Until now, the abrupt population decline that Europe suffered some 2,900 years ago was attributed by many historians and archaeologists to inclement weather : the climate became wetter and colder, and this would have had a negative impact on crops and livestock in the ancient settlers of the Old Continent.
But according to a study just published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences , this “horseman of the apocalypse” was not the main culprit in the debacle.
The researchers, from various universities in the UK and Ireland, analyzed 2,000 radiocarbon dates, taken from hundreds of Irish archaeological sites, using new statistical methods. They then compared the data with evidence of climate change that supposedly affected northwestern Europe between 1200 and 500 BC. His conclusion is that there was a decline in human activity from 900 BC. C., which accelerated around 800 a. C., but the hardening of the meteorological conditions happened two generations later.
According to Ian Armit, professor of Archeology at the University of Bradford (England) and director of the study, the decline was due rather to the social and economic tensions caused by the advent of iron metallurgy . This innovation ruined the hierarchical structures established to produce bronze, since obtaining its components (copper and tin) required a complex organization, dominated by a warrior elite, and long displacements. However, climate change probably later helped make the situation worse.
