Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-g8jcs Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-24T01:58:04.000Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Climatic Change in Mycenaean Greece

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 January 2015

H. E. Wright Jr
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

The essence of historical research is the search for the cause of a major event. The same applies to prehistoric research, except that the documents cited in evidence lack written records and may require greater speculation.

One of the major events in the history of Greece was the fall of the Mycenaean civilization, which occurred about 1200-1100 BC and ushered in the Greek Dark Ages, when populations in the former Mycenaean lands were small and political organization dispersed. Although falling, strictly, within the historic period, thanks to the recent decipherment of Mycenaean written documents, the available records merely illustrate some of the business transactions of several flourishing kingdoms they give no clues to the cause for the abrupt demise of the culture.

It is on this subject, with its paucity of direct evidence, that Professor Rhys Carpenter introduces some speculations drawn from natural science-the notion that climatic change in southern Greece caused repeated failure of crops and the consequent breakdown of the Mycenaean economy.

Type
Articles
Information
Antiquity , Volume 42 , Issue 166 , June 1968 , pp. 123 - 127
Copyright
Copyright © Antiquity Publications Ltd 1968

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Beug, H. J. 1961. ‘Beiträge zur postglazialen Floren- und Vegetationsgeschichte in Süddalmatien: der See “Malo Jezero” auf Mljet’, Flora (Göttingen), CL, 600–31.Google Scholar
Beug, H. J. 1962. ‘Über die ersten anthropogenen Vegetationsveränderungen in Süddalmatien an Hand eines neuen Pollendiagrammes vom “Malo Jezero” auf Mljet’, Geobot. Inst. Rübel. (Zurich), 37, 9–15.Google Scholar
Beug, H. J. 1967a. ‘On the Forest History of the Dalmatian Coast’, Rev. Paleobotany and Palynology, 11, 271–80.Google Scholar
Beug, H. J. 1967b. ‘Contributions to the Postglacial Vegetational History of Northern Turkey’, in (eds.) Cushing, E. J., and Wright, H. E. Jr., Quaternary Paleoecology, 349–56.Google Scholar
Brooks, C. E. P. 1949. Climate Through the Ages.Google Scholar
Butzer, K. W. 1958. ‘Quaternary Stratigraphy and Climate in the Near East’, Bonner Geogr. Abhandl., XXIV, 157.Google Scholar
Carpenter Rhys. 1966. Discontinuity in Greek Civilization.Google Scholar
Frenzel, B. 1966. ‘Climatic Change in the Atlantic/sub-Boreal Transition in the Northern Hemisphere: Botanical Evidence’, in World Climate from 8000 to o bc (Roy. Met. Soc.), 99–123.Google Scholar
van der Hammen, T., Wijmstra, Y. A., and van der Molen, W. H. 1965. ‘Palynological Study of the Very Thick Peat Section in Greece, and the Würm-glacial Vegetation in the Mediterranean Region’, Geologie en Mijnbouw, XLIV, 37–9.Google Scholar
Higgs, E. S., and others. 1967. ‘The Climate, Environment and Industries of Stone Age Greece, Pt. 3’, Proc. Prehist. Soc., XXXIII, 1–30.Google Scholar
Lamb, H. H. 1963. ‘On the Nature of Certain Climatic Epochs which Differed from the Modern (1900–39)’, Proceedings of the WMO/UNESCO Symposium on Climatic Changes (Rome, 1961), 125: Paris, UNESCO, Arid Zone XX.Google Scholar
Lamb, H. H. 1967. Review of Rhys Carpenter, Discontinuity in Greek Civilization, antiquity, 233.Google Scholar
Lamb, H. H., Lewis, R. P. W. and Woodruffe, A. 1966. ‘Atmospheric Circulation and the Main Climatic Variables between 8000 and o bc: Meteorological Evidence’, in World Climate from 8000 to o bc (Roy. Met. Soc.), 174.Google Scholar
Loy, W. G. 1967. ‘The Late Bronze Age Landscape of Southwest Peloponnese’, Univ. Minnesota Ph.D. Thesis.Google Scholar
McDonald, W. A., and Hope Simpson, R. 1964. ‘Further Exploration in Southwestern Peloponnese’, AJA, LXVIII, 229.Google Scholar
Ninkovich, D., and Heezen, B. C. 1965. ‘Santorini Tephra’, Colston Res. Soc. 17th Symp. (Bristol, 1965). Proc., XVII, 413–53.Google Scholar
Roy. Met. Soc. 1966. ‘World Climate 8000 to o bc’, Proceedings of a 1966 International Symposium.Google Scholar
Sullivan, Walter. 1967. ‘Light on an Old Mystery’, New York Times, 23rd July.Google Scholar