"Let's Talk about [Collapse], Baby": Explorations in the Archaeology of Societal Collapse
Part of: Society for American Archaeology 81st Annual Meeting, Orlando, FL (2016)
Societal collapse has long been a topic of archaeological discourse, and as a concept it continues to have contemporary relevance. We see it evidenced in discussions of climate change, in contemporary ‘failed state’ rhetoric, and in our fears about the future. But what does it mean to say a society has collapsed, and what are its material effects? What happens in the aftermath of collapse, and how is societal collapse similar across time and space?
This session explores the archaeology of collapse and its aftermath by bringing together a range of geographical, theoretical, and methodological approaches in order to facilitate a new discussion about collapse. Examples include studying how collapse operates at both local and regional levels; using small sites to talk about more overarching patterns; combining multiple datasets, methods, and/or theoretical approaches; and scaling up from specific data in order to develop theoretical models of collapse. Our goal is to consider collapse both in terms of specific historical trajectories—what does collapse look like at specific points in time and space?—and as a concept—how might we think about collapse in more general terms?
Other Keywords
Collapse •
Resilience •
Cahokia •
tiwanaku •
Environmental Change •
Human Ecology •
Turkey •
Mississippian •
stable isotope analysis •
Northwest Mexico
Geographic Keywords
West Asia •
South America •
Mesoamerica •
North America - Southeast •
East/Southeast Asia
Resources Inside This Collection (Viewing 1-7 of 7)
- Documents (7)
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Angkorian Collapse and Aftermath: A View from the Center (2016)
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The 9th – 15th century Angkorian state was Southeast Asia’s largest ancient polity; its 1000 km2 core was among the world’s largest preindustrial urban centers. The Angkorian state’s mid-15th century CE “collapse” moved the polity’s rulers and their populations south to a series of new capitals that were closely linked to the Early Modern Southeast Asian economy. Angkor as a capital collapsed, but the Angkorian civilization continued. We use field excavations, surface survey, and remote sensing...
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Contextualing Cahokia's Collapse (2016)
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The wide scale abandonment of Mississippian towns in the lower Midwest by the beginning of the fifteenth century has been the focus of interest for the last four decades beginning with the work of Stephen Williams. The largest urban center, Cahokia, is one of the earliest to be abandoned before the end of the fourteenth century. Recent evidence has been presented on a massive flood in the twelfth century as perhaps an important factor in this process, that occurs over a century later. This...
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Escaping Collapse in Northwest Mexico: Social and Environmental Factors of Resiliency at La Ferrería, Durango, Mexico (2016)
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The end of the Mesoamerican Classic Period (ca. AD 900) was a time characterized by widespread social change, political upheaval, and broad regional drought conditions. In Northwest Mexico, several large centers such as La Quemada and Alta Vista were abandoned and never reoccupied. The site of La Ferrería in the Guadiana Valley of Durango, however, remained an important site for several centuries into the Postclassic Period. This presentation explores the social and environmental factors that...
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Exploring the Collapse of the Hittite Empire as a Social Phenomenon (2016)
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In this paper, I explore how viewing collapse as a social and political phenomenon might change how we interpret the collapse of the Hittite empire in Turkey at the end of the Late Bronze Age (ca. 1200 BC). To this end, I consider the implications of changes and continuities in animal management at two sites in central Turkey following the collapse of the Hittite empire. The end of the Late Bronze Age was characterized by significant political and economic disruption throughout the eastern...
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Resilience, Incursion, Incorporation: A Multi-Scalar Approach to the Temporality of Collapse in the South-Central Andes (2016)
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Cross-cultural literature highlights the importance of differentiating between political, societal, and ‘cultural’ collapse. Focusing largely on the short-term aftermath of collapse, this scholarship demonstrates that even in the clearest examples of political fragmentation, considerable stability in other components of past societies is often archaeologically visible. Less attention has been paid to longer-term impacts and responses. Taking the disintegration of the Tiwanaku state in the south...
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The Rise of Fortification Systems in Anatolia at the Collapse of the Early Bronze Age (2016)
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The end of the Early Bronze Age (ca. 2000 BCE) saw the collapse or the decline of a number of civilizations and settlements throughout the ancient Near East, and is an oft discussed topic in the study of the archaeology and history of the region. This paper takes a micro look at this phenomenon within Central and Southeastern Anatolia, using the creation, upkeep and collapse of complex fortification systems as a proxy for violence and the preparedness for violence in the region. Before the Early...
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A Tale of Two Cities: The Role of Cultural Factors in Determining Resilience to Climate Change (2016)
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In recent decades, there has been an increasing interest at both the scholarly and public level in the relationship between social transformation and climate change in the past, and especially in the potential role of climate change as a cause of societal collapse. However, this focus has also raised some concerns that too much emphasis is being placed upon environmental factors in some archaeological collapse models, and consequently that important social factors are not being adequately taken...