Abstract/Summary

During the 13th and 12th centuries BCE, the prosperous Late Bronze Age (LBA) came to an end across the eastern Mediterranean (EM). At this time, the EM saw the destruction and abandonment of important sites and the demise of once-powerful Empires and state systems. Following the events of the terminal LBA, the EM entered the Early Iron Age (EIA), which saw political fragmentation and cultural devolution. Proposed explanations for the end of the LBA are contentious and subject to debate. In recent decades, the climate change hypothesis, which proposes that climate change triggered the events of the LBA-EIA transition through widespread drought and food shortages, has become popular, with several EM palaeoclimate records identifying an onset of drier and cooler conditions at ca. 3.2 ka BP. However, this theory is subject to several limitations, and so this thesis has sought to provide a nuanced re-examination of the role of climate on the LBA-EIA transition. This interdisciplinary thesis presents an examination of climate and society across the EM through the analysis of key palaeoclimate proxy data and archaeological evidence. Through the examination of a new highly resolved stable isotope record from Kocain Cave in Türkiye and existing palaeoclimate proxy records from the EM and surrounding areas, we can identify a shift to drier and cooler conditions in several proxy records around 3.2 ka BP, coinciding with the LBA-EIA transition. However, heterogeneity can be identified in climatic and socio-political conditions across the EM. Whilst climate changes may have contributed to the end of the Hittite Empire and Mycenaean Palatial System, there is no simple cause-and-effect relationship between climate and the LBA-EIA transition across the EM, as has been presented by the existing climate hypothesis. The climate hypothesis, therefore, requires significant amendments in order to address the heterogeneity of EM climate and society.