Climate change is presently believed to be a major catalyst to the development of civilization in Egypt and Mesopotamia. It also thought to have led to the collapse of the Indus River Valley civilization. But it is not thought to have played major roles in the other developments of civilization.
Metallurgy and chariots arrived in China from the west; Mesopotamia, Indus and Egypt were in very close contact. So much so, that the cultural artifacts of the epochs preceding the first dynasties are near identical (including building plans!) : https://raw.githubusercontent.com/wiki/pannous/hieros/susa-e...
Are you sure about that? From what I have read, climate has a pretty big influence on society, and therefore changes in climate would play major roles everywhere.
Longer quote from The Agricola translated:
> These plunderers of the world [the Romans], after exhausting the land by their devastations, are rifling the ocean: stimulated by avarice, if their enemy be rich; by ambition, if poor; unsatiated by the East and by the West: the only people who behold wealth and indigence with equal avidity. To ravage, to slaughter, to usurp under false titles, they call empire; and where they make a desert, they call it peace.
The bronze age started slightly later--just saying in case that was the next question.
Here you go:
Does anyone know the validity of this? Can any archaeologist/historian types recommend sources?
* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Axial_precession
Because of this precession ("wobble"), it turns out that the "North Star" has not always been Polaris. Back when the Pyramids were built in ancient Egypt north pointed to Thuban.
The Hoover Dam actually has a monument that gives the year it was built using this astronomical fact:
* https://blog.longnow.org/02019/01/29/the-26000-year-astronom...
* https://grahamhancock.com/motlochw1/
* https://www.quora.com/At-the-Hoover-Dam-what-is-the-meaning-...
* https://kottke.org/19/02/the-hoover-dams-hidden-26000-year-a... (via)
Familiar story. America's Southwest used to be treed grasslands until overgrazing turned them to sand and wasteland.
I'm not saying overgrazing never happened, bit it was not nearly enough to explain the current desolation.
I’ve read that the Amazon relies on silt carried from the Sahara.
> It was narrated from Abu Hurayrah (may Allaah be pleased with him) that the Messenger of Allaah (peace and blessings of Allaah be upon him) said: “The Hour will not begin until the land of the Arabs once again becomes meadows and rivers.”
When I was a teenager, I was interested in what people used to say about the future in the past and this was the one thing that ever stuck out to me in my readings.
I guess it was common knowledge among the knowledgeable at the time that this was true but I was never able to corroborate it.
If you look at some Sat photos of Saudi Arabia you will see some crazy large circular meadows. They have greened the desert. Almarai is one of the world's largest dairy farms.
If not, please update Wikipedia with references to your original source of information.
(Wikipedia doesn't admit original research.)
At some point the ecosystem just can't regenerate faster enough, the buffer is broken, and all is downhill from that point.
He starts with science and reaches into speculation, but, there's real, interesting science in it.
The part where he tries to show that the old map of Herodotus (c. 484BC – c. 425BC) is somewhat similar to the map of rivers and basins, but they don't even look similar. (Also note that the dates discussed in this articles are about 5000 years ago, something like 2500 years before Herodotus.)
About the erosion in the Sphinx: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sphinx_water_erosion_hypothesi...
And I prefer to ignore the last part about the Atlantis ...
