2. From Crisis to Collapse in Hunter-Gatherer Societies

Although we generally think of social collapse in terms of ‘civilisations ’ - i.e. settled if not urban societies, we can see here that the fundamentals of crisis & collapse are relevant also with hunter gatherer groups. This chapter places the impact of three large volcanic events - the Aniakchak eruption (- 1645 BC) in Alaska, the Mazama eruption (—5630 BC) in western North America, and the Laacher See eruption (-11,000 BC) in western Europe - on past hunter-gatherer societies in comparativ..