ABSTRACT
This chapter explores two episodes of collapse, the existence of which has been accepted and discussed by numerous scholars both in archaeology and in climatology and environmental science. It discusses archaeology and climate change more generally, from disciplinary and social perspectives, including what archaeology has to offer and what responsibilities archaeologists might have at a time of environmental challenges. The chapter introduces definitions of collapse before examining the EBA and LBA collapse in turn. In Greece, the idea of an Early Bronze Age collapse between Early Helladic II and III came from excavations at Lerna, in the Argolid, in the 1950s. The climate-collapse narrative draws in a huge area, including Anatolia, the northern and southern Levant, Egypt, and the Akkadian Empire. The new climatological evidence from Messenia suggests there was no megadrought that caused collapse there; the other evidence suggests different things to different people.
