3,200-year-old trees reveal the collapse of an ancient empire

A new study of 3,200-year-old trees in Turkey suggests that the mysterious collapse of several civilizations in the Late Bronze Age, from around 1200 to 1150 B.C., coincided with a severe three-year drought in central Anatolia, a heartland of the powerful Hittite Empire and one of the worst-affected areas at the time.
In what is commonly known as the “Late Bronze Age collapse,” the Hittite Empire and the civilization of the Mycenaean Greeks, as well as many smaller powers and the trade networks that linked them, fell apart. It also led to anarchy, uprisings, civil wars, and rival pharaohs in Egypt, while Assyria and Babylonia suffered famines, outbreaks of disease, and foreign invasions.
Scholars have struggled for 200 years to explain the collapse as a consequence of volcanic eruptions or earthquakes; piracy, migrations, or invasions; political or economic failures; diseases, famines, or climate change; or even of the spread of iron metallurgy throughout a region dominated by bronze.
Now, research published today in Nature reveals that climate change may have played a bigger role in the Late Bronze Age collapse than previously thought.
By examining the logs from trees buried for almost 3,000 years, an American research team has revealed that the heartlands of the Hittite Empire in central Anatolia suffered a severe drought in 1198, 1197, and 1196 B.C.—right at the start of the Late Bronze Age collapse.
The finding strengthens theories that the shift to a drier and colder climate in the eastern Mediterranean upended food production, leading to shortages that exacerbated the cultural and economic problems already roiling the region.
3,200-year-old trees reveal the collapse of an ancient empire