Crisis to Collapse: The Archaeology of Social Breakdown

by: Cunningham, T. Driessen, J.

Crisis to Collapse
The Archaeology of Social Breakdown
Contributions de Bulent Arkan, Miroslav Bárta, R. Kyle Bocinsky, Megan Cifarelli, Tim Cunningham, Jan Driessen, Svante Fischer, Scott Heckbert, Christian Isendahl, Timothy A. Kohler, Igor Kreimerman, Maxime Lamoureux St-Hilaire, Lennart Lind, Patricia A. McAnany, Guy D. Middleton, Lorenzo Nigro, Stephen O'Brien, Gerald Oetelaar, Cameron A. Petrie, Felix Riede, Keir Strickland, Richard VanderHoek, Saro Wallace

This discusses and critically analyses the variety of signatures and archaeological correlates of crisis conditions that led to social breakdown. As such it makes massive strides forward to a better theoretical understanding of crisis-induced collapse.

This volume comprises the proceedings of a workshop with the same title which took place in October 2015. It was organised within the frame of the ARC13/18-049 (concerted research action) 'A World in Crisis?'. It has both a large chronological scope – from the Late Palaeolithic to the 12th c. AD – and wide geographical coverage, with case studies from the Maya, Southern US, Aegean, Sri Lanka, Indus, Gaul, Southern Levant, Anatolia, Egypt, North-western Europe, Alaska and Mesopotamia. It discusses and critically analyses the variety of signatures and archaeological correlates of crisis conditions that led to social breakdown. As such it makes massive strides forward to a better theoretical understanding of crisis-induced collapse.

Sommaire
Foreword – 50 Shades of Crisis… 15
Jan Driessen
1. Introduction 17
Tim Cunningham
I. Overture 21
2. From Crisis to Collapse in Hunter-Gatherer Societies 23
A Comparative Investigation of the Cultural Impacts of three Large Volcanic Eruptions on Past Hunter-Gatherers
Felix Riede
Gerald Oetelaar
Richard VanderHoek
II. From Epistemology to Ontology: the Paradigm of the Lost Civilisation 41
3. Crisis, what Crisis? 43
Adaptation, Resilience and Transformation in the Indus Civilisation
Cameron A. Petrie
4. The Classic Crisis? 65
Some Features of Current Crisis Narratives for the Aegean Late Bronze-Early Iron Age
Saro Wallace
5. Reading the Thirteenth Century BC in Greece 87
Crisis, Decline, or Business as Usual?
Guy D. Middleton
6. Late Roman Gaul – Survival Amidst Collapse? 99
Svante Fischer
Lennart Lind
7. The Collapse of Anuradhapura, Sri Lanka 131
A Crisis 1500 Years in the Making
Keir Strickland
III. Ruin 147
8. The End of the Early Bronze Age in the Southern Levant 149
Urban Crisis and Collapse seen from two 3rd Millennium BC-Cities: Tell es-Sultan/Jericho and Khirbet al-Batrawy
Lorenzo Nigro
9. A Typology for Destruction Layers 173
The Late Bronze Age Southern Levant as a Case Study
Igor Kreimerman
10. Archaeological Evidence for Small Scale Crisis 205
Hasanlu between Destructions
Megan Cifarelli
IV. Modelling Climate and Reading Response 233
11. Crisis in the Highlands 235
Agent-based Modelling of the Early Bronze Age I (ca. 4950-4700 BP). Socio-economic Transformations
at Arslantepe (Eastern Anatolia)
Bulent Arikan
12. Pathways to Sustainable Development or Poverty 251
Water Security and Wealth in the Pre-Columbian Puuc-Nohkakab Maya Lowlands
Christian Isendahl
Scott Heckbert
13. Crises as Opportunities for Culture Change 263
Timothy A. Kohler
R. Kyle Bocinsky
V. Metanarratives of Collapse 275
14. Temporary and Permanent 277
Status Race and the Mechanism of Change in a Complex Civilisation: Ancient Egypt in between 2900
and 2120 BC
Miroslav Bárta
15. Boredom with the Apocalypse 295
Resilience, Regeneration, and their Consequences for Archaeological Interpretation
Stephen O'Brien
16. The Fragility of Political Experimentation from the Perspective of Classic Maya Cities 305
Patricia A. McAnany
Maxime Lamoureux-St-Hilaire

Crisis to Collapse: The Archaeology of Social Breakdown

by: Cunningham, T. Driessen, J.

• ISBN-13: 9782875585264 / 978-2-87558-526-4
• ISBN-03: 2875585266 / 2-87558-526-6
• Presses Universitaires de Louvain, Louvain-la-Neuve, 2017