Evidence for the Culprit in the Late Bronze Age Collapse in the Levant

[Minimalist]

Drought.

https://www.academia.edu/6053886/Climate...ern_Levant

The integration of well-dated, high resolution southern Levant environmental history based on a pollen record with archaeological and textual evidence from the entire eastern Mediterranean region enables us to dene the possible causes and duration of the Late
Bronze collapse.

Cold spells in the northern areas of the eastern Mediterranean and decrease in precipitation across the entire region had devastating effects on agriculture productivity and grazing opportunities. Such climatic pressure led to increased food prices and to social tensions due to competition for limited recourses. Groups in the north were forced to move to lands with more hospitable conditions in search of food, leaving a path of destruction and disorder and causing disruption in trade. Pastoral nomads, who depended on surplus grain in the sedentary communities, were especially vulnerable.

The long-term climatic changes inuenced the stability of the organized kingdoms in the region and led to systemic collapse of the previously well-integrated complex societies in the eastern Mediterranean, depopulation of large areas, urban abandonments and long-distance migration.

Wetter conditions in the southern Levant during the Iron I was the backdrop for the dramatic intensication of settlement in the highlands of the region. Two centuries later these new settlement systems gave birth to the two Hebrew kingdoms and other biblical nations—the Arameans in Syria and the Ammonites and Moabites in Transjordan.

Drought conditions caused the migrations/invasions of the Sea Peoples into the regions held by the Bronzed Age Palace Cultures.