Disappearing Civilizations?

I've been reading about Mesoamerican civilizations, after posting my thread concerning how one could have developed to European levels, and I've come across the disturbing (although probably well known) trend of them just disappearing. The Olmecs, for instance...

I have heard of the disappearing civilization of Greater ZSimbabwe in Africa. However, the Eurasian Continent (as opposed to sub-saharan Africa and the New World) semmed to be relativelty immune to whole civilizations just disappearing. (Okay, the Dark Ages came close, but still weren't as extreme as occured in sub-Saharan africa with Greater Zimbabwe or the Americas with the Olmecs.)

So, any hints as to what this difference might be? Why did urban civilizations seem to develop on other continents and continually disappear, while survivning the ravages of war / plague / climate shift in Eurasia...


It's quite odd, to me...that a city-building people would go back to living as primitives in the forest, but in Africa and the New World, it seemed to have been chosen as an option to adversity while in Eursia / Middle East it seemed to result in slavery / new culture absorbing the knowledge instead....


(And there's proof that the Olmecs were literate, and its likely that the Greater Zimbabwe folks were too, although not as certain. Altough the Olmex were stone age and the Greater Zimbabwer folks were Iron age...for whatever that is worth.)

Well, I don't know almost anything about Great Zimbawe, ...and very little about the Olmecs. But I don't think the Olmecs disappeared without a trace. It is quite likely that they played an important roll in the sucesor civilizations of the Mayans and the Teotihuacanos. At least the idea of writting didn't dissapeared in Mesoamerica after the fall of the Olmecs! (And maybe writting didn't either9

Whearas during the Greek Dark Ages, it is believed that writting disappeared completely. Mycenic script dissapeared, and was replaced by no other for 400 years.

Concerning what you say about abandoning cities, I think that with the Olmecs and the Mayans it was always a small minority who lived in cities. Foir the vast mayority of the people, the peasants who lived around the cities, their way of living probably didn't change that much. Of course, in the case of Teotihuacan, what you say does apply, as this was a "real" city, witth tens of thousands of dwellers.

I think that what's important to bear in mind is that the tech levels of the Americas was similar to the one Eurosia had around 2000 BC, at the most. And probably an earlier one. We really don't know how many civilizations disappeared in Eurasia in those days. But some certainly did, as the Indus Valley's civilization, who had also a script. (The region probably saw no script after a thousand years)

And probably many more did in Eurasia between 4000 and 2000 BC.But, a new civilization usually arrised in the same lands, as it did in the Americas. Maybe it took hundred of years, but it arrised. A civilization which retook at least some of the technics invented by the previous one.

But lots of Old World civilizations did disappear.
The book "The End of the Bronze Age. Changes in Warfare and the Catastrophe CA. 1200 BC" lists no fewer than 47 major sites destroyed in the Catastrophe. Sites in Greece, Crete, Anatolia, Cyprus, Syria, and the Southern Levant.

Maybe part of the process of civilization growth meant that complete failure is a very real possibly in the early stages.

AirshipArmada said:

But lots of Old World civilizations did disappear.
The book "The End of the Bronze Age. Changes in Warfare and the Catastrophe CA. 1200 BC" lists no fewer than 47 major sites destroyed in the Catastrophe. Sites in Greece, Crete, Anatolia, Cyprus, Syria, and the Southern Levant.

Maybe part of the process of civilization growth meant that complete failure is a very real possibly in the early stages.

Click to expand...

Tartessos is an example...
What's the Catastrophy? A natural disaster?

Communist Wizard said:

What's the Catastrophy? A natural disaster?

Click to expand...

No one know for certain, just that lots of advanced states failed at roughly the same time. The book's author (Robert Drews) speculates that a change in military tactics meant that cheap barbarian infantry could easily destroy expensive civilized chariots and the advanced states were not able to cope. The exceptions being Egypt and (I think) Assyria. Assyria regularly had to fight mountain peoples so they didn't rely on the chariot as much as other states did. And Egypt was rich and powerful enough to resist regardless (but the era marks the end of the biggest temple building).

Whatever the cause, several civilizations ceased to exist: Zimbabwe and the Omecs are not lone examples.

AirshipArmada said:

No one know for certain, just that lots of advanced states failed at roughly the same time. The book's author (Robert Drews) speculates that a change in military tactics meant that cheap barbarian infantry could easily destroy expensive civilized chariots and the advanced states were not able to cope. The exceptions being Egypt and (I think) Assyria. Assyria regularly had to fight mountain peoples so they didn't rely on the chariot as much as other states did. And Egypt was rich and powerful enough to resist regardless (but the era marks the end of the biggest temple building).

Whatever the cause, several civilizations ceased to exist: Zimbabwe and the Omecs are not lone examples.

Click to expand...

Interesting, very interesting... I'm beggining to like ancient history more and more...

Just a theory of mine, but I've long thought the relative resilience of European/North African/Middle Eastern civilizations when compared with certain other regions has a lot to do with the Mediterranean trade routes. The links between different Mediterranean civilizations probably helped all around: Mycenaean civilization may have collapsed, but Egypt was still kicking. In some ways, I suspect this helped keep any civilization from totally disappearing. Certainly this is true later on, where the survival of the Eastern Roman Empire ensured the survival of various cultural artifacts of the Western Roman Empire, which were ultimately restored to the west after several centuries of population decline and political instability.

I'm not as well versed in the history of Great Zimbabwe or the Olmec civilization. And I know that the latter was far from the only Mesoamerican civilization at the time: the Zapotecs go back at least that far, don't they? And, to support what Admiral Brown was saying, it's my understanding that there's a good chance that Mayan writing is directly descended from Olmec writing, which puts it ahead of Mycenaeans and Linear B. So I may be completely off-base here. But it's just a thought.

AirshipArmada said:

No one know for certain, just that lots of advanced states failed at roughly the same time. The book's author (Robert Drews) speculates that a change in military tactics meant that cheap barbarian infantry could easily destroy expensive civilized chariots and the advanced states were not able to cope. The exceptions being Egypt and (I think) Assyria. Assyria regularly had to fight mountain peoples so they didn't rely on the chariot as much as other states did. And Egypt was rich and powerful enough to resist regardless (but the era marks the end of the biggest temple building).

Whatever the cause, several civilizations ceased to exist: Zimbabwe and the Omecs are not lone examples.

Click to expand...

Actually there's some evidence to suggest that it was a comet impact....

Well if you look at paleo-climatology, (and a good author on this topic is Brian Fagan) you'll see that there was a change in climate around the world at the time (i think it was cooling its been a while since i read his books) and which caused a series of droughts, which due to the close links that civilization had to localized agriculture, doomed those civilizations that survived on more marginal agricultural land (Greece and the Hittites are examples of that as the agriculture of both depended on localized small rivers, unlike Mesopotamia and Egypt that had good rivers to draw upon). I dont know a lot about the Olmecs but the drought in the Middle East sent barbarians searching for additional food sources in more settled lands. So civilizations disappear for a lot of reasons agriculture being only one. (not sure where i'm going with this so im going to stop now)

I don't fully agree with all of Jared's GGS ideas, but I would point out that the American and African Empires had much less of a Hinterland.
The Eurasian civilizations, could collaspe and be replaced by The semi-ciliviled Neighbors on the outskirts,
The Oltecs in the Isthmus, or the Greater Zimbabwe in the south of Africa had no such Neighbors.

I'm brought to mind of the Flood Myth. Some folks posit that , at least according to this theory,

Ryan-Pitman Theory

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_Sea_deluge_theory

Sorry I'm computer tarded, It implies that there might very well have been a proto civilisation, that pre-dated Mesopo/Egyption civilisation.

I have seen some shows on tv, and archeological articles that seem to imply that the Black Sea was originally a fresh water lake with settlements on its shores. Some form of failure in OTL Bosphorous Straits than led to the flooding and wiping out of said peoples. This offers interesting possibilities to explain the Flood myth, and might even offer teasing reasons to the Myth of Atlantis.

I don't claim to be an Anthropologist, but some of the evidence mentioned in the articles and programs were pretty well documented and articulate, with evidence of occupation by humans at a level far below the current surface of the Black Sea.

Its just my two cents, but the wide spread of the Flood Myth is quite an enigma in my mind. IMO, there is probably a bit of truth to every myth, especially the wider it seems to have spread.

Just thought I'd fling that

Might religion/tradition play a part? I don't know much about the Olmecs, but from what I gather of the Aztecs, they were fatalist and ultraconservative. Basically, they'd already invented everything worth note, and everything that happened was the gods' will. To strive to improve your situation was almost a heresy in itself. Kinda like the Imperium in Warhammer 40,000, if you'll pardon a suspect analogy.

This also explains how they could have a more advanced astrology and stonecutting craft (among other things) than the Europeans when they were discovered but still be on a general Stone Age level. A civilisation that wasn't progressing technologically, or only in slow and very limited way.

Might the same be the case with the Olmecs and these other "lost" civilisations?

AirshipArmada said:

No one know for certain, just that lots of advanced states failed at roughly the same time. The book's author (Robert Drews) speculates that a change in military tactics meant that cheap barbarian infantry could easily destroy expensive civilized chariots and the advanced states were not able to cope. The exceptions being Egypt and (I think) Assyria. Assyria regularly had to fight mountain peoples so they didn't rely on the chariot as much as other states did. And Egypt was rich and powerful enough to resist regardless (but the era marks the end of the biggest temple building).

Whatever the cause, several civilizations ceased to exist: Zimbabwe and the Omecs are not lone examples.

Click to expand...

My first thought was that this was suspiciously close to the eruption of Thera. However, checking shows that to have happened 400 years earlier.

Admiral Canaris said:

Might religion/tradition play a part? I don't know much about the Olmecs, but from what I gather of the Aztecs, they were fatalist and ultraconservative. Basically, they'd already invented everything worth note, and everything that happened was the gods' will. To strive to improve your situation was almost a heresy in itself. Kinda like the Imperium in Warhammer 40,000, if you'll pardon a suspect analogy.

This also explains how they could have a more advanced astrology and stonecutting craft (among other things) than the Europeans when they were discovered but still be on a general Stone Age level. A civilisation that wasn't progressing technologically, or only in slow and very limited way.

Might the same be the case with the Olmecs and these other "lost" civilisations?

Click to expand...

Lots of civilisations and tribes have this attitude. Notice f.x. the vast difference between some tribes in Papua New Guinea and how some native americans reacted compared to others about the arrival of white men.

I think though in the case of Mesoamerica where there were several cultures other than Aztecs they were simply stuck in a loop. It's difficult to go to the next step without having horses f.x.

Personally, I always thought the lack of seafaring tech hurt the Native Americans even more than the lack of horses. I might want to make a TL on that if I ever get the time and energy.

I have a book on African history that discusses Zimbabwe in detail. First of all, the ruins aren't all that old. While the site itself has been occupied since the early Iron age, the large impressive ruins are contemporary with medieval Europe. The history of the place is somewhat known. Basically, the kingdom grew up in control of quite a few gold mines, and prospered by trading with the cities on the SE coast (who traded with both India and China). Zimbabwe eventually covered an extensive area, and became almost legendary to the coastal people. Two blows brought the kingdom down. The first was fairly minor, and was when China stopped it's trade in the region. But the second was devastating... Portugal's conquest of SE Africa and parts of India. They totally disrupted the trade routes and cut off Zimbabwe's source of trade wealth. From then on, Zimbabwe declined in power and size, to final extinction. The Zulus swept through the area and blotted out almost everyone who remained. Later on, British explorers found the ruins of Great Zimbabwe and wondered just who in the hell built it.
But Zimbabwe didn't really just 'disappear'... we know when and why it fell. The Portuguese had heard of the kingdom and the city when they conquered the coast, although there's no evidence they ever went there.....

Crete and Scythia.

Sumer , Davidic Israel, the Hittites, and the Indus Valley

Actually, we can get hung up on individual "empires" and "kingdoms" and miss the fact that "civilizations" are much broader. MesoAmerican civilization - or the temporarily most poweful and innovative parts of this Civilization - moved around Mexico and Central America over 1000 years, and sometimes had multiple expressions at the same time. The Olmecs,Teotihuacan, the Toltecs, Oaxaca, Tarasca, the Aztecs, and the Mayan area were all close variatons of the same theme, in the same way that France, Spain, Italy, England are expressions of the same theme.

The more interesting and controversial question from the cultural evolutionary perspective is why the Old World civilizations kept evolving and piggy backing on each other to evolve into ever more powerful, technologically sohisticated, politically evolved, literate, and intellectually changing civilizations, where Meso America (and Peru for that matter) reached a level about 2000 years ago roughly equivalent to early Mesopotamia and stopped.

Diamond is on to something, with his ideas of temperate climate bands and effective trade but it is certainly more complex than his simple climatological and geographical determinism would have it.

Kaptin Kurk said:

It's quite odd, to me...that a city-building people would go back to living as primitives in the forest, but in Africa and the New World, it seemed to have been chosen as an option to adversity while in Eursia / Middle East it seemed to result in slavery / new culture absorbing the knowledge instead....

Click to expand...

Also, it is important to remember that the overwhelming majority of people living in the Maya area or Mexico did not "go back" to being primitives. They already were. They were simple neolithic farmers, illiterate, and probably got as much of their subsustence from their own crops and hunting as from trips to the Tikal Kwikee Mart. Unfortunately for them, they also got the dubious honor of being drafted to build pyramids, fight wars, or get captured as sacrificial victims. The people who designed the cities, created the markets, carved the statues, and invented and used written language were the nobility and artisans who were either nobles themselves or supported by the nobility. There were a few professional merchants and tradesmen, but they were equally dependent on the nobility. When the nobility collapsed and the cities fell into ruin, the "primitives" just kept on doing what they were already doing - and this what half the villages today in Mexico with unpronounceable names are.

zoomar said:

Sumer , Davidic Israel, the Hittites, and the Indus Valley

Actually, we can get hung up on individual "empires" and "kingdoms" and miss the fact that "civilizations" are much broader. MesoAmerican civilization - or the temporarily most poweful and innovative parts of this Civilization - moved around Mexico and Central America over 1000 years, and sometimes had multiple expressions at the same time. The Olmecs,Teotihuacan, the Toltecs, Oaxaca, Tarasca, the Aztecs, and the Mayan area were all close variatons of the same theme, in the same way that France, Spain, Italy, England are expressions of the same theme.

The more interesting and controversial question from the cultural evolutionary perspective is why the Old World civilizations kept evolving and piggy backing on each other to evolve into ever more powerful, technologically sohisticated, politically evolved, literate, and intellectually changing civilizations, where Meso America (and Peru for that matter) reached a level about 2000 years ago roughly equivalent to early Mesopotamia and stopped.

Diamond is on to something, with his ideas of temperate climate bands and effective trade but it is certainly more complex than his simple climatological and geographical determinism would have it.

Click to expand...

If it wasn't for a series of accidents we would be no more advanced today then possibly Rome of Caesar.
If Europe hadn't suffered the Plague they would have stayed stagnant in the mid ages. If Arab Spain hadn't fallen to it's own corruption. The Europeans would have never learned the sciences they needed to start down the path they did. Then there was the wealth of the Americas to sustain western Europe. The next leap of technological development was by the Japanese. Miniaturization! If the Japanese hadn't come up with transistors we would be stuck in the fifties, if not reverting.