My hypothesis is what I call "the ISIS factor". Remember when Bush dismissed the Iraqi military to unemployment while they were being ethnically cleansed? The ex-military guys joined ISIS and suddenly ISIS was a fighting force that took the world's most powerful militaries months to put down.

Now, imagine the drought and disturbances prior to the end of the bronze age. Refugees started, but they were easily put down/enslaved/whatever until the military guys of crumbling nations became refugees themselves and said, "hell with begging, let's switch to taking". They became a desperate but well trained fighting force. As former empires crumbled (refugees disrupted the trade that brought copper and tin together -- the Bronze age very literally ended) there was no "best military" left to fight these now, now militarized roving groups.

One did have the actual rise of Israel and that could not have happened unless Egypt was very much weakened. So, there was a large disruption.

My totally data-free hunch for part of what happened includes a large extensive drought (hints of that in the Bible even) and in addition, the Stepps. Inner Mongolia was continually spawning new tribes which pushed older ones further and rippled into Europe (long before it culminated in the Mongols). I think a drought might have caused a push into Europe which caused a ripple of refugees to cascade down southward hitting a region already in bad shape.

I'm further intrigued by an ISIS analogy. ISIS wasn't all that effective until the unemployed Sunni former members of the Iraqi army decided to join because they were experiencing ethnocide anyhow. Once these military men became fused with the religious fanatic leaders, ISIS became a force that took the world's top militaries to put it down.

My totally data-free hunch for part of what happened includes a large extensive drought (hints of that in the Bible even) and in addition, the Stepps. Inner Mongolia was continually spawning new tribes which pushed older ones further and rippled into Europe (long before it culminated in the Mongols). I think a drought might have caused a push into Europe which caused a ripple of refugees to cascade down southward hitting a region already in bad shape.

I miss the Bronze age -- those were fun times! :-)

I'm interested in whether the collapse of the Eastern Meditteranean (and wider?) bronze age had echos or similar patterns back in Asia? The collapse was around 1200 BCE