Climate Change Destroyed Most Ancient Near Eastern Civilizations, New Study Finds

Close your eyes and ears Rush Limbaugh, Dennis Prager, Congressional Republicans and the Tea Party. Climate change destroyed the most advanced civilizations in the ancient world.

Climate Change Destroyed Most Ancient Near Eastern Civilizations, New Study Finds
Shmarya Rosenberg • FailedMessiah.com

It was an unprecedented era of destruction.

During the 150-year period between 1250 BCE and 1100 BCE, every great civilization in the Eastern Mediterranean crumbled or was destroyed.

Out of that destruction, chaos and upheaval eventually came the formation of new kingdoms –  including the first Israelite Kingdom.

But what caused that widespread destruction in the first place?

This question, which puzzled scientists and historians for centuries, appears to have finally been answered – and Rush Limbaugh, Dennis Prager, Congressional Republicans and the Tea Party almost certainly won’t like the answer.

Climate change.

A new study published last week in Tel Aviv: The Journal of the Institute of Archaeology of Tel Aviv University found that a very prolonged period of reduced precipitation caused severe droughts, which in turn caused widespread famine, which in turn sparked instability, chaos and mass migration in search of food.

The study, which was reported in the Israeli daily newspaper Ha’aretz, is based primarily on fossilized pollen recovered from deep under Lake Kinneret (which is also known as the Sea of Galilee), the study also used a sediment strip from the Dead Sea's western shore.

"Pollen is the most enduring organic material in nature," palynologist Dafna Langgut, who co-authored the study along with Israel Finkelstein of Tel Aviv University, Thomas Litt of the University of Bonn, and Mordechai Stein of Hebrew University's Earth Sciences Institute, reportedly said.

According to Finkelstein, it was the unprecedented frequency of the time periods of the core samples taken that made the study work.

“The advantage of our study, compared to pollen investigations at other locations in the Middle East, is our unprecedented frequency of sampling - for about every 40 years. Pollen is usually sampled for every several hundreds of years; this is logical when you're interested in prehistoric matters. Since we were interested in historical periods, we had to sample the pollen more frequently; otherwise a crisis such as the one at the end of the Bronze Age would have escaped our attention,” Finkelstein noted.

The correlation between the study’s climate findings and the available historical and archaeological record is shocking and reveals the prolonged, widespread destruction that plagued the region.

In that 150-year period at the end of the Bronze Age many cities were destroyed by fire.

Ancient documents from across the region speak about severe droughts and famines during that same period.

The study’s authors reportedly used a model proposed by Ronnie Ellenblum of Hebrew University. Ellenblum studied ancient documents that describe similar conditions in the 10th and 11th centuries CE – about 2600 years after the time period studied in the Langgut-Finkelstein-Litt-Stein study – in eastern parts of the region.

Ellenblum’s study found that a drop in rainfall joined with devastating cold to destroy crops.

The authors of the new study say the same basic process took place at the end of the Bronze Age. Severe cold in the north of the region and a drop precipitation in the east of the region destroyed crops and caused famines which in turn sparked the mass migration of peoples to find food and a stable place to live. This pushed
"large groups of people to start moving to the south in search of food," Egyptologist Shirly Ben-Dor Evian of Tel Aviv University reportedly said.

Comments

[Jeff]

If Prager mentions it at all, he'll belittle the study as the work of liberal academics. The others probably won't even acknowledge it.

Whenever something like this come up, it ultimately becomes, for me, a theological issue. What does this say about the existence of a benevolent, personal, involved creator? I see absolutely no way in which such a being can be reconciled with the reality of human suffering. People of faith generally try to rationalize it in terms of free will, our propensity for sin, etc. Well, here's something that has nothing to do with that. Of course, Haredim and evangelicals often attempt, lamely, to blame natural disasters on the latter, but they're operating at an arrested level of development.

[bendinai]

Limbaugh etc. are not disputing climate change; they are disputing the entire social science of mankind created climate; the UN-scientific solution for which is a world carbon tax.

"Worse" than that for you pseudo-liberals is the most recent study in the journal Climate Dynamics which concludes global warming "pause" may last for 20 years, and the Arctic sea has already begun to recover.

Shmarya, act like a journalist here, and do some real research. You will find that the studies are funded in great part by GE, who makes tax free billions off the (Bald Eagle killing) windmill industry, and is promoted worldwide by now multi-millionaire AL Gore.

[Outcast Yid]

Climate change has occurred continuously for eons, and no conservative disputes that. The debate centers around the role of our modern lifestyle. The Egyptians didn't drive cars or operate factories (though they apparently did raise cattle, according to the first parts of Exodus).

If anything, this article supports Limbaugh and Prager.

[Boychikel]

This of course was due to all the Hummers, Ford Excursions, and GMC Tahoes driven by the ancient Egyptians. Or maybe it was the CO2 emitted from all the animal sacrifices.

According to a recent, peer-reviewed study by the University of Waterloo in Ontario, the main culprit wasn't CO2 but Freon (R-22), which causes chemical reactions producing very potent climate-warming gases in the upper atmosphere, as well as temporarily destroying the ozone layer.

Freon is being phased out, and explains why it hasn't gotten warmer globally since 1997, despite the Chinese burning coal (all dirty) at a 4x higher rate than the USA. Solid particulate matter from coal is the second biggest cause of global warming, while CO2 is third.

[RWisler]

I think that this would actually be good news for the anti-environmentalists. Shows that climate change has nothing whatsoever to do with industrialization or the amount of carbon in the atmosphere. It all depends on how you look at it.

[Lubavitchers are Christians]

Nobody disputes climate change. It's "man-made climate change" which is disputed.

Especially when you consider who is making billion$ off of climate change legislation. First it was global cooling.... then it was global warming... now it's just "climate change". These people are very confusing.

Wait.... climate change happened before capitalism was invented??? I thought the liberals claimed that capitalism caused climate change.

[Jeff]

In response to the comments above - no one on the Left disputes the cyclical nature of climate change. What the current research now shows (and what all reputable climate scientists agree upon) is that human activity has brought us to another of these watershed moments, although a more precipitous one than is described in the article. This time, it isn't merely human civilization that is endangered, but much of life on earth.

The deniers on the Right whom Shmarya mentioned are politically and ideologically driven. No doubt a number of you will say, "So are those on the Left!" I'm sorry, but no. There is no comparison; you simply cannot compare Al Gore & Co. to the media whores and trailer park imbeciles who make up the bulk of the denialist side of the fence.

[bendinai]

"Compare Al Gore & Co. to the media whores?" That is delusional. What is Al Gore if NOT a media whore? A scientist? I am actually literally laughing out loud. You just made a perfect comparison. "All reputable climate scientists?" Where did that one come from?

[Jeff]

Yes, someone is delusional.

[bendinai]

Of course this gets even better (for those of us who actually read science books....unlike Jeff and Shmarya....and live on the Right.) How is it that the same people who supported Occupy Wall Street, support gay marriage, support the Women of the Wall, who always vote Democrat, who are concerned about "Palestinian" rights, who declare Bush 2 as the worst President ever (after declaring his dad prior to that, and Reagan prior to that), who are quiet when the Federal government sends out significant portions of the Obamacare website to Canada after criticizing Romney for shipping jobs out of the country.....how is it that having read as many science books as trailer park imbeciles, you believe there is some intelligent insight into your view on "science?"

[Jeff]

No amount of evidence will convince you. Like your heroes, you're ideologically driven.

[Moshe]

I thought the Chareidim destroyed the ancient civilizations.

[jancsibacsi]

I think we will need alot of help from our ancient visitors from another world i watch theese ufo programms and i am convinced that they monitor us and will save us in time from self destruction,although i dont know if theese ancient aliens will be able to save the chassidim from their self destruction .

[bendinai]

@ Jeff.....yes, evidence would make me view this differently. However, all you present are unsubstantiated statements (unlike the most recent study which I quoted) and name calling.

Mein Kampf Prad.....where are you in your support of Loeb?

[Account Deleted]

Bendinai, you a a nasty person. I actually tend to agree with you on this one.

[R Nash]

Ironically, you are arguing for the other side. This would be evidence that global climate change is perfectly natural and cyclical. Or are you arguing that the factories of Egypt caused carbon dioxide saturation?

[anuran]

Old news. Decades old.

For the denialist dip-shits in this group...

There is no scientific doubt that we are experiencing rapid climate change. There is no scientific doubt that it is caused by human activity. None. Not a bit. The only question is exactly how bad it is going to be, what we can salvage and what, if anything, we can still do to avoid the worst-case scenarios. We've rat-fucked ourselves.

Even the Petroleum Institute's pet Dane recanted more than a year ago.

[anuran]

And before idiots start saying "There's been climate change before. You're saying we caused it!"

No. Not a bit. The current bout of global warming is caused by human beings.

[bendinai]

@ Pard.....yes I am. Not proud of it, but that's part of me. Nice to know you are open minded......as I would be on this issue if someone would show a scientific study that can be honestly disputed, and when disproved are willing to admit such.

[bendinai]

@ Anuran....nowhere in the world of science, other than Physics where everything is proven through solid mathematical formula, and Chemistry where everything is lab-oratorically proven is there "no scientific doubt." Your comment is juvenile and reflects again what I have been saying; people who don't read books about science written by scientists, should keep their uninformed opinions to themselves.

[Jeff]

I'm tired of the worthless drek Shmarya allows to infect this site. He's far more lenient than I would be, yet all you frum pieces of shit do is attack him.

May you live to see your children reject everything you hold sacred.

[seth]

No one denies climate changes. So it changed c. 3200 years ago. Was Exxon responsible then? Dis they sell carbon credits to halt it? Did they institute a worldwide system of communism to Save the Planet? About 25 years ago the Soviet system collapsed and all those whose incomes were based on glorifying the Reds took down the sign on the door reading Communism and painted a new one - Environmentalism. But it is the same old snake oil - a solution in search of a problem. The hucksters still have to pay the bills so now they schlepp Climate Change, especially since their silly Climate Warming passed its sell date. Nothing can be done about the weather, so it is all about the money.

[Robert J. Barron, Attorney-at-Law]

I'm a fairly optimistic person by nature- no pun intended - but when I read about what climate change is going to do the planet by 2050, 2060, 2070, and 2100...I'm glad I won't be around by then.

I don't think it's going to be a pretty sight.