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jkershaw t1_izgt9ts wrote

This map is not in any way authoritative, it's guesswork. For example, no one knows who the 'sea people' were or if they were even one group at all rather than lots of bands of different displaced people.

Most evidence suggests that there was not a lot going on in central Europe at this point. All the big empires were in the south or East of the med, and these empires were highly interconnected and interdependent (like the modern world). Thus catastrophic events like famines, eruptions (Thera) or political collapse in one place might have been amplified and taken down the others. It's called system collapse.

That said, we really don't know a lot about this period. Gaps in the material record could be hiding anything. The theory I explain above is simply the most likely based on the incomplete evidence we have.

EDIT: Plus 'collapse' is a weird concept considering it happened over hundreds of years. Generally, there was a decline, but it's very hard to pin it to a single cause when it happened over such a long period.

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Gideonn1021 OP t1_izgzpz9 wrote

I agree it is not at all the definitive idea of what occurred, based off of this educated guess work there is a general trend of moving west to east however which I find interesting. Thank you for referring to Central Europe I was unsure if there is current evidence towards any major events occurring but I imagine it seems unlikely, especially if they did not keep any records it will be nearly impossible for us to learn what truly happened over there.

Referring to your last point I believe I have seen much which refers to the successive collapses occurring in a 50-75 year span, however this definitely neglects the early stages of a collapse that are more hidden, that number focuses only on the dates when each city collapsed

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jkershaw t1_izh0mzu wrote

The west to east trend only seems to be true because most of the people in the east were the ones writing. Could have been people going the other way too but because there are fewer sources it creates the impression that there wasn't.

As for period, the turbulence went on for a much longer period than that. Take Crete - the Minoans suffered several palatial destructions in the 2-300 years before the 'final' collapse in 1200BC, including the invasion/transition into Mycenaean culture. The same is true across the board. There may have been a cluster around the 'end' of the bronze age, but considering how hard it is to date things cohesively, these could have been generations apart and represent totally different events.

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Gideonn1021 OP t1_izh2233 wrote

You are absolutely right I didn't think about the bias that exists with these theories because of the records that exist. Your points also make me wonder how much the Minoan and Mycenaean turmoil affected their counterparts across the Mediterranean, as in whether they themselves were a major factor leading to general collapse or they were victims of a larger chain of events along with everyone else

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jkershaw t1_izh2dsr wrote

It's very possible. There are lots of records of the various rulers sending each other both the raw materials they depended on for their economies as well as the prestige goods they used to demonstrate their superiority and right to rule.

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CallFromMargin t1_izhymae wrote

I'm pretty sure there are some evidence of mass migration from today's northern Italy to Greece, and that's based on pins found along the way. Although it's possible those cloth pins were just being traded.

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