What If No bronze-age Apocalypse

I would do it but I got a TL going of exactly the opposite scenario already lol.

As I have said before, butterflying the migration of peoples based on climate change and geologic factors is ASB.

It would be nigh impossible to plausibly butterfly these events.

Make them worse? Easy.
 
Make them worse? Easy.

Or what about a scenario where some of the contributing factors are mitigated so that the collapse is much less severe like Ancient Egypt being able to successfully rebuild its' empire in the near East and stay stronger for a great deal longer (Maybe to the point where they can not only successfully resist the Libyans but also Alexander the Great down the line).
 
A Greek origin has also been argued for the Israelite tribe of Dan, and some of the points are quite compelling.
That's the second time I meet such theory.

First time I came across it was while reading Josef Flavius, when he mentioned that the Jews and the Spartans considered themselves related "by blood", by origin, by having common ancestors IIRC.
I was very surprised and took this as a funny legend, a myth.
 
Bronze age collapse seems to have been more widespread than what was known when Cline wrote his book. Since then, they've found remains of an utterly massive, Homeric-size battle, with the remains of professional, well-equipped warriors from all over Southern Europe -on the border of Denmark. About that time, it also seems that European village architecture changed, with a lot of effort spent on easily defensible hill forts. Whatever happened, it seems to have been extremely widespread.

In addition, the Atlantic megalithic culture, with standing stones, stone rows and (in Great Britain) stone circles appears to have come to an end at this exact time.

To me, the cause of this Europe-wide disruption is most likely the rise (or fall) of a great empire centered in central/northern Europe. The Celts seem like an obvious candidate, since it appears from linguistic evidence that Celts were in very close contact with early Germanic-speakers at around this time, consistent with a Celtic upper class lording it over a Germanic lower class. There is archaeological evidence as well, in the form of large amounts of clearly Celtic-style artifacts and architecture in what later were Germanic-speaking areas, all the way up to what is now Denmark.

My guess: a proto-Celtic Empire rose, and ended up dominating most of central and northwestern Europe, with displaced people being pushed outwards in all direction. One wave of these forced migrants spilled over the eastern Mediterranean Sea and became known as the "Sea Peoples", while another group of forced migrants moved west and overran the remaining Megalith builders.
 

Saphroneth

Banned
My guess: a proto-Celtic Empire rose, and ended up dominating most of central and northwestern Europe, with displaced people being pushed outwards in all direction. One wave of these forced migrants spilled over the eastern Mediterranean Sea and became known as the "Sea Peoples", while another group of forced migrants moved west and overran the remaining Megalith builders.
So basically an European version of the Mfecane?
 
So basically an European version of the Mfecane?
That's actually exactly what I was thinking of. There could have been domino-chains of displaced people radiating outward in all directions.

It also could have been triggered by the FALL of an empire, like what happened after the fall of the Hunnic empire. After the Hunnic empire fell, there was a free-for-all between tribes in its former territory, and tribes that had enough of non-stop fighting moved outward seeking greener pastures.
 
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Saphroneth

Banned
That would actually make an interesting setting for a historical novel. It's far enough back that (so long as you're not too outrageous) you can largely keep to what we know about the period, and there's scope for some interesting fictional manoeuvering as the empire ("dhá aibhneacha" for "two rivers", after the Rhine and the Elbe?) is established and then falls.
 
In addition, the Atlantic megalithic culture, with standing stones, stone rows and (in Great Britain) stone circles appears to have come to an end at this exact time.

To me, the cause of this Europe-wide disruption is most likely the rise (or fall) of a great empire centered in central/northern Europe. The Celts seem like an obvious candidate, since it appears from linguistic evidence that Celts were in very close contact with early Germanic-speakers at around this time, consistent with a Celtic upper class lording it over a Germanic lower class. There is archaeological evidence as well, in the form of large amounts of clearly Celtic-style artifacts and architecture in what later were Germanic-speaking areas, all the way up to what is now Denmark.

My guess: a proto-Celtic Empire rose, and ended up dominating most of central and northwestern Europe, with displaced people being pushed outwards in all direction. One wave of these forced migrants spilled over the eastern Mediterranean Sea and became known as the "Sea Peoples", while another group of forced migrants moved west and overran the remaining Megalith builders.

In the original thread for this topic, there were several theories that people threw around.

One of which was that the battle we see, could've been evidence of predatory migrations of peoples who might have been somewhat prepared. This would explain the professional nature that we see at the site. Namely, the troops carrying weapons of good quality and did not show the signs of levied farm life. Further, this army of dead, was made up from all sorts of areas. Thus a wandering army? Pillaging the land and capturing goods? Perhaps. This then was postulated as the professional army perhaps was faced with a coalition of villages and farming communities, who might have been able to get the edge on this professional force. This essentially looks like a site of a Roman loss in battle to one of the many tribes they battled. Albeit, with less technology than Roman warriors (do note that soldiers in this battle rode on horses and as another noted, likely is only part of the casualties as some of the bodies were gathered and buried elsewhere: so we could be looking at a truly magnificent battle).

The other possibility is something akin to what you say. A forgotten empire of sorts situated upon a vast series of tribes and groups of varied origin all across Central Europe. That, suddenly collapsed causing massive infighting akin to the fall of the Hunnic or Avar Khagnates that caused the wars and migrations of subject Germanic and Slavs across Europe and Asia Minor. The only issue with this, is the professional nature of the warriors; for me, it seems unlikely that wandering and free tribes would have acquired the weapons and varied origins of the warriors seen at the site. So, I would imagine that if the theory on the empire is true, then perhaps this was their loss to some subject tribe in the area. It would've been a monumental loss for any state or people for the time. Surely, to gather such an army of varied origins and weapon quality, would be enormously expensive for the time period.

Regardless, this period of Europe MUST be more explored and investigated. Let us not forget, that the Hittites remained silent for thousands of years to resurface in the last 100 years. Everything is open and possible, my friends.
 
[...] This then was postulated as the professional army perhaps was faced with a coalition of villages and farming communities, who might have been able to get the edge on this professional force. This essentially looks like a site of a Roman loss in battle to one of the many tribes they battled. Albeit, with less technology than Roman warriors (do note that soldiers in this battle rode on horses and as another noted, likely is only part of the casualties as some of the bodies were gathered and buried elsewhere: so we could be looking at a truly magnificent battle).

The other possibility is something akin to what you say. A forgotten empire of sorts situated upon a vast series of tribes and groups of varied origin all across Central Europe. That, suddenly collapsed causing massive infighting akin to the fall of the Hunnic or Avar Khagnates that caused the wars and migrations of subject Germanic and Slavs across Europe and Asia Minor. The only issue with this, is the professional nature of the warriors; for me, it seems unlikely that wandering and free tribes would have acquired the weapons and varied origins of the warriors seen at the site. So, I would imagine that if the theory on the empire is true, then perhaps this was their loss to some subject tribe in the area. It would've been a monumental loss for any state or people for the time. Surely, to gather such an army of varied origins and weapon quality, would be enormously expensive for the time period.

This sounds plausible to me. A portion of the putative multinational empire's subjects in the Denmark area (and likely other regions) rebel. The empire's professional army is sent to crush the rebellion, but is defeated by the rebels (this happens at the site that had been recently discovered). Other parts of the empire see this, and rise up as well. The empire falls, and its component tribes almost immediately start infighting. Various tribes flee the constant fighting, displacing other tribes from outside the boundaries of the former empire in a chain reaction. Eventually the Sea Peoples appear in written texts, crossing from Europe to Asia and Africa, and the Atlantic megalith culture comes to an end (and no doubt other upheavals that are unknown to us also happen).
 
if the collapse never happened?
That's the hardest part. The "barbarian" peoples on the move to fight the "civilized" countries seem to be the inevitability at that period, whatever the reasons of their displacement had been.

But there were "barbarian" migrations, which were stopped: the Celtic army was defeated in Anatolia by the Celeucid army and their war elephants. The Galatians had to settle there; being a threat and nuisance they stopped being an apocalypse.

The Cuimri and Teutones were just annihilated by the Roman legionaries of Marius, there was none of the "Barbarians" left to settle; for years to come on the former field of battle the Roman peasants made fences out of innumerable white bones of these unhappy Barbarian invaders.

So in order to stop "apocalypse" we need some POD to create a great Empire covering the area of the awaited invasion; well, at least Anatolia and Syria united by a chrismatic leader is doable. A few dozens of war elephants would be handy.
The Mycenians are pretty doomed (sorry, guys).
Egypt is likely to fight off what is left of the "Barbarians"; probably no "Sea peoples" would reach Egypt as they seemed to use coastal navigation, they could not cross open sea of the Mediterranean.

After the "invading barbarians" are properly humiliated, annihilated and partly settled, the "Charismatic leader" who saved the civilized world dies, gets deified and his Empire is desintegrated into what it had been at the time before invasion.
And we can calmly speculate on the subject: "What if no bronze-age dark ages?"
 
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