Peter Nimitz: the end of the first civilizations 4,300 years ago
Nov 15, 2023
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Peter Nimitz discusses the crisis of the 23rd century, a massive climatic shift that transformed Eurasia and Africa. Topics include the impact of the Yamnaya expansion on Neolithic civilizations, the genetic lineage of Armenians and the Caucasus region, the decline of ancient civilizations, the influence of Iran on Baluchistan, and a forthcoming project on the Bronze Age collapse in Siberia, India, East Africa, and Europe.
The crisis of the 23rd century BC led to cultural and population shifts in civilizations like Greece, Italy, and Mesopotamia.
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The podcast explores the impact of the crisis on different regions and civilizations, including Anatolia, Egypt, the Horn of Africa, South Asia, Siberia, and China, revealing changes in settlements, political systems, and cultural dynamics.
Deep dives
Main ideas/key points/insights 1
The crisis of the 23rd century BC impacted various civilizations, such as Greece, Italy, and Mesopotamia, causing cultural and population shifts.
Main ideas/key points/insights 2
Genetic testing is being used more frequently to determine the risk of diseases like cancer and birth defects, and companies like Orchid offer whole genome testing for embryos.
Main ideas/key points/insights 3
The podcast episode explores the crisis of the 23rd century BC, which impacted civilizations such as Mesopotamia, Greece, and Italy, leading to cultural changes and population shifts.
Main ideas/key points/insights 4
The podcast episode delves into the interactions of various ancient civilizations, such as the Sumerians and the Accadians, and how they were affected by environmental factors and conflicts during the time period.
Effects of the Crisis of the 23rd Century on Different Regions
The podcast episode discusses the impact of the crisis of the 23rd century on various regions, including Anatolia, Egypt, the Horn of Africa, South Asia, Siberia, and China. In Anatolia and Egypt, despite a decline in population and archaeological sites, political systems remained intact, and surviving settlements became larger and more monumental. In the Horn of Africa, distinct populations with different languages and ways of life emerged, including the Emotic-speaking highland people, pygmy-related groups around Lake Turkana, and coastal beachcomber people. The crisis brought changes to these groups, such as the decline of the Khoi-San hunter-gatherers due to lake level decline and the arrival of pastoral nomadic communities. South Asia experienced changes in its river valley civilizations, such as the decline of the Indus Valley civilization and the rise of dominant pastoral groups in the Deccan. Siberia saw the rise of the Ymiakhta people who thrived in the far north, dominated other groups, and even hunted mammoths. China witnessed shifts in its river valleys, with cultural and political changes as a result of invasions and rivalries between different groups.
Collapse and Adaptation in Times of Crisis
The podcast also highlights how different regions and civilizations responded and adapted to the crisis of the 23rd century. Despite challenges, some regions managed to adapt and survive. For example, Anatolia and Egypt demonstrated resilience and political strength, with larger settlements and more prominent monuments. In the Horn of Africa, groups like the coastal beachcombers, highland people, and pygmy-related populations encountered shifts in their ways of life due to environmental changes and the arrival of pastoralists. South Asia showcased the resilience of its river valley civilizations, with some groups like the Dravidians potentially migrating south and joining the Indus Valley civilization. Siberia saw the emergence of the Ymiakhta people, who developed new strategies to dominate the far north. China experienced significant transformations, including the collapse of certain civilizations and the rise of new cultural and political orders in different river valleys. Overall, the episode emphasizes how regions and civilizations responded in diverse ways to crisis, highlighting both collapse and adaptation.
On this episode of Unsupervised Learning Razib talks to Peter Nimitz about what he memorably calls the crisis of the 23rd century. Most people know of the fall of Rome, and the subsequent European Dark Ages. And because of scholars like Eric Cline, today growing numbers are aware of the civilizational collapse at the end of the Bronze Age, when an incipient global civilization enfolding everything from the shores of the eastern Mediterranean to Mesopotamia was torn apart by climate change and invasion. But before Rome, before the Hittites, the third millennium BC saw a climatic shock that seems to have abruptly transformed all Eurasia and Africa. There have long been glimmers of this upheaval; historical texts record chaos in Sumer and Akkad, while in Egypt the Old Kingdom fell. But today the toolkit of archaeology can illuminate far more, and is making clear that a massive climatic shift toppled fragile empires and transformed cultures. Some areas of Eurasia, like China, seem to have experienced massive drought. Others, like Siberia, became even colder, with regions becoming ever more inhospitable to human occupation.
And now Nimitz has reviewed what we know region by region in a magisterial post, Crisis of the 23rd Century: Upheavals from Spain to the Yangtze. Razib presses him about the contrast between the three peninsulas of Southern Europe: the Iberian, Italian and Balkan, and how they each experienced the intrusion of Indo-Europeans during this period (informed by ancient DNA findings). They also discuss the potential divide between Corded Ware and non-Corded Ware Indo-European migrations, and how that shook out across Eurasia. Then they touch upon the civilizational hearths of the Near East, and the wholesale transformation that occurred at this moment culturally and demographically in the Horn of Africa. Finally they sweep eastward, into Siberia, Central Asia and finally China, where new cultures arose and old civilizations collapsed in the centuries after the crisis of the 23rd century.
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