caused food shortages), shitty natural phenomena (i.e. earthquicks in Greece) and complex military blocks going to war with each other. It's perfectly possible that "sea people" were nothing more than totally-not-guys-from-other-military-alliance doing what privateers do. It's also possible that one faction discovered iron working and decided to strike with their more advanced, better working new shiny tools, or discovered new techniques that made chariots obsolete.

Regarding migrations, always take legends with a giant grain of salt. Spartans had a legend saying they are sons of Hercules who came back to Greece from the north and enslaved the local population.

An Egyptian pharaoh said something like this about the sea people- “They dwelled in their islands far away on the dark sea”.

We know Southern Britannia has always been famous for its Tin, especially Cornwall. Tin and Copper make bronze. Herodotus said the Phoenicians sailed to the British isles for tin. I wonder if there was some type of powerful federation that came down from the British isles (islands far away on the dark sea) and raided where they sold their tin at whenever those places stopped buying. Idk fun thought🤷‍♂️

I appreciate you reminding me of this podcast. I stopped listening during the Middle Age seasons. That period of history just didn’t hold my interest. I am glad to hear he pivoted back to earlier history.

Lol, I thought the title was saying that central Europe was about to collapse into the bronze age, and was like "damn, it's getting that backwards up there?"

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Hey yall, was wondering if anyone had any recommendations on the unification of Germany under Wilhelm? No books I've read or lectures I've heard have really ellaborated on the topic.

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I love this. Most historians are sure that “sea people“ existed and caused the sudden collapse of the bronze age but we know almost nothing about them. Real life mistery.

This is a very good documentary on the topic

Mental illness?

There are 11 layers at Troy! Some are built during periods of development, others due to destruction.

Tin was imported from a lot of Europe, even from as far as Britain! Britain, Brittany (France), the Iberian Peninsula, Germany/CzechRepublic, and the Balkans all traded tin to the Mediterranean. Amber came from the Baltic region which is just as far! It's wild how far goods moved in the ancient world! (^(Tutankhamen's tomb has amber from the Baltics.))

What is less clear is the people side of all of it. We have some evidence for ships carrying trade goods, but it can be hard to assess if most of the trade was via direct, long distance trade relationships or was simply passed through many areas over time. (e.g. Changing hands 100 times from one place to the other) Most likely there was all of the above.

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