Combining Social Sciences, Geoscience and Archaeology to Understand Societal Collapse

Despite its apparently obvious conclusion that adverse environmental conditions must produce economic and institutional crises, the 'collapse archaeology' literature has been criticized for its lack of a formal theory, a credible measurement strategy and a proper understanding of the roles...

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Detalhes bibliográficos
Autores: Benati, Giacomo, Guerriero, Carmine
Formato: artículo
Estado:Versión aceptada para publicación
Fecha de publicación:2023
País:España
Recursos:Universidad de Barcelona
Repositorio:Dipòsit Digital de la UB
OAI Identifier:oai:diposit.ub.edu:2445/201730
Acesso em linha:https://hdl.handle.net/2445/201730
Access Level:acceso abierto
Palavra-chave:Canvi climàtic
Arqueologia
Metodologia de les ciències socials
Climatic change
Archaeology
Methodology of social sciences
Descrição
Resumo:Despite its apparently obvious conclusion that adverse environmental conditions must produce economic and institutional crises, the 'collapse archaeology' literature has been criticized for its lack of a formal theory, a credible measurement strategy and a proper understanding of the roles of environmental shocks. To tackle this issue, we propose to combine a time inconsistency theory of state formation and evolution¿i.e., state-building, institutional proxies based on this model and highly granular simulated climate data. To clarify our proposal, we apply it to the study of state-building in Bronze Age Mesopotamia, and we show that moderate droughts shaped these economies directly via deteriorated production conditions as well as indirectly via institutional resilience.