logo
episode-header-image
Feb 2021
56m 37s

What Happened After Civilization Collaps...

NPR
About this episode
What happens after everything falls apart? The end of the Bronze Age was a moment when an entire network of ancient civilizations collapsed, leaving behind only clues to what happened. Today, scholars have pieced together a story where everything from climate change to mass migration to natural disasters played a role. What the end of the Bronze Age can teach us about avoiding catastrophe and what comes after collapse.

See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for sponsorship and to manage your podcast sponsorship preferences.

NPR Privacy Policy
Up next
Yesterday
Why American public schools are still broken
In 1966, the federal government commissioned a massive survey aimed at solving educational inequality. Instead, the explosive Coleman Report unleashed a 60-year debate over race, resources, and what education in America is actually for. This is the story of how the report came to ... Show More
36m 49s
Sep 1
The SAT's 100-year grip on higher ed
For generations, the SAT has loomed large in the lives of teenagers. The quest for a perfect or near-perfect score has filled many test takers with dread. In this episode, a listener's question makes us wonder... who decided the SAT was the best and brightest way to filter studen ... Show More
18m 56s
Aug 27
The pillage that fueled America's tech booms
Cobalt mining is one of the world's most dangerous jobs. And it's also one of the most essential: cobalt is what powers the batteries in your smartphone, your laptop, the electric car you felt good about buying. More than three-quarters of the world's cobalt supply lies in the De ... Show More
52m 18s
Recommended Episodes
Nov 2022
The end of civilisation: Bronze Age collapse
More than 3,000 years ago a group of powerful and intricately connected Mediterranean kingdoms collapsed over the course of just a few decades. The palaces of Mycenaean Greece were destroyed, entire cities in Hittite Turkey were abandoned, and whole empires disintegrated. Some ci ... Show More
41m 48s
Jan 2019
2. The Bronze Age Collapse - Mediterranean Apocalypse
Around the year 1100 BC, a wave of destruction washed over the Eastern Mediterranean. It wiped whole civilizations off the map, and left only ash and ruin in its wake. This catastrophe, known as “the Late Bronze Age Collapse”, has become one of the enduring puzzles of history. I ... Show More
1h 4m
Jan 2024
The Bronze Age Collapse
<p>The Bronze Age Collapse was one of the most cataclysmic events in human history. Over just a few decades, civilisations across the Mediterranean from Greece and Egypt to Mesopotamia and Babylon abruptly deteriorated, bringing an end to one epoch and birthing another. But what ... Show More
51m 9s
Aug 2024
The Bronze Age Collapse
<p>Around 3,200 years ago, a vast, interconnected civilisation suddenly collapsed. A 'perfect storm' of climate catastrophe, famine, drought and invasion tore apart the eastern Mediterranean, plunging the survivors into decades of turmoil.</p><br><p>Eric Cline is the author of '1 ... Show More
41m 24s
Apr 2023
What Caused the Late Bronze Age Collapse?
Humans’ first attempt at civilization went pretty well for the first thousand years. Important stuff like the wheel, writing, math, art, and diplomacy came out of it. But then, in the blink of an historical eye, it all mysteriously failed. What happened?See omnystudio.com/listene ... Show More
47m 58s
Jun 2016
The Bronze Age Collapse
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss The Bronze Age Collapse, the name given by many historians to what appears to have been a sudden, uncontrolled destruction of dominant civilizations around 1200 BC in the Aegean, Eastern Mediterranean and Anatolia. Among other areas, there were gre ... Show More
47m 12s
Jul 2024
Birth of the Iron Age
<p>It’s the end of the 12th century BC, and a once remarkable Near eastern world lay in ruin. Drought, warfare, famine, earthquakes, plague - all had combined to brutally devastate ancient civilisations stretching from Mesopotamia to Egypt to mainland Greece.&nbsp;</p><br><p>It w ... Show More
1h 2m
Nov 2023
Göbekli Tepe and the Prophecy of Pillar 43 | Apocalypse and the Vulture Stone
We are the descendants of an ancient civilization; one which mastered technology, mapped the cosmos, and understood our relationship with the natural world.Our ancestors traveled the world and built enormous structures. They scaled their creations into cities.They shared a common ... Show More
1 h
Jan 2020
Vol 3 Ep 6 - Ancient Greece: Dark Age and Archaic Greece
1200 - 600 BCE - Exactly what did happen in Greece after the Late Bronze Age Collapse and the disappearance of the Mycenaean culture, and what are poleis? 
42m 4s
Dec 2019
Did Climate Cause the Collapse of the Maya?
<p>After millennia of development, the Maya culture suddenly collapsed at its peak. Why is one of the biggest mysteries of history. One theory says catastrophic climate change was the cause. And it may have happened to other cultures too.</p><p> </p> Learn more about your ad-choi ... Show More
43m 45s