User blog:SensibleCenobite/Bronze age collapse.

'''WARNING: These are some observations I’ve made over the years while studying history. Suitable for sires and neonates. '''

I’m an amateur history buff and like Beckett's history talks about the book of Nod and hunters VS farmers. I really like the time period when we figured out how to make bronze, which is a mixture of 90% copper and 10% tin. Now copper back then was really plentiful, but it was the tin that was hard to get. The most reliable source of tin came from Afghanistan before something caused the system to collapse. The main theories seem to indicate that it was a combination of local climate change in Greece which lead to crop failure, a volcano explosion a little before that, invention of iron weapons, disease, and a band of pirates raiding the Mediterranean called the “sea people.” Whatever caused it, probably all of the above, most of the area collapsed except for a few city states. The Egyptians managed to ward off the "sea people" and write about it.

Consequence of bronze on community sizes, health, industry, and trade:  

Before bronze was mass produced, most villages had about two hundred fifty people or so on average. After bronze, we see the erecting of huge city states that could hold fifty to seventy thousand citizens on average. We were able to make better plows, chains, spears, jewelry, and new crescent shaped ingots to represent currency. Before the copper and brass ingot, money was represented with goods like cloth, pottery, cattle, and food stuffs. The problem with all the above is that they break or rot over time, devaluing them quickly. Ingots found on the bottom of the ocean from over a thousand years ago are still intact with some rusting. Fourtunes start to sky rocket all over the region from all the trade routes being opened. Modern long term family inheritance was born out of this in my OPINION.

The harvesting of grains lead to tooth decay and obesity. If you look at the fossil record, people were way healthier before city states began to form. Instead of relying on exercising to take down the healthiest pray and living on seasonal fruits and vegetables we turned to sedentary communities. We turned from wolves and squirrels [hunter/gathers] to hyenas and mice [scavengers/hoarders].

Before murder was invented:

Before the invention of “murder” as a political solution, city states used to just go into another city state and subjugate them a little after causing some property damages. Like a football match instead of a pitched battle. Around the bronze age, we see city states start to adopt “murder” to solve their problems. Because of the timing of murder's invention, the spear has killed more people in human history than any other weapon.

In addition, copper and bronze weapons are very smooth and have antiseptic properties. This means they don’t cause as much infection that could spread during war. Iron weapons are porous by contrast, causing a lot of infection and disease. More murder via iron weapons and disease in tandem could have instigated mass disease in communities around major battle fields perhaps?

Final thoughts:

It seems that the creation of bronze followed by iron allowed efficient crop production, animal husbandry, city state development, poor health, inheritance, murder, and war to flourish. Oil from Afghanistan is critical for “global” economics like tin used to be during the bronze age. Is there some ancient creature of the night out there in Afghanistan summoning us? If that source of oil goes for some reason, does an economic collapse like the bronze age ensue? If it’s anything like what happened to Mesopotamia, we would be on some hard times for sure.

Beckett, let me know if you have any thoughts on this,

Sensible Cenobite





