Collapse isn't coming, it's already scheduled | Eric Cline

0:00 I'm Eric Cline.

0:01 I'm an archaeologist and an ancient historian.

0:04 I'm also the author of 1177 BC, and it's sequel, After 1177 BC.

0:10 The period that we're discussing today is

0:14 incredibly important in the history of humankind.

0:17 It's the late Bronze Age, in particular,

0:20 which goes from about 1700 to 1200 BCE, or BC, if you prefer.

0:26 This was a time where people were basically globalized around

0:31 the Mediterranean in a way that is not frequently seen.

0:35 And so what happened to them back then may have implications for us today.

0:40 So it turns out to be a much

0:43 more important period to study than one might expect,

0:47 even though it's more than 3,000 years ago.

0:53 How to avoid civilizational collapse.

0:57 Even though I think we can rank these societies as to how well they each did,

1:03 one of the difficulties is to try to figure out why they did.

1:08 Like, why were the Cypriots and the Phoenicians able

1:11 to be that much more successful than the Hittites, for example?

1:17 So archaeologists and ancient historians are now starting to try

1:22 and answer these questions to grapple with the concepts.

1:26 And we're getting a couple of interesting things.

1:29 For example, it's now been suggested that maybe some

1:32 of the societies were more fragile than they appear,

1:35 and that they might have been more vulnerable

1:39 to the stresses than they appeared to outsiders.

1:43 Like the Mycenaeans, they had been over exploiting the lower classes.

1:48 And those lower classes might have been quite happy to see the palaces fall,

1:54 and even cheered, and they may have been part of the internal rebellions.

1:59 So it may be that something that looked very strong,

2:03 like the Hittites, was actually weakened internally,

2:06 and the first big gust of wind came and knocked that tree over,

2:11 and boom, no more Hittites.

2:13 But it also might have just been the luck of the draw.

2:18 It might have been geographical luck.

2:20 So I think that's where water comes into play,

2:24 because the Assyrians and the Babylonians are in my category,

2:29 too, and they're right by the Tigris and Euphrates.

2:34 And the Egyptians, of course, have the Nile.

2:38 Now, those are three of the big four in the ancient world.

2:43 I mean, my poor Mycenaeans and Minoans,

2:45 they're not quite up there with the others.

2:47 You know, the big two in the late Bronze Age are the Egyptians and the Hittites,

2:53 but then Assyrians and Babylonians.

2:56 So of those four Egyptians, Hittites, the Syrians,

3:00 Babylonians, Assyrians and Babylonians have the Tigris and Euphrates.

3:04 The Egyptians have the Nile.

3:06 The Hittites are the only one of those four without a major water source.

3:14 They're also the only one of those four that go down completely.

3:18 I don't think that's a coincidence.

3:21 And in fact, in talking to various people,

3:24 I've heard time and time again that wars over water

3:28 are going to be what are fought in the coming century.

3:32 And we can already see that in California with water,

3:36 with Colorado, with Mexico and all of that.

3:39 So I think in some ways, the fact that the Assyrians and the Babylonians

3:44 were able to maintain their government and their religion

3:48 and their writing systems and all of that might have been just luck of the draw,

3:54 that they were so far inland that the sea peoples

3:58 didn't get to them and they were on the two rivers, Tigris and Euphrates,

4:03 so that the drought didn't impact them as badly as it did others.

4:08 But having said that, we have written texts

4:12 from the Assyrians that do talk about period of drought.

4:17 They are Hitt.

4:18 It's not that long though.

4:20 It's like less than a century and it

4:23 came well after everyone else had been Hitt.

4:27 So there is something there to be said for where you happen to be.

4:33 So again, I think this is where we're going to be looking in the future,

4:39 is how did these people manage to survive or why didn't they survive?

4:44 Were they not aware that they were collapsing?

4:47 And again, we have to keep in mind

4:50 and actually say this at the beginning of the sequel.

4:54 Most of our records are from the 1%.

4:58 They're from the elite.

5:00 We know how the kings did and the central authorities that were living high.

5:07 We don't know as much about the 99% if you want to call them that, about

5:13 the farmers and the peasants out in the fields

5:17 in Messenia in Greece or the Hinterlands in Anatolia.

5:22 We don't really know their story that well,

5:25 but we're learning it because archaeologists are

5:27 now moving out and excavating the little villages,

5:31 the little towns that are inhabited across the divide, Bronze Age and Iron Age.

5:39 And so we're going to get more evidence.

5:42 We're going to get more answers.

5:44 And again, that's what I love about archaeology.

5:46 It's not cut and dried and if you will pardon the pun, it's not set in stone.

5:53 It changes depending on the new discoveries.

5:57 So everything you're reading in the books, not just my books,

6:01 but the history books and all that, it's going to be

6:04 different to a certain extent within five years, 10 years, 50 years.

6:09 I've already come out with the revised version of my first

6:13 book and I have a folder in Dropbox of new articles

6:18 that have already come out since 2021 that I need to take

6:23 into account if we're ever able to do a third edition.

6:28 It just keeps coming.

6:29 It doesn't stop.

6:31 And that is what is absolutely wonderful about it.

6:35 In addition to all the other factors, whether it was luck in the draw,

6:39 where you were situated or anything like that, the other

6:42 factor to bring into account is how good were your leaders?

6:46 That is, were they able to lead

6:49 you through this time of turbulence and catastrophe?

6:53 Did you have the right people in the right place at the right time or not?

7:00 I suspect that contributed a lot to this as well.

7:04 So for example, when Egypt had three or even four people all saying

7:09 that they were the Pharaoh at the same time in different parts of the country,

7:14 that's not good leadership.

7:16 That's not how you're going to get through this.

7:19 Similarly, the Hittite royal family had a schism

7:23 at exactly this time and parted the ways.

7:26 That was exactly the wrong time to do that.

7:30 You needed a strong leader in place at that time.

7:34 Now, the one or the two societies that do seem to have had the right

7:41 people at the right place at the right

7:44 time are the Assyrians and the Babylonians.

7:48 The Neo-Assyrian rulers and the Neo-Babylonian rulers seem to have

7:53 been the ones that got their societies through this.

7:58 In fact, a couple of fairly well-known scholars, a seriologist,

8:03 have said that that is why the Neo-Assyrians and the Neo-Babylonians

8:09 held on for about 100 years before everybody else,

8:14 before they were impacted to a certain extent by the collapse.

8:18 They said it was because they had strong rulers in place that they were

8:24 able to stave this off for a couple of decades or a century at most.

8:30 So I do think that leadership is incredibly important because

8:34 in part that leadership will determine how well you respond.

8:39 Having studied all of this, what happens in the aftermath and all of that, I was

8:45 again wondering what lessons could be learned

8:48 from the late Bronze Age collapse and the aftermath.

8:51 Was there anything that is of use to us today?

8:55 And I did come up with seven things that I

8:59 think are kind of common sense, if I may, that are things to remember,

9:04 things to live by, things that will help

9:07 us if we're ever going down that same path.

9:11 So I think the first one is pretty obvious,

9:14 that you need to have redundant systems in place.

9:18 We talk about that all the time today, but I think it's incredibly important.

9:23 You need to have a plan A, and if that somehow doesn't work, you need a plan B.

9:29 And if that doesn't work, you need a plan C.

9:32 It's kind of like having a generator in place in case your electricity goes out.

9:37 But I would say not just a plan A, B, and C, you need a D, E, and F as well.

9:45 You need multiple redundancies in place and plans that you

9:49 can go to if all of your major ones fail.

9:54 I think that is something that they needed to do back then,

9:59 and that we would still need to do today.

10:03 The next couple I would say are, again, common sense.

10:07 Be strong enough to resist invasion if you can.

10:11 Know who your friends are and who they aren't.

10:15 And also be resilient enough to go with the flow as you need to be.

10:21 Don't be rigid.

10:22 Don't be just, you know, no, this is how we've always done it.

10:27 But be prepared in case you're invaded.

10:29 Be prepared to reach out to allies.

10:32 And in that same tone, try and be as self-sufficient as you can,

10:38 but not to the detriment of alienating your allies,

10:41 I would say, because you're going to need each other.

10:45 So if you're going to make it through this crisis,

10:48 it's going to be because you're leaning on each other.

10:51 The other lesson that I think has a major takeaway from the Iron Age,

10:56 and I will deliberately call it the Iron Age rather than the Dark Age,

11:01 is to be innovative and inventive, right?

11:04 The fact that in the aftermath of the late Bronze Age,

11:09 they were innovative and inventive with iron and the alphabet,

11:13 I think is precisely what we would need to be again here today.

11:20 So we're talking in part, this is what evolutionary biologists and others would

11:26 talk about in terms of the adaptive cycle,

11:29 that when you have a crash in one area,

11:32 you then have an immediate era afterward where you are innovative and inventive.

11:38 It's basically the rise and fall of empires,

11:41 but here we've got a Mobius strip on its side, I would say.

11:46 And I think that's where this would come into place.

11:50 If you are crashing, if your society is coming down,

11:54 one of the ways you can best be

11:58 resilient is to be innovative, is to be inventive.

12:02 So back in the Iron Age,

12:04 what they did was turn to iron when they were having trouble making Bronze.

12:11 That actually, Tin Back Then has been compared to oil today, petroleum gasoline,

12:18 and their need for Tin Back Then is much like our oil today,

12:25 but I actually think it's changing now.

12:28 So just like in the Iron Age, they change to iron.

12:32 So what we need to be more worried about, I think, in this day and age,

12:39 are rare earths like lithium that are used in chips,

12:44 in computers, and cars, and microwaves, and everything else.

12:48 If something happens to the supply chain,

12:50 and we are not able to get that, I mean,

12:54 and remember what happened during the pandemic,

12:57 during COVID, which wasn't that long ago,

13:00 that we had such supply chain issues, and all of a sudden,

13:04 there was problems getting everything from computers to cars,

13:07 and we need to be innovative and inventive.

13:11 We need to be looking already for substitutes

13:14 that can take the place of lithium or whatever.

13:18 This needs to be not another dark age.

13:21 When we go down, if we go down,

13:24 and I actually think it's going to be when we go down,

13:27 we need to be prepared to turn on a dime

13:31 and be innovative and see what we come up with next.

13:35 If we're going to survive the collapse of our society,

13:38 which I do think is coming.

13:40 I don't know when, but I don't think it's, are we going to collapse?

13:45 I think it's when are we going to collapse?

13:47 And in this case, we're going to need to be innovative and inventive.

13:51 The other thing we need to do, and again,

13:54 I think this is very relevant to today,

13:58 is to prepare for extreme weather conditions.

14:01 Now back then in the late Bronze Age,

14:04 I was talking about a megadrought that lasted 150 to 300 years.

14:08 That, I believe, would qualify as an extreme weather event.

14:13 Today, we are also having extreme weather events.

14:16 We see it on almost on a daily basis now,

14:20 and what I would say here, my rule of thumb is,

14:24 look, prepare for extreme weather events, because then,

14:28 if they come, like intense hurricanes, then you're prepared.

14:32 And if they don't come, what have you lost?

14:36 Right?

14:36 Not much.

14:37 So I would say one of the big

14:40 lessons from antiquity is prepare for extreme weather conditions.

14:44 And along those same lines, I would say one of the other lessons

14:50 is to really be careful of your water resources.

14:54 Right?

14:54 Be very careful of where your water is going

14:57 to come from, whether it's from a river or elsewhere,

15:01 but we saw what happened in the late Bronze Age,

15:05 and we're seeing what's happening today,

15:08 where people are already fighting over water resources and especially rivers.

15:12 So I would say that that's another takeaway

15:15 from the late Bronze Age collapse and its aftermath.

15:20 And then the last thing that I would add is keep the working class happy.

15:27 I mean, any historian from any period

15:30 of history will tell you that that's essential.

15:34 Keep the working class happy, or there will be consequences to pay.

15:39 And I think we see this in the late Bronze Age collapse,

15:45 especially if internal rebellions are a greater

15:48 factor than we have thought even till today.

15:52 And even now, I would say we need to look around and ask,

15:57 you know, are we keeping the working class happy?

16:00 And if not, what's going to happen?

16:02 Right?

16:02 And if people point to all sorts

16:04 of things like the Russian Revolution and the French

16:07 Revolution and all of that, we've seen what

16:11 happens if the working class is not happy.

16:14 So I think that that is, again,

16:17 that would be my last of the common sense takeaways,

16:21 but surely we can add to it.

16:23 I mean, I think we could probably easily get up to a top 10,

16:27 but for right now, I've got a top seven.

16:30 One of the things we need to be worried about is the tipping point.

16:35 When are we going to reach the point of no return for ourselves?

16:40 Are there warning signs?

16:41 I do think there were warning signs back in the late Bronze Age.

16:45 We know that the Egyptians, for example,

16:47 were trying to cross-breed their cattle, their normal cattle with Zebu or Zebu

16:53 cattle who thrive better in arid conditions.

16:56 Is there anything we can do today if we notice

17:01 signs warning us that we may be approaching a societal collapse,

17:06 that there might be a tipping point coming up soon?

17:10 I think we've already got some of the signs out there.

17:14 Not everybody believes them, but I do think they are there.

17:17 I think the extreme climate, the weather conditions,

17:21 is one of the signs that we're approaching, possibly a tipping point.

17:26 But we've also got other things that some may or may not remember.

17:31 Back during the pandemic, when we had all sorts of supply

17:36 chain issues and had trouble getting toilet paper, that was a systemic problem.

17:42 I think kind of a warning of what might come.

17:47 The ship that got stuck in the Suez Canal for five or six days,

17:55 that I think was also a problem.

17:59 It really drove home the fact that one ship stuck

18:03 in one canal can affect people worldwide for a week or more.

18:09 Imagine if you had that at the same time as some of the other problems.

18:15 We might have been looking at a systems collapse very quickly.

18:20 And in fact, one of the things I am now wondering about,

18:25 back in 2008, we had the Wall Street financial crisis.

18:30 What if that crisis had happened 10 years later, or a dozen years later?

18:36 What if we had had the Wall Street financial problems

18:40 at the same time that COVID was hitting or beginning to hit?

18:44 What if they had both happened in about 2020?

18:48 I'm not so sure that we would be sitting here today.

18:53 I think we might be scrambling in the ruins of our globalized network.

18:59 I think we might have come this close to our tipping point,

19:04 and we're lucky that they were 10 or 12 years apart.

19:07 So I don't think we're out of the woods yet,

19:10 and I really do think that when people say to me, "Oh, we can't collapse.

19:17 We're too big to collapse.

19:19 We're too big to fail." And I answer it, "No, we're not.

19:25 That's hubristic.

19:26 Every society in the history

19:28 of humankind has either collapsed eventually, completely,

19:33 or has transformed so much that they're almost unrecognizable in their new form.

19:38 And to say that that's not going to happen to us,

19:43 I think is just foolish, hubristic for sure.

19:45 So when people say to me, "Are we going to collapse?" I look at them and I say,

19:51 "Yes, we are going to collapse.

19:53 The question is when are we going to collapse?"

19:55 And for that, I don't have an answer.

19:58 It could be next week.

19:59 It could be next year.

20:00 It could be 10 years from now.

20:02 It could be 50 years from now.

20:03 But I am sure that at some point we are going to collapse or have to transform.

20:08 I mean, maybe AI is going to create it and cause it right now.

20:12 But who knows?

20:13 My big question to those that are asking

20:16 me is to ask them back when we collapse, how are we going to deal with it?

20:23 Are we going to be fragile?

20:25 Are we going to be vulnerable?

20:28 Are we going to be anti-fragile?

20:30 In the aftermath of our society collapse, are we going to be Phoenicians?

20:35 Or are we going to be my cenaeans?

20:39 And I personally am a bit worried.

20:42 As an archaeologist, I look back.

20:45 I tell my students that they are the next generation and they

20:49 are going to be inheriting all of the problems we have created.

20:53 We know that.

20:55 I am not saying anything new.

20:57 But this is where archaeology, I think, can be of use.

21:02 And especially archaeology when it is applied to ancient history.

21:06 Because if we are willing to listen and to learn from the past,

21:12 then we can deal with what is happening in the present.

21:16 And that will affect our future.

21:19 Otherwise, we are just doomed to repeat the past again and again and again.

21:26 And personally, I think we are smarter than that.

21:32 But I may be wrong.

21:35 Let's hope I am right.

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