Can climate change lead to the downfall of a human society? A study published this week in the journal Nature brings this question, already mentioned for the end of the Roman or Mayan empires, up to date. This time with the example of the Hittite empire, which reigned over Anatolia, straddling present-day Turkey and Syria, 3,000 years ago.
The change was brutal: over three years, from -1198 to -1196 BC. Scientists were able to identify these three years precisely, inside the trunks of junipers, recovered from an archaeological site. “They use the study of the spacings between tree rings, called dendrochronology, Emmanuel Garnier, research director at the CNRS in Besançon. Et there they spot a cooling and very dry “. “They try to cross this climatic signal with the data they have in archaeological or even textual material”, explains the scientist. Roughly speaking, during this period which is very very dry, we are witnessing a reduction in the volume of harvests, internal supply difficulties, etc… ”
Various factors
It should be added that at that time, the Hittite empire, which had dominated the region for more than 400 years, was already facing several dangers: internal political tensions, military pressure from peoples arriving by sea. So many weakening factors underlined by Alain Gioda, climate historian. “There is a revolution aspect, there is an invasion aspect, there is a drought aspect, he quotes. And you can think that economically it’s such a sophisticated society, he adds, that it didn’t take much for the fountains to stop, for the guard of the palace to no longer be assured and so finally the puzzle may fall apart.”
The Hittite puzzle collapses precisely a few years after this climatic signal spotted by researchers who are nevertheless careful not to make it the central element of this disappearance. “It is still very difficult to demonstrate by A + B that the climate plays an essential role in the collapse of a political entity. It’s a bit like the chicken and egg syndrome that appeared on first”, emphasizes Emmanuel Garnier. A debate that is all the more difficult to settle when it comes to pronouncing on periods as old as this Mediterranean world at the end of the Bronze Age.