alt Hacker NewsSo... He's saying ironworking caused the collapse, or prevented recovery. age
That is interesting, but it requires evidence of sudden wide scale production in the 12th century or earlier.
The conventional take is that ironworking developed gradually because tin/bronze became unavailable. The know evidence of iron working is gradual. Rare pockets gradually becoming more common over centuries. ities, states and empires actually come back as ironworking grown. Slag and reurbanization track one another.
Also interesting that Egypt survived and did not do "iron age." They were sitting on vast hordes of tin and bronze. Bronze can be remolded. They were also less trade dependent. Egypt exported gold, grain & textiles. They imported tin, copper and slaves.
Personally, I suspect that it could have been "financial crisis." Debt cycles and their consequences appear heavily in late bronze age sources. The Ugarit archive. The armana letters etc.
Earlier scholars took this theory too far in the 60s and forced it into ideological moulds.
But... I find it hard to ignore direct* accounts of people in that time. People were becoming endebted, debt bonded... and growing hordes of "outlaws" form to eacape. These institutions were apparently international. There are international treaties dealing with them.
I also don't discount "axial age" hypothesese. A "death of god" paradigm, perhaps related to Zoroaster (elam), akhenatan (Egypt), etc.
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There would be a tipping point though. Where mining the ingredients for bronze would become economically nonviable- after that the mining infrastructure collapses hard and fast. And with it the mining towns would empty out and the still bronze relying cultures would destabilize in waves of "cheap" bronze, expensive ingredients.
He's absolutely not saying iron caused the collapse, only that it prevented the recovery.
> The causes of the Bronze Age collapse are still debated by historians: a series of severe droughts; the sudden appearance of mysterious Sea Peoples, who raided along the Mediterranean coast; the disruption of the tin trade routes; internal revolts; or possibly all of these at once. But there is another unifying factor that could have prevented the resurgence of empires: iron.