Hittite tree study

[Mark G]

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/feb/08/ancient-hittite-empire-tree-study-drought?CMP=Share_iOSApp_Other

Hope that works.

Apparently, studying trees suggests a drought coincided with the destruction of the Hittites. 

Usually it's throwing a succession of 1s that coincides with the destruction of my Hittites, but I think they mean drought of rain, not drought of sixes.

[Duncan Head]

Yes, I saw this; the original study is open-access at https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-022-05693-y

"The Hittite collapse forms part of a wider set of changes occurring across the Old World around 1200 BC. Climate alone was not the sole cause of these changes..." but they seem to think it is a pretty major one, especially for the Hittites. I've heard drought proposed before as a cause of the Bronze Age collapse, IRC, but it's nice to have some solid data.

[Andreas Johansson]

Drought was Manuel Robbins' favoured explanation in Collapse of the Bronze Age. FWIW, I didn't find his arguments too convincing.

[Jon Freitag]

Fascinating study.  Comprehensive analytics too.  Thanks for sharing.

The juniper trees thought to make up King Midas' tomb are a gift that keeps on giving.  These same timbers were used to date the volcanic eruption on Theras to 1560 BCE.

[Mark G]

I still think they are not paying sufficient attention to rolling a succession of 1s

[Jon Freitag]

I still think they are not paying sufficient attention to rolling a succession of 1s

Well, you need to find rules in which 1's are good and 6's are bad.

[Mark G]

Oooh, now there's out of the box thinking.

[DBS]

I still think they are not paying sufficient attention to rolling a succession of 1s

Or maybe the Sea Peoples were the ones rolling sixes?