Environmental Change and Human Adaptational Failure at the End of the Early Bronze Age in the Southern Levant

Abstract

Failure to adapt to changing climatic conditions can be as much a social problem as a technological one. This is illustrated by the collapse of Early Bronze Age society in the southern Levant. The agricultural system which supported these socially stratified communities was adapted to floodwater farming of cereals and the production of cash crops including olives and grapes. The climatic change at the end of the third millennium BC resulted in a decrease in precipitation which led to lowered stream base levels, and the hydraulic regime changed from an aggrading system to one of stream incision. Floodwater farming was no longer possible, yields became lower and less predictable, leading to the collapse of the agricultural sector. Technological change to a system of canal irrigation from springs would have maintained higher yields, and such a system was indeed used by Middle Bronze Age inhabitants in the same marginal environment. Although canal irrigation was known, it was not implemented as an adaptive measure by the Early Bronze Age society. Some of the reasons for this failure to adapt might include slow response time in the perception of catastrophe, the ability of the elite managers to profit from short-term environmental stress, and the direction of energy toward increased religious activity rather than technological change.