Post-collapse social trajectories: the late Bronze Age - early Iron Age interface in the Eastern Mediterranean

© 2014 Dr. Roderick WhiteIt is the contention of this thesis that the post-collapse social trajectories of ancient agrarian societies were shaped by a combination of structural, geographic and regional factors. Moreover, it is argued that these trajectories were influenced by a combination of the structure of the socio-political network, the geographic distribution of that network, as well as the nature of the stresses being experienced. This nuanced approach does not shoe-horn societies into a generic pattern. Rather it contends that the interplay of various factors and circumstances need to be assessed on an individual basis. Based on this reasoning, it is proposed that the geographical overlap between the distribution of the collapse inducing stresses and the distribution of the society’s socio-political network determines whether a society disintegrates or fragments. This internal view of the forces at work on a society is complemented by also taking into account external regional influences and any changes to the surrounding regional socio-political environment. The effect of post-collapse power vacuums, trade restructurings and population movements in shaping surviving or regenerating socio-political structures are part of the mix and also examined. A Layered-Node Network model, which combines the structural characteristics of a society and the socio-economic forces at play, is proposed as a means of analysing and understanding the complex forces at work on post-collapse societies. A computer simulation of regional migration was also developed to investigate settlement patterns and post-collapse regional population movements. These models were applied to three Late Bronze Age complex societies which are considered to have collapsed. Five settlements which demonstrated a variety of post-collapse social trajectories were selected as case studies. They represented the societies of Mycenaean Greece, the city-state of Ugarit, and the Hittite Empire